The proliferation of commercial and industrial UAVs is a problem.
Drones are proliferating in the skies over the United States. From industrial drones monitoring pipelines and other infrastructure facilities to unmanned aerial vehicles of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to those piloted by hobbyists, unmanned aerial systems (UAS) of every stripe are everywhere. Or so it seems. Most are harmless unless they interfere with commercial air traffic. Many are simply the recreational pursuit of a civilian drone operator surveilling their surroundings. But what about drones penetrating the airspace above a US military base?
Drones: A Growing Subject of Concern
It wasn’t long ago that mysterious drone sightings filled the news cycles. Myriad explanations and speculations were offered, and those who observed the unexplained aircraft were concerned. Anxiety among people on the ground grew as the previous administration failed to explain the sightings and assuage fears. “President-elect Donald Trump also commented on the issue and believes that the government is well aware of what’s happening,” The Daily Caller observed. With a clearer message on Jan. 28, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters what information Trump asked her to share:
“After research and study, the drones that were flying over New Jersey in large numbers were authorized to be flown by the FAA for research and various other reasons. Many of these drones were also hobbyists, recreational and private individuals that enjoy flying drones. In time, it got worse due to curiosity. This was not the enemy.”
That explanation satisfied many conspiracy theorists and put to rest the fears of enemy powers threatening US citizens. Nonetheless, a more troubling and persistent problem is the sheer number of drones invading the airspace over US military installations.
Digging into the issue of unauthorized drone flights over sensitive defense facilities, the Military and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing on April 29 to explore “Securing the Skies: Addressing Unauthorized Drone Activity Over US Military Installations.” The witnesses were Rear Admiral Paul Spedero Jr., vice director for operations, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Mark Roosevelt Ditlevson, acting assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and hemispheric affairs.
Subcommittee Chairman William Timmons (R-SC) put the conundrum of the unauthorized UAS flights over military bases in context. “In recent years, we’ve seen a surge in drone incursions over US military installations across the country. In 2024, the Department of Defense stated there are more than one million drones registered in the United States and estimated there are more than eighty-five hundred drones flown legally across the country every day.” Reinforcing the chairman’s statement, Defense Scoop reported that the commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command and US Northern Command, Gen. Gregory Guillot, told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in February: “The primary threat I see for them in the way they’ve been operating is detection and perhaps surveillance of sensitive capabilities on our installations … There were 350 detections reported last year on military installations, and that was 350 over a total of 100 different installations of all types and levels of security.”
Defending Installations
A central issue in the hearing was what authority commanders have to detect, track, and, if deemed necessary, destroy unauthorized UAS craft violating military base perimeters. Though Title 10. US Code §130i. – “Protection of certain facilities and assets from unmanned aircraft” – allows an installation commander to take action as necessary to “mitigate” a threat, determining hostile intent is not so easy.
Furthermore, not all military facilities are covered by this authority. For example, Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, the home of America’s fifth-generation fighter, the F-35 Lightning II, is not covered because it is a training base. Witnesses and subcommittee members agreed that the legislation authorizing a base commander to take appropriate action against drones surveilling a base needs to be expanded.
There also seemed to be some confusion about whether US forces deployed to the southern border had the authority to take appropriate action against drones flown by the Mexican cartels surveilling US ground troops. Rep. John McGuire (R-VA) stated he had just visited the border, and the commander there frequently saw drones flown from Mexico on what appeared to be reconnaissance flights. However, he did not believe he had the authority to destroy them. This ambiguity needs to be resolved.
Drone reconnaissance of sensitive bases and installations is an urgent problem. One of the more notable examples involved a Chinese national, Yinpiao Zhou, who was apprehended in 2024 for gathering intelligence from a drone photographing Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. “The Chinese-American citizen was detained as he attempted to board a China-bound flight and was charged with violation of national defense airspace and failure to register an aircraft,” Fox News reported. With the easy availability of drone technology, bad actors can overfly national security facilities. The Department of Defense must make such activities costly for the perpetrators.
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