U.S. News: At the Pentagon, DOGE Now Turns To Buying Drones

 

Are motors for those drones produced in China or with China's rare earths?

 

Yes, even with the Pentagon's push for domestic drone production (DOGE), many approved "Blue UAS" drones still use motors with components sourced from China, especially rare earths, creating a major supply chain vulnerability the U.S. is racing to fix, with motors, batteries, and speed controllers being key Chinese-linked parts.

 

While the goal is to build a fully American supply chain for tens of thousands of drones by 2026-2027, the current reality involves significant reliance on Chinese-made electronics and rare-earth magnets for these critical motors, despite efforts to onshore production.

 

The Core Problem

 

    China's Dominance: China controls much of the world's rare-earth supply and manufacturing for key drone components, like the magnets in motors, making it hard for U.S. companies to compete on cost and scale.

    "Dumb" but Critical Parts: Motors, batteries, and electric speed controllers (ESCs) are often cited as the most challenging "dumb" components to source outside China, according to defense officials and experts.

 

    "Blue UAS" Paradox: The Pentagon's Blue UAS list helps identify drones free from adversarial components, but many approved systems still contain motors with Chinese parts, highlighting the difficulty in achieving full independence.

 

The Pentagon's Response (DOGE)

 

    Speed & Scale: The new Defense Innovation and Growth Enterprise (DOGE) initiative aims to rapidly increase the production and fielding of U.S.-made drones, buying hundreds of thousands by 2027 to counter adversaries.

    Incentivizing U.S. Industry: Efforts are underway through initiatives like the "Big Beautiful Bill" and executive orders to fund and streamline domestic manufacturing of these platforms and components.

 

Why It Matters

 

    National Security: Dependence on China for critical drone parts poses a significant national security risk, as seen in conflicts where drone supply chains are weaponized.

 

In essence, the Pentagon is trying to build a "Made in America" drone force, but the motors powering these drones are still reliant on Chinese supply chains, especially for the rare-earth magnets crucial for their function.

 

This why in the most recent US National Security Strategy (NSS) released in December 2025, China is not explicitly labelled an "enemy," but it is framed as the primary global competitor and a "pacing threat" to US interests and security. The document highlights a shift from previous administrations' more ideological approaches to a focus on US self-interest and pragmatic competition. USA still hopes to buy those thousands of Chinese motors for military drones.

 

 

“WASHINGTON -- The Department of Government Efficiency's mission at the Pentagon now includes not just cutting wasteful programs, but buying thousands of small drones for the U.S. military.

 

Staffers assigned to the Pentagon from the cost-cutting agency formerly run by Elon Musk have been put in charge of sending dollars to U.S. drone makers, seeking to spur production of small attack drones, said Travis Metz, who works on the so-called Drone Dominance program.

 

"We aim to do a very specific thing, which is to scale the U.S. industrial base to provide one-way attack UAS," said Metz, referring to unmanned aerial systems. "We think if we're successful at that, that the U.S. industrial base will be much more capable of supplying drones."

 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth assigned DOGE the mission of catching up to other countries that are using small drones in large numbers on the battlefield, including in Ukraine and the Middle East.

 

The effort led by Owen West, a Marine veteran and former financial analyst at Goldman Sachs who is the lead DOGE staffer at the Pentagon, bypasses the department's often-cumbersome acquisition system, using $1.1 billion appropriated by Congress to quickly procure drones through a series of competitions, officials said. The aim is to get the drones to military units by 2027.

 

Assigning the mission to DOGE made sense because one of the goals is to bring down the cost of the systems, according to a Pentagon official.

 

In the months after President Trump took office, staffers were embedded at federal agencies, including roughly a dozen at the Defense Department, and tasked with slashing government waste.

 

In April, Hegseth announced that DOGE had saved the department $5.1 billion by cutting IT and consulting contracts.

 

DOGE featured prominently in the early days of Trump's second term, but became a political headache for the White House after it failed to achieve the savings promised by Musk. DOGE said last summer it had saved $190 billion through a combination of asset sales, contract cancellations, job cuts and other moves. Budget experts across the political spectrum question that claim.

 

When Hegseth launched the initiative in July, he appeared in a video on the Pentagon's front lawn, flanked by four Marines flying small drones. He plucked a memo authorizing the program from a drone buzzing above him and signed it.

 

The Pentagon this month invited 25 vendors to an event planned for February where operators from the Marine Corps, Army and Special Operations Command will test and evaluate systems. The operators will choose as many as a dozen companies that will each be awarded a contract to supply at least 1,000 drones deliverable within five months, according to a Defense Department notice to companies.” [1]

 

1. U.S. News: At the Pentagon, DOGE Now Turns To Buying Drones. Seligman, Lara.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 20 Dec 2025: A5.