The commander-in-chief has said he expects Driscoll to be a “disruptor and change agent” at the Pentagon as secretary of the Army.

In a list of advance policy questions from senators ahead of his confirmation hearing Thursday, the nominee was asked if he believes the Army should exploit commercial off-the-shelf solutions to meet its requirements.

“Wherever possible, and as required by Federal Acquisition Regulations, the Army should purchase non-development and COTS solutions to meet requirements. Some capabilities require the Army to undertake independent development, but many of the Army’s most pressing needs: small-unmanned aerial systems, counter-unmanned aerial systems, electronic warfare systems, and communications gear have already been developed,” Driscoll wrote in his responses.

He noted that he’s worried about the ability of the U.S. industrial base to provide sufficient military stocks to fully support American warfighters.

“Additionally, our technological edge is shrinking. The Army needs to accelerate its modernization and better prepare our forces for the advances in drone and autonomous warfare the world has witnessed in Ukraine,” he wrote.

Driscoll suggested that the service’s test-and-evaluation requirements for non-developmental items would depend on the operational need and the urgency of the capabilities.

“Some commercial products and non-development items should move immediately into the field without testing or with minimal testing because the Army currently has no existing capability. In other situations, the Army can thoroughly test non-developmental and commercial items because the operational need is less dire,” he told lawmakers.

He noted that if confirmed, he will evaluate the service’s ability to test and evaluate software and other tools that require “rapid transition.”

Driscoll, an Army veteran, was recently a senior adviser to JD Vance, who’s now serving as Trump’s vice president. He also worked in venture capital and private equity.

“As a former Soldier, Investor, and Political Advisor, Dan brings a powerful combination of experiences to serve as a disruptor and change agent. Dan graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in three years to join the fight with the U.S. Army. After completing U.S. Army Ranger school, Dan deployed with the 10th Mountain Division as a Cavalry Scout Platoon Leader in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post in December. “Dan will be a fearless and relentless fighter for America’s Soldiers and the America First agenda.”

A full Senate confirmation vote for Driscoll hasn’t been scheduled, but he’s expected to get the thumbs up from lawmakers.

Meanwhile, Trump has nominated John Phelan, a businessman and co-founder of MSD Capital, to be secretary of the Navy and Troy Meink, a senior leader at the National Reconnaissance Office to serve as secretary of the Air Force. Their confirmation hearings haven’t been scheduled.

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“A lot of the ground units now have tactical [unmanned aerial systems, or UAS] that they might bring in,” the official said during an off-camera briefing at the Pentagon.

On the condition of anonymity, they and another top defense official took questions from the media regarding the Defense Department’s first official statement about how its components plan to rapidly respond to President Donald Trump’s executive mandates to tighten security at America’s southern border with the support of the U.S. military. 

The press briefing marked the first at the Pentagon since Trump re-entered office Monday, and it was attended by some of his administration’s first political appointees to trickle into the five-sided building. Border security was a major tenet of the president’s campaign commitments in the lead-up to this election and previously in 2016.

Acting Secretary of Defense Robert Salesses issued a statement Wednesday revealing the department’s immediate plans for the expedited implementation of Trump’s executive orders pertaining to the border — including the employment of U.S. military forces for “directed missions.” 

U.S. Northern Command is the operational lead for this multifaceted initiative, and Transportation Command and other elements of the services have been called on to assist. Teams from the Department of Homeland Security and the National Guard Bureau are also working in partnership with DOD to execute the administration’s vision.

Salesses confirmed in the statement that he officially approved the Pentagon’s plans to augment troops at the southwest border with orders for roughly 1,500 additional ground personnel, plus helicopters with associated crews, and teams of intelligence analysts to enhance “detection and monitoring” pursuits. 

Further, he announced that DOD will supply military airlift for DHS deportation flights of more than 5,000 people who were detained by Customs and Border Protection in specific California and Texas sectors. The department will also aid in constructing temporary and permanent physical barriers to help counter illicit border crossings. 

During the press briefing, the senior defense official emphasized: “This is the initial effort that we can do right away, and then we anticipate many additional missions after this. This is just the start.” 

The additional troops will consist of 1,000 soldiers and 500 Marines who are going to join about 2,500 military personnel already deployed in border operations, the senior defense official said, adding at the time of the Wednesday afternoon briefing that the first of these EO-supporting missions was expected to begin over the following 24 to 48 hours. 

According to the senior military official, the Air Force is sending C-17s and C-130s to remove the DHS-detained deportees.

“We also anticipate that there could be some additional airborne intelligence, surveillance and support assets that would move down to the border to increase situational awareness,” they said.

