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The Three-Legged Drone Stool: Policy, Production, and Protection
- ICIT Research
- 5 minutes ago
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Photo Credit: Created with SocialSight AI.
This OpEd was originally published in S.C. Media.
March 9, 2026
Author: Brett Freedman, Senior Director for Emerging Technology at the Institute for Critical Infrastructure (ICIT)
National security debates all too often swing between two divergent poles: policy reform and industrial capacity.
In the emerging age of drone warfare, however, neither is sufficient by itself. The United States is confronting a structural problem that cannot be solved with a single executive order, a new funding line, or a surge contract to industry, despite best efforts to do so.
Drone dominance rests on what I call a three-legged stool: policy, production and protection. Remove or weaken any one of these legs, and the entire structure collapses.
Over the past year, we've watched each leg wobble. Russia's mass drone attacks on Ukraine demonstrated what happens when production and battlefield integration outpace defensive policy. Meanwhile, China's frictionless export model showed how production without regulatory encumbrance can rapidly translate into geopolitical influence.
Here at home, recent executive orders on airspace sovereignty and drone integration acknowledged something Washington can no longer ignore: The United States has let the drone stool become unstable.
Previous stories in this series:
The current war against Iran is another reminder of the prominence of drones in modern warfare. Iran has launched one-way attack drones against Gulf targets as well as facilities as far away as Cyprus. This illustrates how quickly low-cost unmanned aerial systems (UAS) can put pressure on legacy air defenses.
If America wants to lead in the drone era, all three legs of the stool must be supported simultaneously.
The first leg: Policy — a framework for action
Policy is the structural brace. It defines authorities, responsibilities, legal boundaries, and strategic priorities.
U.S. drone policy is largely be fragmented across agencies. The FAA regulates airspace safety. The Department of Defense continues to experiment with counter-UAS technologies. The Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice possess limited authority to intercept rogue drones under narrow circumstances. State and local law enforcement continue to remain largely sidelined.The result is a patchwork, not a strategy.
The June 2025 executive orders "Unleashing American Drone Dominance" and "Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty" were overdue acknowledgments that drones are not just aviation tools, but national-security vectors.
The creation of a Federal Task Force to Restore American Airspace Sovereignty in June expanded authorities for detection and tracking. The establishment of a national counter-UAS training center in September signaled a shift toward coherence.
But executive action is no substitute for durable policy. Without statutory reforms that clarify engagement authorities, liability protections, interagency data sharing, and funding streams, counter-drone efforts will remain reactive. Clear rules of engagement and empowered operators neutralize drones, not reports and roadmaps.
To be successful, policy must (1) clearly define who can act when drones threaten public safety; (2) clarify where authority begins and ends in civilian airspace; and (3) align procurement, regulation, and export controls with strategic priorities.
Without such action, technology will only continue to outpace governance, and adversaries will exploit the gap.
The second leg: Production — the industrial reality
Policy without implementation (i.e. production) is mere aspiration.
The industrial base represents the second leg of the stool. It is the ability to build drones, counter-drone systems, sensors, interceptors, jammers, and software at both scale and speed.
Recent testimony from U.S. Central Command demonstrated a hard truth: the Foreign Military Sales system and defense industrial base are not configured for rapid drone-era competition.
Partners requesting systems today are told delivery could take years. Meanwhile, China arrives with financing packages, quick production timelines, and minimal strings attached.
Russia's campaign in Ukraine reveals the power of scalable production. By acquiring and domesticating Shahed drone-manufacturing capabilities, Moscow transformed a tactical tool into a strategic lever. Volume became a strategic weapon.
The U.S. continues to produce many systems, but in limited quantities. Promising counter-UAS technologies, such as directed energy, kinetic interceptors, and AI-enabled detection, remain stuck in pilot programs or limited runs. Surge capacity is absent. Supply chains are fragile. Incentives for long-term capital investment are uncertain.
