The memo opens with an argument about the past. “After its Cold War victory, the U.S. steadily reduced its budget allocation for defense,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth wrote on Sept. 30. The military adapted by buying “fewer, increasingly sophisticated weapons,” a strategy he said worked for 40 years.
Then comes the turn. “Warfare, however, has changed dramatically and suddenly,” the memo says. Cheap, precise weapons can now be made in huge numbers, and they “increasingly threaten our costly legacy platforms.” Its conclusion is blunt: “We do not have a decade to transition our procurement and doctrine.”
That two-page Project Agincourt – Pathway to the Autonomous Warfare Command, titled “Project Agincourt – Pathway to the Autonomous Warfare Command,” is the Pentagon’s blueprint for its first new combatant command since 2019. Hegseth announced it the same day in his State of the Force address at Marine Corps Base Quantico. We read the memo and its attachment, then traced how the idea grew over five months, from a smaller command Hegseth mentioned in April to a four-star one that now needs an act of Congress.
What the memo orders
The memo puts the Pentagon’s new office for drone and robotics programs, the Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Unmanned Systems (DRPM-UxS), in charge of Project Agincourt.
That effort has two jobs. The first is to “establish the pathway to the Autonomous Warfare Command,” which the memo describes as a functional combatant command “that will lead the Joint Force in unmanned and autonomous warfare.” The command is to have “directed manpower, budget, acquisition authorities” and dedicated career paths for officers and enlisted personnel.
The second job is less visible and may matter as much. The office is told to prototype a new way of buying drones, one that teams operators with innovators and manufacturers and pushes “decisions and dollars to the edge of our operational forces.” The memo spells out the goal in one sentence: “a repeatable procurement system whose output is not a particular drone, but the ability to adapt in combat, on the right side of the cost exchange.”
Owen West, director of the Defense Innovation Unit, and Navy SEAL Senior Chief Max Strasiser will serve as the office’s chief executive and chief operating officer. Military Times reported that Hegseth described their roles as a “CEO, COO partnership” and said a four-star commander for the new command would be named soon. “The pace of war is changing faster than the process to support it,” Hegseth told the troops, according to Military Times.
Once built, the command would “define joint needs and integrate Service-provided forces in support of geographic combatant commanders,” the memo says, and test equipment “with realistic opposition in demanding exercises and rugged environments.”
The next 30 days
The memo sets the first deadline. Within 30 days, the drone office, supported by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, must submit a plan of action and milestones for Hegseth’s approval. That puts it due around Oct. 30. According to the attachment, the plan must identify priority operations, what forces each service will contribute, “command relationships,” how the drone office itself will be absorbed into the command, resources, required authorities and milestones. Where choices are unresolved, it must lay out alternatives and a recommendation.
The attachment also orders the military departments to propose new or adapted career fields, known as military occupational specialties, for unmanned and autonomous systems. The drone office is to report to Hegseth monthly on results, service adoption and decisions required. In the meantime, the memo says, “initial work will proceed immediately under existing authorities.”
The part that needs Congress
The speech announced the command. The memo is more specific about what it will take. It directs the drone office to “collaborate directly with Congress to secure necessary legislation with a target establishment date of October 1, 2027.”
Congress has already written a version. In June, the Senate Armed Services Committee’s fiscal 2027 defense policy bill included language “permitting the establishment of the Robotic and Autonomous Systems Combatant Command,” DefenseScoop reported, citing the committee’s summary.
A senior committee staffer told reporters that command would be led by a four-star officer and would get special testing authorities and “limited acquisition authorities.” The Senate bill and the memo use different names. Which version, if any, becomes law will be settled as the House and Senate reconcile their bills.
The money has a similar gap. The Pentagon’s fiscal 2027 request sought $54.6 billion in research and development funding for the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group, a drone-development organization the department created last year out of the Biden-era Replicator initiative, DefenseScoop reported. In fiscal 2026, the group received $225.9 million.
According to Defense-Aerospace, which cited a Congressional Research Service table, most of the request was designated as mandatory funding through budget reconciliation. The House and Senate armed services committees and the House Appropriations Committee each wrote down $1 billion, the discretionary portion. We could not review the Congressional Research Service table directly.
How it got here
The Autonomous Warfare Command is the latest step in a sequence that moved quickly this year.