In response to reporters’ questions, the officials confirmed that military leaders are considering the deployment of tactical UAS to complement troops’ efforts on the ground near Mexico.

“They can provide localized intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in their particular area. Obviously, the Army’s got MQ-1s, Air Force has MQ-9s, over various times in the past provided some level of support. And then you have manned platforms that could fly in support as well. So, that is still not fully decided yet. We’re waiting to refine what the requirement is working with NorthCom on that — but we’ll let you know as soon as we’ve dubbed it out a bit,” the military official said.

Under DOD’s current drone policy, the military can perform UAS operations domestically in support of a request from federal or state civilian authorities, but only with the defense secretary’s explicit approval. 

The guidance also states that the military can only deploy armed drones in the U.S. for training, exercise, and testing purposes.

A defense spokesperson said on Wednesday that they could not immediately answer DefenseScoop’s questions regarding any potential governmentwide or DOD policy changes associated with domestic U.S. military drone flights.

NorthCom spokespersons did not respond to requests for more information by publication on Thursday.

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Sullivan shared new details about those takeaways and other defense-related discussions he’s engaging in amid the presidential transition — including the Pentagon’s fast-tracked drone-fielding initiative Replicator — with a small group of reporters at the White House on Wednesday. 

“[One] area where we’ve begun the process, where I think they need to move very rapidly, is in the integration of artificial intelligence capabilities into not just weapons systems, but everything — the back office, logistics and supply systems — all of it, basically,” he told DefenseScoop at the invite-only roundtable.

Broadly, the DIB encompasses the entities that provide the military with the material, products and services needed to deter and prevail in conflict and global competition. 

But beyond that, the Biden administration has also called on the DIB to produce those items for international partners currently engaged in warfare, including Ukraine and Israel — as well as Taiwan, for deterrence purposes. 

Sullivan noted that in his early months at the White House, his team was sharply focused on the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan and “working through kind of setting up [the administration’s] strategy with respect to a lot of other significant issues in the world.”  

“So, DIB was not at the top of the list for me, walking in the door. And it was really the lead-up to the war in Ukraine in the fall of ‘21 that I began to recognize that, in many respects, the cupboard was bare,” Sullivan said.

Around that same time, the AUKUS trilateral security alliance between Australia, the U.K., and the U.S. was announced. Sullivan subsequently started looking into the submarine industrial base’s capacity for tasks associated with the partnership’s Pillar I aims.

“People would produce charts for me — basically going back to 1990 — the workforce challenges, the supply chain challenges, the under-investment. And it became clear to me that this has been a story that I don’t think has gotten the attention it’s deserved,” Sullivan explained.

Those experiences made him fully recognize what he called “the importance of a demand signal from the top.” 

During Sullivan’s tenure, Biden’s administration published the U.S.’s first National Defense Industrial Strategy and implementation plan to guide engagement, policy development, and investment in the DIB in the near term.

“Turning the vision into execution is difficult, and it takes persistence and repeat demand signal. And even then, you’re only going to get a portion of the things you are asking for. And so one of my pieces of advice for the incoming team is, right out of the gate, take this momentum that we’ve begun to build up and really push. Don’t kind of wait a year or two years on it. Let’s push now,” Sullivan said.

DefenseScoop asked the national security advisor to expand on some of the other tips he’s leaving behind to his counterparts in the Trump administration.

“One of the things that I have asked the incoming team to do is to take a brief on the elements of the defense industrial base that I’ve taken so that in the early weeks, they’re sort of fully up to speed on exactly what we’re still facing as deficits — with respect to subs, with respect to long-range strike. Those are two areas in particular that I would be focused on and that I told the next team to take a hard look at,” Sullivan said. 

On his way out, Sullivan said he’s also encouraging the incoming team to continue to focus on accelerating AI adoption across the Pentagon and military, which was also a top priority in Trump’s first administration.

“I think DOD is working that, but we have to go a lot further, a lot faster. So that’s another area that I’ve told the upcoming team to put attention to. We’ve got this national security memorandum. It has put out a lot of tasks for the defense enterprise. Those tasks are beginning to be completed, but that work is going to have to continue in a big way under the new team,” Sullivan told DefenseScoop. 

Also among what he considers to be the Biden administration’s DIB-enabling accomplishments is the long list of moves to support Ukraine’s military in response to Russia’s large-scale invasion.

