Hegseth Announces Creation of Autonomous Warfare Command

The Pentagon will establish a combatant command to lead its efforts to develop and field robotic weapons, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday in a speech laced with biblical quotations and criticisms of the media.

The forthcoming Autonomous Warfare Command (AUTOWARCOM) will be “a new four‑star combatant command possessing service‑level authority, designed to scale autonomous and robotic capabilities throughout the joint force,” Hegseth stated. It is slated to become operational by October 1, 2027, per a memo issued after his remarks.

Hegseth indicated that planning for the new command would emerge from the three‑month‑old direct‑report portfolio manager for unmanned offensive and defensive systems, whose “culminating mission” will unfold over several months, paving the way for the Autonomous Warfare Command. In the interim, the office has been tasked with prototyping a novel approach termed “warfighting acquisition,” which blends operators and entrepreneurs in fast‑paced adaptation cycles while pushing decision‑making and resources nearer to frontline units and combatant commands. He said the office will be headed by Owen West, currently leading the Defense Innovation Unit, together with a Navy senior chief petty officer who is both a SEAL and a test pilot. The initiative will also be renamed “Project Agincourt,” a name Hegseth illustrated with a bow‑and‑arrow gesture.

To accelerate the adoption of unmanned systems, Hegseth said the Army, Navy, and Air Force will develop new MOS frameworks—referring to the Army and Marine Corps job classifications—to support the shift toward autonomy. He stressed the need for institutional knowledge and career pathways for a new generation of autonomous warfighters.

Hegseth also announced a committee with a four‑month mandate to creatively envision the future and pinpoint the domains and capabilities the United States must dominate. Dubbed Project Meridian, the panel will be chaired by defense contractors Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey alongside former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, 83, whose scientific record includes the dissolution of Congress’s non‑partisan scientific advisory office.

‘FORTRESS America’

Hegseth observed that the U.S. military relies on foreign mines for rare earths, overseas factories for microchips, foreign supply chains for weapons, and a civilian power grid to keep base lights on. He said he is launching an initiative to eventually have every U.S. military base generate its own electricity, without specifying a timeline or cost. He added that the services will expand their munition and critical supply‑chain stockpiles, and will also store medicine and blood, which he described as “a national insurance policy for the American homeland.”

As part of the “FORTRESS America” initiative, Hegseth said the U.S. military will construct a new base in the state offering the strongest proposal. A DOD statement noted that the facility will “serve as a foundational hub for integrated defense operations, distributed command‑and‑control, and resilient cyber and technological capabilities.” He said the base will span hundreds of thousands of acres, accommodate 15,000 to 25,000 troops, and feature structures of “timeless classical architecture” to meet an August executive order.

Among the other initiatives is a planned Office of Religious Affairs that will report directly to Hegseth. A DOD statement explained that “ORA will consolidate religious affairs, which are currently scattered across various bureaucratic layers, providing senior leaders with a dedicated capacity to safeguard free exercise, eliminate policy obstacles, identify unmet needs, and secure the support required for service chaplaincies to thrive.”

Hegseth continued to invoke conservative evangelical beliefs in his official remarks, quoting the Bible multiple times, describing children as “precious souls made in the image and likeness of God,” and asserting that “America’s military must grasp the distinction” between God and evil.

The defense secretary repeatedly criticized what he labeled the “hyperventilating” and “delusional” media, starting from the second sentence of his speech and persisting until his conclusion, for reporting on the rapid depletion of key munitions in the Iran conflict. He claimed that “partisan activism that intentionally smears the troops” constitutes “treason,” though he presented no evidence of such smears or activism, nor any justification for telling service members that “your movements and bases are what they reveal to the enemy.”

Hegseth elicited sporadic, light applause—a noticeable shift from the solemn silence that greeted his high‑profile address a year earlier. The video feed did not clarify whether the clapping originated from the hand‑picked senior enlisted leaders and junior officers or from other audience members. He remarked, “This is certainly not a mere question of decorum or politeness. The safety of the American republic and the constitutional order hinge on elected leaders’ confidence that the military they inherit will act in a nonpartisan manner,” wrote Peter Feaver, a prominent civil‑military affairs expert, prior to the speech.

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