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Army secretary reveals how Rangers bypass Pentagon red tape to counter exploding drone threat
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EXCLUSIVE: Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said U.S. soldiers are improvising with government credit cards to buy and test battlefield gear as they adapt to the exploding drone threat — as the Army shifts its long-term posture toward countering China in the Indo-Pacific.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Driscoll described how elite units like the 75th Ranger Regiment are bypassing the Pentagon’s cumbersome procurement system to test new drones, sensors and weapons in real time. At the same time, he said the Army is aligning with the Pentagon’s assessment of China as the nation’s «pacing threat,» building a force optimized for the Indo-Pacific but still capable of deploying worldwide at a moment’s notice.
After a visit with the regiment at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Georgia, on Tuesday, Driscoll said Rangers «basically just use their corporate credit card to go online and purchase things to test, and they will find what works.»
«They’ll do a lot of that outside the traditional procurement process. That flexibility lets them innovate and test at a speed that’s just really hard to do in the conventional force,» he added.
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Army Secretary Dan Driscoll tours Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, Ga. (Spc. Luke Sullivan/75th Ranger Regiment )
Driscoll described the 75th Ranger Regiment as «live G.I. Joe dolls.» Watching them train in close-quarters battle, he said, you can’t help but notice their sheer size and physicality as they wedge themselves through doorways during room-clearing drills. That raw power, he added, is a reminder of why the U.S. invests so heavily in maintaining elite infantry forces.
But even America’s premier ground fighters are being forced to rethink how they operate. Driscoll said the age of slipping silently onto an objective under cover of night — fast-roping from a Black Hawk, breaching doors, and overwhelming defenders — is vanishing.
The spread of cheap battlefield technology, from drones to acoustic sensors to loitering munitions, has made stealth insertions far more difficult. «We don’t really own the night like we used to,» he said, noting that night-vision gear and detection tools that were once expensive and rare are now accessible to adversaries at scale.
That shift, he argued, has turned special operators into improvisers. Rangers and other elite units are now experimenting with disposable drones, commercial quadcopters and custom-built weapons to stay ahead.
Unlike conventional forces bound by long acquisition cycles, these units have the flexibility to innovate quickly.
The idea is for Rangers to test rapidly, see what works, and then pass those lessons along to the rest of the Army.
The problem, he acknowledged, is what comes next. While small-unit experimentation is thriving, scaling those solutions across the broader force runs headlong into bureaucratic red tape.
HEGSETH TEARS UP RED TAPE, ORDERS PENTAGON TO BEGIN DRONE SURGE AT TRUMP’S COMMAND
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll meeting with Rangers at Hunter Airfield. (Spc. Luke Sullivan/75th Ranger Regiment)
Driscoll pointed out that Congress once gave the Army a dozen broad funding categories it could move money between — say, vehicles in one bucket, drones in another. Today, he said, there are more than 1,400 narrowly drawn «buckets,» some tied to specific makes and models, making it nearly impossible to pivot quickly. That rigidity might not matter for tanks or trucks, but with drone technology evolving every few weeks in Ukraine, he said, the Army risks falling behind.
Driscoll visited the airfield just weeks after a shooting on base at Fort Stewart, where Hunter is located. He met with students of the criminal investigation division (CID), which is currently leading the probe into the shooting. Five soldiers were injured after a sergeant allegedly opened fire with a personal handgun he brought on base.
While he praised the CID’s «speed and professionalism» with the investigation, Driscoll added, «The Army wants zero of these incidents, and so we are looking at everything we can to try to ensure it never happens again.»
Driscoll spoke with Fox News Digital ahead of an expected global force posture review set for late summer or early fall. That review may lead to sizable shifts in the number of troops deployed at bases throughout Europe, the Middle East or the Indo-Pacific.
Driscoll said the Army is aligning itself with the Pentagon’s assessment of China as the nation’s «pacing threat.»
He emphasized that the service is designing its force to be effective in the Indo-Pacific — particularly in providing the logistics, sustainment and long-term presence needed to deter or fight a peer competitor.
At the same time, Driscoll cautioned against focusing too narrowly on one theater. «Human history has been pretty difficult to predict where the next conflict may unfold,» he said, stressing that the Army must remain capable of deploying anywhere the president and defense secretary direct. That flexibility, he argued, is a defining feature of land power.
Army Sec. Dan Driscoll observes Ranger training at Hunter Army Airfield. (Spc. Luke Sullivan/75th Ranger Regiment)
Driscoll declined to outline his full recommendations for the upcoming review but made clear one priority: counter-drone measures. «With the Secretary of Defense’s support, we are putting together plans to make a pretty aggressive investment in how to counter the threat from drones across the world and here at home,» he told Fox News Digital.
In his tenure, Driscoll has kicked off the Army Transformation Initiative, a top-to-bottom modernization drive he says is essential for the Army to remain decisive against peer adversaries like China.
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«If you look at what the Army was like in the late 1990s as it went into the counterinsurgency operations of the early 2000s, we really haven’t changed all that much,» he said.
Now, «the Army is running as fast as it possibly can to try to reinvent itself, to be ready for modern warfare.»
us army,army,defense,drones,politics
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Recent U.S. military escalations involving Venezuela have halted flights carrying unlawful migrants from the United States back to the South American country, Venezuela’s foreign ministry said, prompting criticism from anti-intervention voices.
President Donald Trump warned pilots Saturday that the airspace «above and surrounding» Venezuela should be «closed in its entirety» as his administration weighs potential strikes on targets in and around Caracas.
«Through this action, the United States government has unilaterally suspended the Venezuelan migrant flights that were being carried out regularly and weekly as part of the repatriation of Venezuelans through the Plan Vuelta a la Patria (Return to the Homeland Plan),» the ministry said in a statement.
