The Trump administration is eliminating much of the red tape surrounding the mass production of military drones in order to keep pace with China and Russia, NewsNation reports.
In an interview with the news outlet released on Wednesday, under secretary of defense for research and engineering Emil Michael, the Pentagon's top technology officer, said that the previous administration imposed "a lot of the regulations around what you could build and how you could build it, and even how you could test it" when it comes to drones.
Michael said the Trump administration has "got to cut the red tape out," and noted that drone warfare has become a major part of the ongoing conflicts in Europe and the Middle East.
Michael said that the U.S. is "going for dominance" in the drone arms race, as President Donald Trump outlined in his executive order, Unleashing American Drone Dominance.
"We're going to have the best technology, we're going to have mass production, and to do that, we're going to cut the red tape, and we're going to let innovation happen in private industry," Michael said. "You're going to see us become dominant, more dominant than we already are in unmanned warfare."
He added, "The idea is to have an industrial base that could produce hundreds of thousands of these per month over time, because that's what we're seeing out there in the world right now."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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