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Pentagon folds the Replicator drone initiative into a new Defense Autonomous Warfare Group | DefenseScoop |
| Apr. 2026 | Southern Command launches its own Southcom Autonomous Warfare Command | DefenseScoop |
| Apr. 29, 2026 | Hegseth tells the House Armed Services Committee, “We will shortly announce a sub-unified command for autonomous warfare” | DefenseScoop |
| June 2026 | Senate Armed Services bill would permit a four-star Robotic and Autonomous Systems Combatant Command | DefenseScoop |
| July 1, 2026 | Memo creating the DRPM-UxS drone office, reporting to Deputy Secretary Steven Feinberg, is released | DefenseScoop; Military Times |
| Sept. 30, 2026 | Project Agincourt memo targets a four-star Autonomous Warfare Command | Memo |
| Oct. 30, 2026 (approx.) | 30-day plan due to Hegseth | Memo |
| Oct. 1, 2027 | Target date to establish the command | Memo |
The biggest change came in April. A sub-unified command sits under an existing combatant command, the way Joint Special Operations Command sits under U.S. Special Operations Command. Five months later, the plan is a full combatant command of its own.
What earlier commands took
The United States has 11 unified combatant commands. The last three additions offer a yardstick for what the department is attempting.
| Command | How it came about | Established |
|---|---|---|
| Special Operations Command | Congress passed the Nunn-Cohen Amendment requiring a command with control over its own resources | Apr. 16, 1987 |
| Cyber Command | Elevated to a unified combatant command | May 4, 2018 |
| Space Command | Re-established as the 11th unified command, after an earlier version ran from 1985 to 2002 | Aug. 29, 2019 |
Special Operations Command is the closest match to what the memo describes. It was created because Congress, after the failed Desert One hostage rescue in Iran and problems in the Grenada invasion, required a command with its own resources, according to the command’s official history.
The Autonomous Warfare Command memo asks for the same kind of power: its own manpower, budget and acquisition authority. Special Operations Command got those through legislation, and the new memo acknowledges that this command will need legislation too.
Three open questions and a 2027 deadline
The same speech also announced Project Meridian, a separate 120-day study of future warfare led by Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey and Newt Gingrich. Neither memo mentions the other. The Agincourt plan is due to Hegseth in about 30 days, a four-star commander has yet to be named, and the House and Senate have yet to settle their defense bills. The target for the command itself is Oct. 1, 2027.
The Project Agincourt memo: what the Autonomous Warfare Command must deliver, the 30-day plan, the budget gap, and why it needs an act of Congress.
Sources:
- Secretary of War, memorandum, “Project Agincourt – Pathway to the Autonomous Warfare Command,” with attachment “Accountability and Implementation Requirements,” Sept. 30, 2026 (PDF);
- Secretary of War, memorandum, “Project Agincourt – Pathway to the Autonomous Warfare Command,” with attachment “Accountability and Implementation Requirements,” Sept. 30, 2026 (PDF);
- Secretary of War, memorandum, “Commissioning of Project Meridian: The Future of Warfare,” Sept. 30, 2026 (PDF);
- Department of War, “Secretary Hegseth Announces Six Major Initiatives at Quantico Speech,” Sept. 30, 2026 (via Mirage News);
- Military Times, “Hegseth announces new four-star command for autonomous warfare,” Sept. 30, 2026;
- Air & Space Forces Magazine, Sept. 30, 2026;
- DefenseScoop, “Hegseth: Autonomous warfare sub-unified command coming soon,” Apr. 29, 2026;
- DefenseScoop, “Senate pushes DOD to create new combatant command for unmanned systems,” June 11, 2026;
- DefenseScoop, “Hegseth realigning DOD’s scattered unmanned and autonomy work under new drone boss,” July 1, 2026;
- Defense-Aerospace, “A New Command for Autonomous Warfare, and $55 Billion Behind It,” Sept. 9, 2026;
- Covington & Burling, Inside Government Contracts, May 2026;
- U.S. Special Operations Command, “USSOCOM marks 25th anniversary”;
- Military.com, “Cyber Command Elevated to Combatant Command,” May 4, 2018;
- SpacePolicyOnline, “U.S. Space Command Reestablished After 17-Year Hiatus,” Aug. 29, 2019.
Filed under: Department of War