Project Agincourt as a pathway to a four-star-led Autonomous Warfare Command has always been in the cards, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said today at the 2026 Association of the United States Army annual meeting and exposition.

Last month, Hegseth signed a memorandum detailing the creation of the short-term Project Agincourt, which is charged with laying the groundwork for creating the Autonomous Warfare Command, a new, functional combatant command that will lead the joint force in unmanned autonomous warfare.

“Project Agincourt is the end state of something we focused on since Day 1,” Hegseth told Owen West, the chief executive officer of the Pentagon’s Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Unmanned Systems, which leads the project.

“We started with drone dominance almost the minute we got here; [the] president put out an executive order,” Hegseth said. “We got $1 billion of funding on drone dominance, which we put straight into the hands of operators out into the field.”

The department plans to field hundreds of thousands of one-way attack systems this year, Hegseth told the audience. In coming years, he said, that’ll be in the millions.

Drones have been around for a long time, but they haven’t become inexpensive or proliferated across the force, Hegseth said. That’s partly due to the Pentagon’s bureaucracy — something that will change with Project Agincourt and, eventually, the Autonomous Warfare Command. He added that buy-in from the military services and combatant commands plays a critical role in making that happen.

“These services are not fighting us on that concept; they believe in it,” Hegseth said.

The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Space Force are all aiming toward autonomous warfare, and so are the combatant commands. The secretary cited U.S. Southern Command’s recently established autonomous warfare unit, as well as U.S. Central Command’s autonomous surface systems, which rescued two downed Apache pilots off the coast of Oman in June.

To advance the adoption of autonomous systems, Hegseth said, the War Department has made significant progress in modernizing the acquisition process and incentivizing industry partners.

However, he said widespread adoption and mastery of autonomous systems will come from the warfighters using those systems and with experts there to iterate on what’s happening to make them better — both of which are expected to happen with the Autonomous Warfare Command.

“This Autowarcom is what’s going to create that multidomain, that domain synthesis that you need so that, from space to what we’re doing sub-sea in autonomy, is able to work together in a contested environment,” Hegseth said.

Acting Secretary of the Army Adam Telle said just yesterday that the Army announced the creation of the Army’s Futures and Autonomous Systems Command.

“This is our way to make sure that we take all of the great work that’s been happening with the resources that we have today, and we centralize it,” he said. “We’re pushing autonomy down into our units, but when it comes to having and making sure that the left hand in the Army knows what the right hand of the Army is doing, this happens at Fascom; then Fascom feeds up into Autowarcom.”

Telle said Fascom will work with the other services to create scale for purchasing power and share best practices on autonomy.

Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao said his service is now increasing its use of and investment in autonomous systems.

“In the Strait of Hormuz, we used the Corsair … to recover two Apache helicopter pilots,” Cao said. “Then, we also used the unmanned underwater vehicles to demine that area.”

That kind of work, Cao said, can’t be done in a contested area unless it’s done using unmanned underwater vehicles. The Navy is now deploying with even more unmanned systems.

“The [Theodore] Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group just deployed on Oct. 8 with a medium-sized unmanned surface vessel,” he said. “This is the first carrier strike group to ever deploy with a large-size unmanned surface vessel — and this is a force multiplier.”

Cao said unmanned vessels are easier to build and will change the nature of surface warfare because they don’t need the complex systems required to sustain personnel on board.

The Air Force has always been dominated by manned aircraft, and Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink said it will continue to be so. However, he said unmanned systems will play a big part of the Air Force playbook now, too.

“There’s no question though that there’s a shift coming,” Meink said. “It’s adaptability, scalability and affordability; the only way we’re going to meet the threat is with autonomous systems.”

Affordability is an important consideration for the Air Force, Meink said, adding that autonomy may be cheaper than manned systems.

“We’ve got to make sure this stuff is affordable,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure we’re buying it efficiently. And depending on how you do the comparisons, we’re talking five to 10 times cheaper to field some combat power with these autonomous systems compared to not.”

Meink noted that the Air Force is already integrating autonomous fighters into experimental operations units out at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada.

“[It took] from a year from when they first flew to when we are integrating them into experimental ops units — that’s unheard of, and it only took two years to build the first one,” he added.

With those systems, Meink said, the Air Force is focused on rapid production, scalability and lowering costs.

By C. Todd Lopez, Pentagon News

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth delivered a speech on the status of the military today, during which he announced six new initiatives for the War Department. 

Speaking to both a broadcast audience and 600 O-3 officers and E-6 enlisted service members at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, Hegseth began by recounting the successful progress he has seen across the department over the past year. 

“For almost two years, you’ve heard me talk — over and over — about three core priorities: reviving the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military and reestablishing deterrence. And I’m proud to stand on this stage and report that the warrior ethos has been revived, our military is being rebuilt and American deterrence is back,” he said early in his remarks. 