The deportation flights had been one of the only areas of cooperation between Washington and the government of Nicolás Maduro. Venezuelan officials say nearly 14,000 nationals have been returned on twice-weekly charter flights in recent months.
The deportation flights had been one of the only areas of cooperation between Washington and the government of Nicolás Maduro. (Federico Parra/AFP via Getty Images)
VENEZUELA AGREES TO RESUME DEPORTATION FLIGHTS IN RESPONSE TO PRESSURE FROM TRUMP
At the same time, the Trump administration has continued moving forward with plans to end temporary protected status for roughly 600,000 Venezuelans living in the United States.
«Genius. Enough with this immigration enforcement nonsense. Let’s get back to True MAGA — neocon wars that exacerbate and cause migration crises. About darn time,» said Curt Mills, executive editor of The American Conservative, criticizing the shift toward military action.
So far, U.S. strikes have targeted alleged narco-traffickers operating in the Caribbean near Venezuela. But officials have signaled that operations could expand to land-based targets as Washington increases pressure on Maduro to relinquish power.
VENEZUELA WILL FACE ‘SEVERE, AND ESCALATING SANCTIONS’ IF IT DOESN’T ACCEPT ITS CITIZENS, RUBIO SAYS
Dozens of U.S. bombers have deployed to the region alongside the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, underscoring the scale of the buildup. With U.S. bombers and the Ford already positioned in the region, much of the world is waiting to see whether Trump will green-light the next phase of strikes against Venezuelan targets.
Venezuelan migrants repatriated from the U.S. gesture seen upon arrival at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, April 4, 2025. (Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images)
Venezuelan migrants flown from Guantanamo Bay via Honduras walk up a ladder after arriving on a deportation flight at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia, La Guaira State, Venezuela, February 20, 2025. (Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Reuters)
Trump confirmed he spoke with Maduro by phone recently.
«I wouldn’t say it went well or badly. It was a phone call,» he told reporters aboard Air Force One Sunday.
Trump presented Maduro with an ultimatum — step down or face potential U.S. military action. Maduro, the Miami Herald reported, sought global amnesty for himself, demanded to retain control of the military and resisted an immediate exit from power.
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Restraint-minded foreign policy analysts have sounded the alarm against a regime-change-driven intervention in Venezuela, arguing such a move could make migration patterns worse.
«Escalatory dynamics could trigger regional instability and hostility, with migration flows among the most predictable consequences,» a report by Stimson Center analysts Evan Cooper and Alessandro Perri claimed. «Absent a credible transition structure inside Venezuela, external pressure is far more likely to deepen chaos — driving more Venezuelans to flee — than to produce political change.»
Analysts in the libertarian foreign-policy space have issued similar warnings.
Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, argued that «U.S. militarized pressure on Venezuela is far more likely to worsen instability than to produce meaningful political change,» adding that history shows «coercion in Venezuela leads to unpredictable outcomes and episodes of mass flight.»
«Escalation without a stable political alternative inside Venezuela risks accelerating the very migration pressures Washington is trying to contain,» said George A. López, a senior analyst at the Quincy Institute.
venezuelan political crisis,immigration,homeland security
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A 19-year-old man was mauled to death after climbing into a lion enclosure Sunday morning in Brazil.
Viral video captured the incident, showing the victim scaling a roughly 26-foot-tall fence to enter the lioness’s enclosure at Arruda Câmara Zoobotanical Park, known locally as Bica, in João Pessoa, Paraíba.
Local media Correio Braziliense identified the victim as Gerson de Melo Machado who has long aspired to be a lion tamer. Machado reportedly had mental health issues and had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
The zoo confirmed in a statement that the individual deliberately entered the enclosure, was attacked by the animal, and did not survive his injuries.
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An lioness stands on a platform at a zoo enclosure on Aug. 19, 2024. (Wiktor Szymanowicz/Anadolu)
«The Arruda Câmara Zoobotanical Park (Bica) deeply regrets what happened this Sunday morning, when a man deliberately invaded the lioness’s enclosure, resulting in his death,» the zoo said in a statement on social media Sunday. «This is an extremely sad episode for everyone, and we express our solidarity and condolences to the family and friends of the man.»
In the video, witnesses watched in horror as the teen climbed the towering fence and shimmied down a nearby tree. A lion in the enclosure spotted him, prowled to the base of the tree and waited as he continued his descent.
When the boy got close enough to the ground, the lion sprang on him. He tried to flee, disappearing into the bushes and briefly reappearing during his escape, only to be leapt on again by the lioness. The mauling then continued out of view behind a wall.
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Zoo patrons look through a window at a lion enclosure on Feb. 21, 2008. (Justin Sullivan)
Following the incident, the park was closed to allow for safety procedures and the removal of the body. The zoo stated that Bica will remain closed to visitors until the investigation and all official procedures are complete.
Machado had struggled with mental health issues throughout his life, and his mother had also been diagnosed with schizophrenia, according to Correio, which cited child welfare counselor Verônica Oliveira, who had been monitoring him since childhood. Oliveira told the outlet that Machado had always dreamed of traveling to Africa to become a lion tamer and was once caught hiding in the landing gear of a plane, believing it would take him there.
The zoo stated it does not plan to euthanize the lion, emphasizing that the killing resulted from deliberate trespassing, an incident that was «completely unpredictable» and «outside of any scenario within the park’s routine.»
Visitors view two lions through a window in their enclosure on July 22, 2025. (Justin Sullivan)
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The lion is reportedly stressed but shows no signs of behavior that would warrant concern for euthanasia.
«It is important to emphasize that euthanasia was never considered,» the zoo said. «Leona is healthy, does not exhibit aggressive behavior outside the context of the incident, and will not be euthanized.»
brazil,mammals,mental health
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