Countering the threat of unmanned aircraft systems on the battlefield is going to take a layered effort “at every level,” Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Mingus said.

“There’s no single solution, it’s got to be at every level, it’s got to be layered,” Mingus said during a recent Strategic Landpower Dialogue event co-hosted by the Association of the U.S. Army and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Every squad must be able to protect itself “all the way up to formations that provide higher-end capability … a combination of high-energy lasers or lasers, period,” Mingus said.

He suggested high-powered microwaves and interceptors such as the Coyote Block 2C, which he described as the Army’s most effective interceptor in action now, adding that even that piece of equipment is “not going to last, it’s going to have to be replaced.” The interceptors that will be needed, he said, are those that continue to come down in cost.

“We can’t shoot a $130,000 missile at a $1,000 drone. We’ve got to get the price points down,” Mingus said, explaining that other counter-UAS platforms, such as proximity rounds that explode when they come close to a drone, are another option.

“There is going to be a multitude of solutions long, short and close-in that are out there,” Mingus said. He cautioned, however, that “once we think we’ve got it figured out, then the adversary is going to come up with something, and we need to be able to evolve. This is not going to be a static environment, it’s got to be something that’s moving at the rate in which the technology is moving on the other end.”

To address this need to stay ahead of the enemy, Mingus called on Congress to help facilitate flexible funding and the agility to purchase “whatever is out there that will deal with the threats of today.”

“In the next year, it may be something different, and we’ve got to have both the authority and then the funding flexibility to be able to switch to whatever that solution’s going to be for the next year,” Mingus said.

A new task force being stood up by DoD and led by the Army will address the vulnerabilities posed by the proliferation of UASs, Mingus said, noting that drones are “our IEDs of today.”

In 2006, DoD established the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, known as JIEDDO, to counter the growing number of IEDs that were killing American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mingus said the new task force will have a similar focus.

“We need an organization that is joint, interagency, has authorities, a colorless pot of money and the authorities to go after [this] from requirements all the way through acquisition in a rapid way to be able to keep pace with that,” Mingus said.