INTERNACIONAL
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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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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INTERNACIONAL
La Unión Europea prepara nuevas sanciones contra Bielorrusia por su “ataque híbrido” contra Lituania
La Unión Europea anunció este lunes que trabaja en un nuevo paquete de sanciones contra Bielorrusia, a la que acusa de llevar a cabo una “campaña híbrida” contra Lituania mediante el uso creciente de globos cargados con mercancía de contrabando que han obligado a cerrar aeropuertos y reforzar la vigilancia aérea. La presidenta de la Comisión Europea, Ursula von der Leyen, afirmó en la red social X que la situación en la frontera “está empeorando” y reclamó una respuesta coordinada del bloque.
El Gobierno lituano, encabezado por el presidente Gitanas Nausėda, cerró su frontera con Bielorrusia en octubre tras detectar decenas de globos que, según sus autoridades, entraron de manera irregular en su espacio aéreo con cargamentos de cigarrillos ilegales. La decisión dejó miles de camiones atrapados en territorio bielorruso y desencadenó un intercambio de acusaciones entre ambos países, que mantienen relaciones tensas desde hace varios años.
Según Von der Leyen, la UE ultima medidas adicionales dentro del marco de sanciones vigente desde 2020, cuando el bloque castigó al régimen de Aleksandr Lukashenko por la represión de protestas internas y, posteriormente, por su apoyo a la invasión rusa de Ucrania en 2022. El régimen bielorruso ha sido objeto de sanciones sucesivas a causa de la persecución de la oposición, el uso de migrantes para presionar a los países vecinos y la cooperación militar con Moscú.
El mismo lunes, Bielorrusia citó al encargado de negocios lituano en Minsk, Erikas Vilkanecas, para protestar por la supuesta incursión de un dron procedente de territorio lituano. El Ministerio de Exteriores bielorruso aseguró en un comunicado que se trató de una “violación” de su frontera y que el aparato había sido programado para regresar a Lituania tras sobrevolar parte de su territorio.
Las autoridades bielorrusas difundieron que, tras revisar datos de navegación y material audiovisual, concluyeron que el vuelo del dron constituía una amenaza para su seguridad y una infracción del derecho internacional. El portavoz del ministerio, Ruslan Varankov, sostuvo que el incidente se sumaba a un patrón de supuestas provocaciones por parte de Vilna.
Lituania negó semanas atrás que su cierre fronterizo buscara generar tensión adicional y acusó a Minsk de utilizar a los conductores de camiones como instrumento de presión. Vilnius ha calificado la situación de los transportistas atrapados en Bielorrusia como “chantaje”, ya que la mercancía retenida representa millones de euros en pérdidas para empresas lituanas.
El Servicio Europeo de Acción Exterior también convocó este lunes al representante diplomático de Bielorrusia ante la UE para trasladarle su protesta formal por actos que considera “híbridos” y que “suponen una amenaza para la Unión”. Según Bruselas, los vuelos de globos con contrabando y la crisis de los camiones forman parte de una estrategia más amplia del Gobierno de Lukashenko para desestabilizar a los países vecinos.
Las tensiones entre Lituania y Bielorrusia se han intensificado desde 2021, cuando la UE acusó a Minsk de facilitar la llegada de migrantes desde Medio Oriente hacia las fronteras de Lituania y Polonia. La Comisión Europea calificó entonces esta actuación como un intento deliberado de instrumentalizar los flujos migratorios para presionar al bloque comunitario.
El bloque comunitario mantiene desde hace cuatro años un régimen de sanciones progresivo que incluye restricciones financieras, prohibiciones de viaje y congelación de activos contra dirigentes bielorrusos, entre ellos Lukashenko y miembros de su familia. La UE acusa al mandatario, en el poder desde 1994, de sostener su Gobierno mediante prácticas autoritarias y de actuar como aliado estratégico de Rusia.
El deterioro de la relación entre Minsk y Vilna se enmarca en un contexto regional marcado por la guerra en Ucrania. Bielorrusia permitió que Rusia utilizara su territorio como plataforma para la invasión de febrero de 2022, lo que reforzó la percepción de amenaza en las repúblicas bálticas.
La UE deberá definir ahora el alcance del nuevo paquete de sanciones, que podría incluir ampliaciones al listado de personas designadas y nuevas restricciones económicas. Bruselas sostiene que las medidas buscan frenar la presión bielorrusa sobre la frontera europea y enviar una señal política clara al Gobierno de Lukashenko sobre los límites de su actuación.
Diplomacy / Foreign Policy,Europe
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