By: Dawn Zoldi
The newly released 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS) resets how Washington thinks about drones over U.S. soil and the industrial base that builds and defeats them. It elevates homeland air defense and industrial surge capacity from background talking points to core organizing principles, with unmanned systems woven through both.
Homeland Defense: Preparing For The Next Drone Fight
Line of Effort 1, “Defend the U.S. Homeland,” places defending American skies, explicitly including countering unmanned aerial systems (UAS), alongside nuclear, cyber and counterterrorism missions. That framing treats drones as a routine threat vector for cities, borders and critical infrastructure.
The NDS links this to President Trump’s Executive Order (EO) 14186, often referred to as the Iron Dome or Golden Dome order, which directed the Department of Defense (DoD) to develop a next‑generation missile defense shield for the U.S. homeland. A layered air and missile defense concept, the EO frames Golden Dome as designed to defeat large salvos and “other advanced aerial attacks,” with specific attention to unmanned aerial threats. In practice, that points the Department of Defense (DoD) toward a more integrated architecture that connects sensors, command‑and‑control (C2) and effectors across the continental U.S., not just as temporary bubbles around one‑off events.
This new policy direction arrives on the cusp of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which could become one of the earliest large‑scale test cases for low‑altitude defense inside the homeland. Homeland security experts have already warned that the traditional “Super Bowl model” of massive bespoke counter‑UAS (c-UAS) deployments for a single stadium on a single day will not scale to 16 host cities over more than a month of play. Many observers expect that the first visible implementation of Golden Dome‑style thinking will look less like a new strategic missile shield and more like an integrated, multi‑agency c-UAS network stitched together under common authorities and data standards.
Counter‑UAS Authorities Widen and Harden
Just prior to the NDS release, the FY 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) made some of the most significant adjustments to c‑UAS authorities since Congress first carved out DoD’s domestic roles. In general, the NDAA broadens responsibilities across the DoD, Homeland Security, Justice and Energy, with an eye toward more coherent homeland airspace protection.
The SAFER SKIES Act forms the centerpiece of those changes on the domestic front. Embedded in Title LXXXVI of the NDAA, for the first time, this Act creates a structured pathway for state, local, Tribal, and territorial (SLTT) law enforcement, as well as certain correctional agencies, to detect, track, and after certification, actively mitigate drones that pose credible threats to people, critical infrastructure, major public events or detention facilities.
Historically, active counter‑drone measures such as jamming, seizing control or disabling an aircraft were tightly held by a small set of federal entities. Federal criminal, communications and airspace law constrained SLTT officers who saw a dangerous drone overhead. Under SAFER SKIES, accredited SLTT agencies can employ approved c‑UAS technologies within a federally supervised framework: completed mandatory training, technology approval lists and 48‑hour reporting requirement. This expansion to SLTT law enforcement arguably represents the most consequential c‑UAS provisions in the entire bill.
Alongside SAFER SKIES, other key NDAA provisions reauthorize and strengthen DoD counter‑drone authority to protect additional military sites and to improve coordination with federal, state and local partners. The NDAA also establishes a dedicated DoD c‑UAS task force to unify doctrine, acquisition and training around a common playbook. It also extends tailored mitigation authority to the Department of Energy for nuclear security and expands DHS and DOJ tools for domestic airspace protection, bound by new reporting, compliance and penalty structures designed to keep the broader web of counter‑UAS actors accountable.
In the midst of these Congressional and Presidential-level laws and orders, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) unleashed an updated NOTAM that significantly broadened the scope of no-drone zone bubbles around not only DoD static facilities, but also their mobile assets and “escorts” (undefined), as well as those of the DHS and DOE. (See prior AG coverage of the FAA NOTAM and First Amendment).
While the interplay of the FAA’s NOTAM with c-UAS laws might be imperfect, taken together, all of these efforts aim to move both federal and state practice closer to the NDS ambition of defending “our nation’s skies” with a sustained focus on unmanned threats. (See prior AG coverage relating to c-UAS and the FAA NOTAM). They also begin to create the legal and policy space for Golden Dome’s vision of treating drones as just another track in an integrated air picture rather than an exceptional problem handled by ad hoc waivers and event specific work‑arounds.
FIFA, FEMA and Golden Dome’s First Field Labs
Money should accelerate these policy goals. FEMA has already launched a dedicated Counter‑UAS Grant Program, with an initial $250 million awarded to 11 World Cup host states plus the National Capital Region and a total of $500 million planned over two years. The grants explicitly aim to help jurisdictions “defend against unauthorized drone activity.” This effectively puts state and local agencies on the front line of the c-UAS mission. (See prior AG coverage of airspace infrastructure related to FIFA and other events).
