Drone Dominance Program (The Gauntlet)

The Drone Dominance Program (DDP) is a U.S. Department of Defense initiative launched under Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to rapidly acquire and field low-cost, one-way attack unmanned aerial systems (UAS) at scale, informed by lessons from the Ukraine conflict. The program operates through four iterative 'Gauntlet' phases featuring competitive evaluations where military operators test and grade vendor systems in realistic strike scenarios, with successful vendors receiving production contracts. Phase I began on February 18, 2026 at Fort Benning, Georgia, with approximately 25 vendors competing for initial prototype delivery orders. The DDP aims to equip U.S. forces with hundreds of thousands of disposable drones by 2027-2028 while reducing unit costs from $5,000 to $2,300 and prioritizing secure domestic supply chains and production scalability. Strategically, the program represents a shift toward rapid, merit-based procurement cycles designed to achieve 'drone dominance' through mass production of affordable, attritable systems.