The U.S. Army is changing the way it counters small unmanned aircraft systems, said Brig. Gen. Matt Ross, director of Joint Interagency Task Force 401.

“We can't think about that on a five-year time horizon. We can't think about counter-UAS on a 10-year time horizon,” Ross said Oct. 14 during a contemporary military forum focused on Joint Interagency Task Force 401 at the Association of the U.S. Army’s 2025 Annual Meeting and Exposition. “We've got to be able to iterate more quickly” and incorporate lessons learned from partners and allies “into our force at speed,” he said.

Joint Interagency Task Force 401 was established in an Aug. 27 memo directed to senior Pentagon leadership. The task force, led by the Army, is tasked with addressing the growing threat of hostile drones and enhancing the department’s own small unmanned systems that protect personnel, equipment and facilities, according to a department news release.

Soldiers will have to train differently when it comes to offensive UASs to be most effective, Ross said. Attritable systems are “expendable, and we should be procuring them at a price point that ensures they're expendable, and we should train with them as if they're expendable, or we'll never have the proficiency we need to use them effectively,” he said.

As the Army evolves its UAS and counter-small UAS capabilities, “there is no silver bullet for this particular threat,” said retired Col. Robert Kelley, senior director of U.S. requirements and capabilities for Raytheon Land & Air Defense Systems.

“The threat is incredibly versatile. It is very low-cost, highly produceable, which means our potential enemies can have thousands of them and they can replace them very rapidly,” he said. Bringing counter-small UAS systems, kinetic and non-kinetic effects, and sensing “together in a way that is rapidly upgradeable is a challenge.”

— Karli Nelson