A spate of drone sightings over military bases around the country has fueled fears that the US lacks a clear government-wide policy for dealing with illegal incursions that could constitute a national security danger.
“It’s been one year since the Langley drone invasions and nearly two years since the PRC spy balloon. Why don’t we have a single [point of contact] who is in charge of coordinating across all government entities to address this?” Gen. Glen VanHerck, the recently retired chief of US Northern Command and NORAD, told AWN. “Instead, everybody’s pointing their fingers at each other saying it’s not our responsibility.”
Indeed, there have been numerous reports of drone incursions over military stations since strange drone swarms were detected near Joint Base Langley-Eustis and other key military sites in Virginia last year, as well as a Chinese spy balloon transiting the continental US in 2023.
A spokesperson confirmed to AWN that six unmanned aerial systems, or drones, entered the airspace of the Marine Corps base Camp Pendleton in California over a six-day period earlier this month, posing “no threat to installation operations and no impact to air and ground operations.” In addition, incidents have occurred in the recent month at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, Naval Weapons Station Earle in New Jersey, and Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
A Chinese national, a lawful permanent resident of the United States, was recently arrested in connection with the California incident.
The drone incidents are “a problem that has been brewing for over a decade and we have basically failed to address it,” according to retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Rob Spalding, who previously served as the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s chief China strategist and the National Security Council’s senior director for strategic planning.
It’s unclear what the drones are doing — the intent could range from attempting to gather intelligence on the base or testing its defenses and response time, to gaining a better understanding of how the bases operate, or they could simply be harmless hobbyists flying drones too close to restricted areas.
A surge of sightings throughout numerous states
But the problem isn’t limited to military locations; in recent weeks, a slew of drone sightings across numerous states has sparked media attention and prompted politicians to call on the government to act. Officials have stated that they do not believe the drones reported in New Jersey and other states constitute a national security or public safety threat, blaming many of the sightings on understandable cases of confusion with manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, or hobbyist drones.
“I can’t rule out the possibility of finding some sort of illegal or criminal activity, some nefarious activity, but all I can tell you right now is that we see none of that,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said this week.
However, one Senate official acquainted with drone defense and policy told AWN that just because drones do not directly damage the military or military installations “doesn’t mean it’s not a national security issue.”
Despite the incursions and the harm they may represent, authorities say there is no coordinated process in place to determine which agency is in charge of responding to such activity or where the drones originated. AWN reported this week that government agencies have failed to keep up with the development of drones and drone technology, particularly by opponents such as China, despite the fact that legislation is being proposed and the Pentagon has only recently announced its strategy for fighting unmanned systems.
According to a Senate staffer, the gray area between posing a risk to the military and posing a threat to the public is part of the problem in authorities – “if it’s not strictly DOD then it must be DHS, but we just kind of go ’round and ’round.”
Military officials and lawmakers have regularly and openly highlighted the issues that the US national security apparatus has with drone operations, as well as cyber and information operations. In 2023, VanHerck stated in a NORAD/NORTHCOM posture statement that the US must “move beyond outdated assumptions and plans” to defend the US.
“In an era of incredible innovation and technological achievement, inflexible, outdated processes are a greater impediment to success than many of our competitors’ capability advancements,” the CEO added.
Sens. Jack Reed and Roger Wicker, the chairs of the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned in a Washington Post op-ed at the start of 2024 that the United States “lacks adequate drone detection capability” and that agencies “lack clear lines of authority about which agency is responsible for stopping these incursions.”
Military sites have the right to defend themselves and respond to attacks, but a former senior military source stated that if a drone enters the sky and then exits, establishing where it came from and what it was doing can be difficult. In such cases, military law enforcement often coordinates with civilian law enforcement off base, according to the former official, although they are frequently constrained in their ability to do so due to rules that prohibit intelligence collecting within US boundaries.
Catching up with a new phenomenon.
However, sources claim that the inability to do more is sometimes caused by a failure to prioritize protection against this type of activity within the United States. The topic is “such a relatively new phenomenon that the law has not caught up and the agencies have not adapted quickly enough,” according to a Senate staffer.
“We’re going to get there, but it’s a pretty surprising gap that can be exploited,” they stated. They went on to say that without “clear leadership from the White House, this is all going to keep spinning.”
Experts also cited a widespread assumption in the United States that violence occurs mostly abroad, and that the national security system has failed to respond swiftly enough to domestic dangers. Spalding claimed that the US has been “focused on the away game, which has left us incredibly vulnerable at home as technology has advanced.”
“We believe that the conflict will take place elsewhere, such as in the South China Sea or Taiwan, or with Russia in Europe. VanHerck told AWN that it is happening right now, in the cyber realm or information space, every single day.
The former senior military official stated that a number of top military commanders have testified before Congress over the years about gaps in domain awareness in the United States and constraints on the country’s ability to identify drones and defend the nation more widely. While lawmakers appear to be receptive and understand the issue, policy has yet to reflect that understanding, according to the official.
The DoD, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Federal Aviation Administration all issued a joint statement this week emphasizing the importance of Congressional action. According to the agencies, they “urge Congress to enact counter-UAS legislation when it reconvenes that would extend and expand existing counter-drone authorities to identify and mitigate any threat that may emerge.”
“[The drone issue] is not something we can deal with at scale anytime soon,” says Spalding, “unless we can raise the alarm at a much higher level and deal with the political repercussions of the fallout.”