“I think the single biggest thing about this war that we have not seen as acutely in previous conflicts is the need to constantly adapt and iterate — that it is a learning function on both sides. There’s an innovation in a capability, it produces great lethality. The other side adjusts, comes up with an electronic warfare solution to degrade that lethality, the other side then has to adjust. And so it’s war through some combination of technological adjustment and software update, and that is an unusual thing for people used to fighting a more static type of conflict,” Sullivan said.

The U.S., under Biden, committed to injecting more than $1.5 billion in multiple types of investments to help Ukraine get to a point where it can manufacture and produce drones at scale — steadily, during a still-unfolding war, he said.

“And the point that I’m trying to register for the incoming team is [that] whatever happens in Ukraine, the need for this sustained scale-up is there for U.S. deterrence and U.S. defense needs for this foreseeable future — and we just have to be able to somehow convert that reality into an actionable demand signal that industry can respond on,” Sullivan told reporters. 

Applying lessons learned from Ukraine domestically, the administration held what Sullivan called a “first-of-its-kind conference” with officials from across the U.S. combatant commands and Pentagon acquisition components “to take stock of, essentially, where does this UAV component fit into the future of warfare.”

Biden appointees leading the Pentagon launched the high-profile Replicator initiative to accelerate the delivery of next-generation warfighting technologies in repeatable processes — beginning with thousands of drones to be fielded by August 2025 to counter China’s growing military build-up. 

“The idea is basically to learn a lot of the lessons that we’ve seen over the course of the past couple of years from Ukraine,” Sullivan noted.

He declined to give reporters a precise timeline for Replicator system deployment plans but expressed confidence that it would carry on as a priority initiative in the Trump administration.

“I have no reason to believe the new team is going to say, ‘Nope, we’re going to take that away.’ You’d have to ask them, but I think that that has a momentum of its own that can and should continue,” Sullivan said.

To date, Trump’s team has not disclosed whether they aim to cut, keep or modify Replicator. Spokespersons from his transition team did not respond to DefenseScoop’s request for comment before publication.

“What’s interesting to me is that if the U.S. actually went to war tomorrow — itself — I think that the pace of change would iterate much more rapidly. So, the possibility that this timeline can be accelerated just through agency is there. Now, agency typically is driven more by external imperatives. Necessity being the mother of invention, rather than just by us coming together to say we’re going to do it,” Sullivan told reporters.

“But my pitch to the incoming team is, with all the lessons we’ve now learned and the picture we now see so clearly, let’s take some steps, and let’s do it on a bipartisan basis,” he said.

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In responses to questions from DefenseScoop this week, Pahon discussed Hicks’ plans and priorities for her final days helping steer the Defense Department’s major technology programs.

“Deputy Secretary Hicks’ priorities today remain the same as they have been since her first day in office: Foremost, in support of the secretary and president, she is maintaining her focus on ensuring that DOD can outpace strategic competitors like the [People’s Republic of China] by fielding more combat-credible capabilities at greater speed and scale, continually iterating on novel operational concepts, distributing and hardening our force posture, and leveraging our unparalleled ability to generate innovation with and through America’s private sector,” he said. 

“She is also maintaining a laser focus on financial accountability, strengthening the department’s institutional pillars, including by ensuring a smooth and professional transition, and taking care of the DOD workforce,” Pahon added. 

On Friday, Hicks is scheduled to speak at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies regarding lessons her team learned in their efforts associated with “strategic competition” and China, the spokesperson noted. 

Hicks was sworn in as the 35th deputy secretary of defense in February 2021. She is the first Senate-confirmed woman to serve in the role and is the highest-ranking woman to have served in DOD to date.

As the Pentagon’s No. 2, Hicks launched the high-stakes Replicator initiative to accelerate the delivery of next-generation warfighting technologies in repeatable processes — beginning with thousands of drones to be fielded by August 2025 to counter China’s growing military prowess. She also set up the recently-sunset Task Force Lima to explore generative AI in a responsible manner and account for the seen and unknown risks it presents within the U.S. national security arena.

Among other high-profile moves, Hicks also created the DOD’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) in mid–2022 to investigate military-aligned reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).

Pahon confirmed that “Hicks made initial contact with the president-elect’s DOD transition team lead on Dec. 13,” noting that she’ll “remain at OSD through the end of the Biden-Harris Administration at noon on Jan. 20.”

Last month, Trump nominated billionaire investor Stephen Feinberg to serve as deputy defense secretary in his new administration. If they are both confirmed, Feinberg would report to the president-elect’s pick for defense secretary, television presenter Pete Hegseth. 

“The deputy secretary conveyed the department’s commitment to conducting a smooth and professional transition with the incoming Trump administration,” Pahon said of Hicks.

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