Pentagon's Autonomous Warfare Command Faces Funding Hurdles

"They have no idea. They don't know, nor should they. There's nobody on that stage that actually knows how to build anything like this," John G. Ferrari, a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and retired two‑star general, said of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's public launch of U.S. Autonomous Warfare Command.

Hegseth’s vision: an acquisitions-focused combatant command

At the Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) annual meeting, and on an Oct. 14 panel moderated by Owen West — the first CEO of the new Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Unmanned Systems — Secretary Pete Hegseth outlined a rapid timetable and an unmistakable intent: create U.S. Autonomous Warfare Command (AUTOWARCOM) within a year and make it the Pentagon’s official purchaser of autonomous technology.

Hegseth described a two‑year horizon of continuous improvement: "My vision for AUTOWARCOM, in two years, is that we're still iterating, we're still adapting, we're still learning, and we're moving faster and faster because we're doing it," he said. Most public messaging so far, however, emphasizes what the department wants AUTOWARCOM to do, rather than the operational details of how it will be built or integrated into existing forces.

Force‑structure gaps and the service component question

Unlike Cyber Command and Special Operations Command, AUTOWARCOM faces the unusual challenge of creating force structure rather than inheriting it. The Pentagon’s plan calls for new service component commands where they do not yet exist, and a new autonomous‑warfare corps of officers and enlisted personnel — but neither the memo directing the command nor the published "operational roadmap" details how those specialties will integrate with current units.

Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Security and International Studies, said the proposed model — a four‑star combatant command whose primary mission is acquisitions — is atypical. Cancian suggested a different precedent might fit better: the Missile Defense Agency model, a three‑star command with a significant budget that develops systems and hands them off to the services. He warned that centralizing operational control of drone operations away from operating forces would be "a very bad idea," because those operations "need to be very tightly coordinated, very tightly integrated with the operating forces."

Service moves: Army leads, Navy and Air Force still outlining roles

The Army acted quickly. The day after Hegseth announced AUTOWARCOM, the Army said it would bring online its own autonomy command and rebranded its Futures and Concepts Command as Futures and Autonomy Command — creating what the article describes as "a fully staffed and funded AUTOWARCOM component command with minimal friction."

The Navy and Air Force have been more circumspect. When asked about their component plans, both services deferred to the Office of the Secretary of Defense. A Pentagon official said the services "support AUTOWARCOM and are taking complementary actions to organize and integrate autonomous capabilities within their respective forces," pointing to the Navy’s new Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Robotic and Autonomous Systems and noting the Air Force is "actively exploring organizational structure elements to enable rapid implementation and training of unmanned systems."

Leadership and personnel: who will command and who will move?

Questions about leadership and staffing remain. The military already has enlisted drone operators and officers with integration experience, but the department will need to create an autonomous‑warfare corps and designate component leaders. Ferrari noted experienced warfighters exist, naming three former Army four‑stars — Chris Donahue, Erik Kurilla, and Randy George — as examples of leaders who could have filled such roles; those officers, the article says, were forced into retirement or not selected for follow‑on jobs over the past year.

The department will announce leaders "when appropriate," the Pentagon official said. A plan of action and milestones for AUTOWARCOM is due at the end of this month.

Funding: $54 billion request and the reconciliation gamble

Money is the clearest constraint. Earlier this year the Pentagon asked for $54 billion to fund the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group — funds Secretary Hegseth has said would be used to stand up AUTOWARCOM. Rather than include that sum in the $1 trillion defense budget, the administration elected to seek it through a separate reconciliation bill — a route the article says was "rarely used for Pentagon spending before last year."

The Pentagon is seeking at least $350 billion in that reconciliation package to cover several top priorities, according to a Pentagon official. But reconciliation is politically fraught: Ferrari warned the timeline is tight. "Either the money shows up by Christmas or it ain't coming, because when the new Congress gets seated in January, there is no reconciliation anymore," he said. The department has not identified an alternative funding plan beyond pursuing the $54 billion through reconciliation; without that money, Ferrari said AUTOWARCOM could be stood up conceptually but would lack the buying power to meet its mission.

What this means for the Pentagon, the services, and Congress

• Pentagon acquisition leaders: Expect a near‑term push to consolidate procurement authorities and funding requests into AUTOWARCOM’s remit, contingent on reconciliation passage and future budget levies against service accounts.
• Army, Navy, Air Force operational planners: The Army has already created a component by rebranding Futures and Autonomy Command; Navy and Air Force elements are being shaped by portfolio managers and internal planning, and will face potential personnel levies if joint billets are assigned.
• Congress and appropriators: Passage of the reconciliation package — and its timing relative to the congressional calendar — will be decisive. Without reconciliation dollars, the Pentagon will either delay purchases or seek to reallocate service budgets, the article notes.

The Pentagon has set a tempo and an organizational ambition — an autonomous warfare combatant command designed to buy, iterate, and field large volumes of unmanned systems. The central missing pieces are spelled out plainly in the department’s own rollout: an agreed force structure, named leaders, and the $54 billion that the department has tied to a reconciliation bill whose fate, several observers said, could determine whether AUTOWARCOM moves from concept to consequence by year’s end.

Original reporting: Defense One