The 2025 executive order encouraging multi-year contracting and strengthening the drone industrial base is directionally correct. But scaling production requires more than contract reform. It also demands:
Predictable multi-year procurement commitments;
Public-private capital partnerships;
Streamlined export licensing;
Secure domestic supply chains for critical components; and
A regulatory environment that does not discourage manufacturing growth.
Industrial policy and national security policy are one and the same in the drone era. If we cannot build at scale, we cannot deter at scale.
The third leg: Protection — drone defense
The third leg, protection, is the one that is most often neglected.
Building drones is one challenge. Stopping them is another.
Counter-drone capacity involves layered detection, electronic warfare, kinetic response, directed energy, cyber defense, and coordinated command-and-control. It also requires integration with civilian infrastructure such as airports, ports, stadiums, energy grids, and data centers.For years, the United States has treated counter-UAS as a military problem. But the drone threat is hybrid. It blurs the line commercial and military, between foreign adversary and domestic actor.
Recent executive actions directing integration of counter-UAS into Joint Terrorism Task Forces and establishing a national training center are steps toward addressing this reality. The push for risk-based assessments to designate protected areas such as large airports, borders, and critical infrastructure are also helpful.
But protection remains uneven at best.
Many private infrastructure operators lack legal clarity about which detection technologies they can deploy. State and local authorities lack the authority to jam or intercept rogue drones.
Coordination between federal intelligence and local operators is inconsistent at best and non-existent at worst, with the reality highly dependent on interpersonal relationships rather than policy.
Meanwhile, the cost exchange ratio between offense and defense remains difficult to overcome.
For example, a drone that costs a few thousand dollars to build and fly could require a million-dollar interceptor to defeat.
Until the U.S. solves the economics of counter-drone defense by using lower-cost interceptors, scalable electronic warfare, or directed-energy solutions, protection will lag behind offense.
The stool falls if any one leg fails
The metaphor of the stool serves to clarify what incremental debates may obscure.
If we focus only on production but neglect policy, we build capacity without coordination.
If we focus only on policy but neglect production, we generate strategy without building capability.
If we focus only on protection without reforming industry, we create defense that is effective only while supplies last.
The drone challenge is systemic. It is not solved through a single committee, contract, or command. It is solved when the following three elements are in place: (1) policy enables action, (2) production enables scale, and (3) protection enables resilience.
The legs are interdependent. Each one must reinforce the other two.
The strategic imperative
Drones are no longer a niche capability. They have become the default mode of modern conflict as illustrated today in the war against Iran. Arguably, the U.S. continues to possess the technological edge with the most sophisticated aerospace ecosystem globally. But leadership in a highly volatile space erodes when systems ossify.
The "Drone Stool" is intended to be a practical framework, forcing policymakers, defense planners, and industry leaders to confront a simple question: Are we strengthening all three legs at once?
If not, any instability will become quickly apparent in the form of a closed airport, a disabled power grid, or a compromised military base.
Technological advancements don't stop and wait for institutional reform. They accelerate past it. The United States must decide whether it will build a sustainable drone stool or instead wait to see how much imbalance can be tolerated before the stool falls over.
Brett Freedman is the Senior Director for Emerging Technology at the Institute for Critical Infrastructure (ICIT), a non-profit organization dedicated to the security and resilience of critical infrastructure that provides for people’s foundational needs. He also serves as a Senior National Security Fellow at the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas-Austin Law School. The opinions expressed in this article are his own and do not reflect the views of any employer or affiliated organization.
About ICIT
The Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, 501(c)3think tank with the mission of modernizing, securing, and making resilient critical infrastructure that provides for people’s foundational needs. ICIT takes no institutional positions on policy matters. Rather than advocate, ICIT is dedicated to being a resource for the organizations and communities that share our mission. By applying a people-centric lens to critical infrastructure research and decision making, our work ensures that modernization and security investments have a lasting, positive impact on society. Learn more at www.icitech.org.