The secretary went on to emphasize the high recruitment and retention numbers over the past year, mention that military standards that existed in 1990 are back in 2026 and discuss the “E-6/O-3 Rule” — the concept that asks whether a policy, procedure or decision helps or hinders the operational effectiveness and daily reality of an E-6 and/or O-3. 

“We fight to win. Clear missions, full hearts, hands untied. It’s all I ever wanted as a platoon leader, and it’s all my E-6 squad leaders ever wanted. … We let our leaders fight their formations, and then we have their back. It’s simple, yet you know in your business it’s incredibly powerful and liberating,” Hegseth said. 

After recapping the past year and reemphasizing the War Department’s priorities of strengthening the warrior ethos, rebuilding the military and maintaining peace through strength via deterrence, Hegseth outlined his six new initiatives: 

• The creation of a new 4-star level combatant command: Autonomous Warfare Command. 
• An effort to study the future of warfare titled “Project Meridian.” 
• A future program that aims to align basing and infrastructure projects to ensure they are collectively advancing toward greater independence titled, federal operations for resilience, troop resources, energy, supply and survivability, or “Fortress America.” 
• Calling for a new, state-of-the-art military installation through a project titled, “The Next Great American Base.” 
• Expanding the ranks of future leaders commissioning into the joint force through a program that expands military training beyond the country’s military service academies and six military colleges to additional institutions of higher learning, titled “America’s Corps of Cadets.” 
• Establishing an Office of Religious Affairs. 

Regarding the new combatant command, Autowarcom, Hegseth said that once established, it will focus on building autonomous and robotic capabilities across the joint force in “the fastest peacetime shift in modern history.” 

Additionally, the secretary announced that he has directed the direct reporting portfolio manager for unmanned systems to lead “Project Agincourt,” an organization that will establish the pathway for Autowarcom, as well as to execute the existing unmanned systems mission while prototyping a new acquisition model. 

Hegseth also said new military occupational specialties will be created in each military department to support the shift to autonomy. 

“Today, with … Autowarcom, we institutionalize — and we supercharge — the era of [super intelligence], robotics and autonomous systems, all in order to win,” he said. 

Turning next to Project Meridian, Hegseth said the Pentagon’s chief technology officer would partner with members of the private sector to study the future of warfare, and that the project is not about developing new strategies or policies. 

“Rather, its purpose is to creatively look into the future and identify the domains we must conquer, and capabilities we must master … to achieve technological and military dominance on the battlefield for decades to come; it is futuristic, on purpose,” Hegseth said. 

Regarding the Fortress America program, Hegseth said it calls for every American military installation to eventually run under its own power, hardening every installation on American soil against intrusion and bringing critical supply chains home. 

“No matter the circumstance, this department will have the power, the equipment and the supplies you need to take the fight to the enemy.?… The Department of War will be the insurance policy for the entire nation,” he said. 

Hegseth’s talk of Fortress America then segued into discussing the concept behind The Next Great American Base project, which he said will be a dynamic, self-sustaining power projection platform, and that leaders of every state in the union would be able to provide a “sales pitch” as to why the new installation should be in their state. 

“If your state wants the honor of hosting 15,000 to 25,000 of America’s great troops, show us why and how you’re going to do it — cutting through the red tape, offering up the land and rolling out the red carpet for our military families,” Hegseth said. 

Regarding America’s Corps of Cadets, the secretary said the Pentagon is partnering with six universities to increase the number of leaders who can commission into the military.  

“By embedding continuous military discipline and leadership development into new institutions — by growing our Corps of Cadets — the War Department will ensure our republic is defended by even more officers of unwavering character and patriotism,” Hegseth said. 

Turning to his final of the six initiatives, that of the Office of Religious Affairs, Hegseth said religious services in the military have been neglected and bureaucratized for too long. 

“Ninety-five percent of our force recognizes an Almighty God. Accordingly, our department has a sacred duty: first-class religious support, wherever we send our warriors,” Hegseth said. He also noted that the new office will report directly to the secretary of war’s office to cut through red tape. 

“This is not going to be a paper-pushing shop;?it’s going to have real teeth.?It’ll protect budgets, demand infrastructure and strengthen religious support,” Hegseth said. 

The secretary emphasized that the six announcements were all for the warfighters, as he and the War Department view them as the top 1% of society. 

“You are warriors; with that title comes great expectations. So, go forth this day and do good things, hard things. President [Donald J.] Trump has your back, and so do I,” Hegseth said. 

“We are the War Department, and we never back down — Godspeed,” he concluded. 

Today’s State of the Force speech came exactly one year to the day since Hegseth announced a series of new directives aimed at strengthening the War Department’s people and culture to the U.S. military’s most senior leaders, also at Quantico.

By Matthew Olay, Pentagon News