The Pentagon knows it's got a drone problem. Here's what it's doing about it.

• The Pentagon has released a new strategy to combat the growing threat of drones.
• Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that drones are threatening US forces and changing warfare.
• The military sketched out some of the ways that it will approach this threat in the future.

The US military is increasingly realizing that drones are a substantial problem it's going to need an answer for.

The Pentagon has developed a new counter-drone strategy to address the growing threat that drones pose to US forces at home and abroad, from mysterious uncrewed systems troublingly hanging around American bases to one-way attack drones killing US military personnel overseas.

"In recent years, adversary unmanned systems have evolved rapidly," Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement as the Department of Defense rolled out the strategy Thursday. "These cheap systems are increasingly changing the battlefield, threatening US installations, and wounding or killing our troops."

The new strategy reflects the Pentagon's evolving approach to the increasing drone challenge and offers a plan for the military to defeat the threat, building on some existing initiatives.

What is the drone problem?

Drones have played a prominent role in the Ukraine war and throughout the ongoing Middle East conflicts. One-way attack drones have been fired repeatedly at US forces stationed in the region over the past year; one serious incident in Jordan killed three American troops and wounded dozens more.

In conflicts around the world, drones are being used for intelligence and reconnaissance, improved firing solutions, bombing missions, precision strikes, naval warfare, mine laying and detection, and more by both state-level and non-state actors.

The Pentagon has acknowledged that drones are reshaping military tactics, making it more difficult to maneuver on the battlefield, giving adversaries easier methods of attack, and lowering the barrier for entry on precision strike capabilities. And as technology advances, these uncrewed systems will only increase in lethality over time.

"The relatively low-cost, widely available nature of these systems has, in effect, democratized precision strike," the Pentagon wrote in a fact sheet on the new counter-drone strategy.

It added: "Technological advances in the mid- to long-term will likely render unmanned systems increasingly capable, affordable, autonomous, and networked — able to loiter for longer timespans, to communicate better with other systems, move and act as swarms, and to carry larger payloads. These dynamics risk eroding deterrence and creating new and uncertain escalation dynamics."

What does the US military plan to do about the problem?

The fact sheet, which offers limited insight into the classified counter-drone strategy, sketches out five steps that the US will take to tackle the drone problem in the near, mid, and long term.

The steps will include working to better understand the threat, increasingly focusing on degrading and disrupting "threat networks," improving active and passive defenses, investing in both the quantity and quality of counter-drone systems, and emphasizing drone defense in future force development. The Pentagon said it will work with Congress and the defense industry and collaborate closely with allies and partners to implement the strategy fully.

"Taken together, these approaches will allow the Department to maintain our advances and our ability to fight and win our Nation's wars, if called upon," the fact sheet says.

The new counter-drone strategy builds upon a range of existing initiatives to not only boost US drone capabilities but also strengthen defenses. For instance, in early 2020, the US Army set up the Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office, which was tasked with developing anti-drone technology and training soldiers to engage uncrewed systems in battle.

Another example is the Replicator 2 initiative, the directive for which was issued by the defense secretary in September. This project, a follow-on to the initial Replicator program, is aimed at protecting key installations and force concentrations from small drone attacks.

Despite these efforts, the Pentagon acknowledges that there's still work to be done considering the direction that drone warfare is headed.

"The rapidly evolving nature of the threats posed by adversary use of unmanned systems means that the Department will need to continually reassess our efforts," the fact sheet said, but "this strategy sets a foundation for action to meet this challenge."