In a nearly hourlong speech Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced six initiatives aimed at dramatically transforming the United States military. Among them is a new autonomous warfare command to prepare for battles fought with artificial intelligence, robotics and drones and a new effort to imagine the future of warfare led by billionaire tech entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the most powerful and the most prepared military on the planet. Nobody can touch us,\u201d Hegseth said during a speech to troops at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia. \u201cMy job, your job, our job is to keep it that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Autonomous Warfare Command\n<\/p>\n
Hegseth announced Wednesday that he is creating a new Autonomous Warfare Command, which he described as an effort to build and scale autonomous and robotic capabilities across the armed forces as part of what he said is the fastest peacetime shift in modern military history.<\/p>\n
\u201cDrone warfare supercharged by (super intelligence)-enabled targeting is the biggest battlefield revolution in generations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hegseth said the new Auto WarCom, as he calls it, will build on the drone dominance program he initiated last year to accelerate the purchasing and deployment of drones to the battlefield.<\/p>\n
He said the U.S. military needs quantities of drones to enhance limited supplies of elite and expensive weapons and cited Ukraine defenses against Russia as demonstrating the need for a purpose-built system that maximizes the ability to adapt.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will fuse procurement with operations at scale and then allow war fighters and engineers and entrepreneurs to learn, adapt and rapidly iterate on their domain and their mission.\u201d<\/p>\n
Project Meridian\n<\/p>\n
Hegseth has tapped billionaire tech entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to lead a new effort called Project Meridian that will study the future of warfare.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe future of warfare is not about developing new strategies or policies. We already do that,\u201d Hegseth said. \u201cThe purpose is to creatively look at the future and identify the domains we must conquer and capabilities we must master.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the focus of Project Meridian will be discovering, developing and fielding weapons and systems that will be needed in the future \u201cwithout any creative limitations or restrictions on any future battlefield from under the earth and beyond the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n
He has asked for a Project Meridian report to be completed and submitted in 120 days. Hegseth said his first meeting with the group would happen immediately following his speech.<\/p>\n
Fortress America\n<\/p>\n
Calling it a \u201cnational insurance policy for the American homeland,\u201d Fortress America is a plan for every military installation in the United States to generate its own power independent of the civilian energy grid.<\/p>\n
It also calls for the U.S. to mine and refine the critical materials it needs in the United States and to build a strategic reserve of munitions, fuel, medicine and blood that will allow the U.S. to continue fighting, as well as to secure the airwaves, satellites and spectrum necessary for the military to communicate.<\/p>\n
The Next Great American Base\n<\/p>\n
Saying the United States hasn\u2019t built a new military base in 40 years, Hegseth called on the governors of all U.S. states to bid on a new base that can host between 15,000 and 25,000 American troops.<\/p>\n
The base will consist of \u201chundreds of thousands of acres with organic power generation, modern air defenses and cutting-edge tech,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The selection process will be transparent, he said, adding that governors will be invited to the Pentagon to pitch their plans.<\/p>\n
Partnerships with six higher ed institutions to expand officer training\n<\/p>\n
Hegseth said the country\u2019s three military academies at West Point, New York; Annapolis, Maryland; and Colorado Springs, Colorado, are critically important because they commission the most military officers. But he said the armed forces need more officers from other academic institutions.<\/p>\n
Hegseth announced Wednesday that the Pentagon has partnered with Louisiana State University, Liberty University, Tuskegee University, Mississippi State University and Hillsdale College as part of a new America\u2019s Corps of Cadets.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis flagship effort is central to our goal of increasing patriotic leaders of character,\u201d Hegseth said, adding that the Pentagon will announce additional universities soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe status quo of our officer pipeline is pretty good, but the future will be even better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Office of Religious Affairs\n<\/p>\n
Hegseth said 95% of U.S. troops identify as religious, but many of them are forced to disconnect from their faith communities when they join the military.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur department has a sacred duty: first-class religious support wherever we send our warriors.\u201d<\/p>\n
For too long, he said, military chaplains had been sidelined with paperwork.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat ends now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a nearly hourlong speech Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced six initiatives aimed at dramatically transforming the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":866394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[2721,23,2723,9515,2722,4379,3,2725,111,65672,452,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-866393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-all-markets-rank-everywhere","tag-america","tag-app-for-your-consideration","tag-app-national-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-military","tag-news","tag-nnt","tag-politics","tag-susan-carpenter","tag-top-stories","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/866394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}