Senate pushes DOD to create new combatant command for unmanned systems
The Senate Armed Services Committee’s defense policy bill for fiscal 2027 gives the green light for the Defense Department to establish a separate combatant command dedicated to autonomous systems.
SASC’s $1.14 trillion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) “encourages the department to adopt the future of warfare by permitting the establishment of the Robotic and Autonomous Systems Combatant Command,” according to a summary of the draft legislation published Thursday.
If the language is approved by lawmakers, the new command would be led by a four-star general and focus on streamlining acquisition and delivery of unmanned systems to warfighters, according to a senior majority committee staffer who spoke to reporters Thursday on background
“There’s been a long debate inside the Pentagon about how to do this and whether it merits some form of centralization early on before transitioning back out to the services,” the staffer said. “What we ended up with is a four-star combatant command that we think will help integrate and go fast and transition the force generation of unmanned systems to the services sometime in the future.”
The proposed legislation would give the new COCOM special test and evaluation authorities, as well as “limited acquisition authorities” for purchasing drone technologies off of marketplaces, another Senate staffer said during the briefing.
Historically, each of the military services has been responsible for developing and fielding unmanned capabilities relevant to their own mission area and requirements — creating stovepipes between capabilities and strategies.
But given the growing prevalence of drone warfare on modern battlefields and advancements in low-cost capabilities, Pentagon leadership has been pushing for enterprise adoption of unmanned and counter-unmanned systems through a variety of initiatives such as the $1.1 billion Drone Dominance Program and the Joint Interagency Task Force 401.
Furthermore, the Pentagon dissolved the Biden-era Replicator initiative in 2025 after the effort struggled with technical hurdles and procurement roadblocks that prevented capability delivery. The department has since transformed Replicator into the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group.
And while lawmakers have largely expressed public support for the Defense Department’s recent efforts, SASC believes establishing a designated combatant command would resolve problems that prevented warfighters from actually receiving and deploying modern drone capabilities.
“The real issue from the Replicator days was [that] they were buying assets, but how do you actually force generate and deliver those in a coherent way to combatant commanders?” a staffer said.