Those funds sit alongside new joint structures such as Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF‑401), established last year to coordinate homeland counter‑drone operations and experimentation. JIATF‑401 has already marked its first 100 days of counter‑drone operations and is positioned as a key integrator between DoD, other federal departments and civil authorities. As FIFA preparations intensify, the combination of grants and joint task‑force activity will likely convert scattered pilot projects into something much closer to a functioning national framework for low‑altitude defense.
Will the c‑UAS architecture built for World Cup security be structured from day one to scale? That would require common data formats, persistent low‑altitude surveillance that fuses heterogeneous sensors and governance mechanisms that survive beyond the final match. If so, then near‑term the persistent detection networks, modular and urban‑safe effectors and federated command‑and‑control (C2) systems associated with the World Cup could convert the Golden Dome concept from a slogan into the first public‑facing prototypes.
“Supercharging” the Industrial Base, Drones Included
NDS Line of Effort 4, “Supercharge the U.S. Defense Industrial Base,” forms the NDS’ industrial backbone. It describes the defense industrial base (DIB) as the “foundation” for executing the entire strategy and calls for what it terms a national “call to industrial arms,” tied to this administration’s broader push to re‑shore strategic manufacturing.
The document demands that the United States return to being the “world’s premier arsenal,” able to produce for itself and its allies at scale, rapidly and with high quality. It emphasizes three themes with direct implications for the drone and counter‑drone ecosystem:
- Expanding domestic capacity and re‑shoring key production.
- Empowering innovators and traditional primes while clearing away outdated regulations.
- Accelerating the adoption of emerging technologies into real programs rather than letting them languish in perpetual experimentation.
Here, the rhetoric intersects directly with the FY26 NDAA and related appropriations. Congressional and expert analyses highlight “autonomous systems” as a priority area, with increased support for unmanned vehicles, robotics and counter‑UAS capabilities in both procurement and RDT&E accounts. One flagship example is the roughly $1 billion effort commonly described as a push to build a U.S. industrial base for low‑cost attack drones, with an objective of fielding on the order of 300,000 expendable systems by 2028 through a competitive, multi‑phase process. (See prior AG coverage of the 2026 government autonomy outlook).
This initiative will use a series of “gauntlet” demonstrations and other‑transaction agreements (OTAs) to qualify multiple producers, with costs expected to fall as volumes increase. Although billed primarily as an offensive capability, the same manufacturing and supply‑chain base will presumably also support the swarming target drones, red‑team surrogates and training aids essential for counter‑UAS development and doctrine.
Where Strategy, NDAA and Funding Converge
The FY26 NDAA authorizes roughly $890.6 billion in national defense spending, about $8 billion above the President’s request, with nearly $9 billion more than requested for procurement and about $3.7 billion more for RDT&E. That gap between the request and the final bill is where the NDS’ industrial ambitions start to translate into program‑by‑program reality.
For drones and counter‑drones, several threads stand out. The new counter‑UAS task force, expanded mitigation authorities and homeland‑oriented provisions map directly onto Line of Effort 1 and the Golden Dome emphasis on unmanned threats. Extra procurement and RDT&E dollars create room to fund initiatives like the attack‑drone industrial‑base push and to harden supply chains against foreign control, including tighter limits on components from “foreign entities of concern.”
Provisions that encourage joint U.S.–Israel work on counter‑UAS point to a tangible expression of the NDS call to leverage allied industrial capacity. In parallel, the Defense Appropriations Act and its joint explanatory statement steer additional funding toward selected weapons and modernization efforts, which reinforces the NDAA’s focus on emerging threats and production capacity. This provides a friendly environment for both classified and unclassified UAS and CUAS lines, within the broader procurement portfolio. Looking ahead 24–36 months, the pacing items for the autonomy community seem clear enough to sketch out.
Near Term
World Cup‑driven grants and interagency exercises will speed deployment of state and local counter‑UAS sensors and effectors by building a low‑altitude surveillance layer across host metros that can be studied and refined. At the same time, the new c‑UAS task force and JIATF‑401 will use fresh NDAA authorities to align requirements, training and acquisition paths that shape vendor roadmaps.
Mid-Term
Attack‑drone industrial‑base programs should ramp into higher‑rate production, with costs falling as capacity grows and top performers becoming recurring suppliers for operational and training UAS fleets. Lessons from Golden Dome‑related efforts, including World Cup security and early sensor‑fusion work with FAA and other stakeholders, will likely inform more formal program structures. If subsequent NDAAs and appropriations sustain industrial‑base expansion, including facilities, workforce and component re‑shoring, unmanned systems will benefit.
For companies and agencies in the drone ecosystem, because the 2026 NDS treats homeland airspace as a primary theater, it frames c‑UAS as a national mission and expects the DIB to deliver volume, speed and resilience. The money has already started to move through NDAA authorizations, FEMA grants and targeted Pentagon programs. The organizations that win will be those that can plug into a Golden Dome‑compatible architecture that can work in 2026, and then scale in the years that follow.