A plane takes off from El Paso International Airport in El Paso, Texas, in 2014. All flights in and out of the airport were grounded for several hours on Feb. 11, 2026. The Trump administration initially reported that drones from Mexican drug cartels had penetrated the airspace around the airport, but sources later said the military was testing high-energy lasers designed to protect against drones and officials weren’t sure if it would impact flights. (Shutterstock/Jeff Schultes)

Collaborating and Integrating to Defend the Homeland Against Drones

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Recent events in El Paso, Texas, show that we need better coordination among agencies to defend the US against the rising threat of small unmanned aircraft systems.

For the first time in our nation’s history, the United States faces an emerging persistent air threat within our nation’s airspace and homeland. The threat is outpacing current policy, authorities, capabilities, and organizational structures. Today, small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are operating with near impunity as tools of espionage, criminal activity, even state‑sponsored probing. Small UAS are readily available, inexpensive, adaptable, and here today, inside our borders and within our nation’s airspace.

Responding to this threat requires a collaborative and integrated whole of nation approach, and this is why the work Joint Interagency Task Force-401 has done, and continues to do, is so critical. Over the past year, the task force has enabled significant progress by unifying federal efforts to detect, assess, and counter UAS threats. JIATF‑401 is bringing together multiple layers within the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security, the intelligence community, and law enforcement, to build a collaborative and integrated approach that addresses the threat, while fielding and accelerating counter UAS capability development. Newly released guidance, “Countering Drone Threats in the Homeland”, marks another important step forward. It helps clarify roles and responsibilities, strengthens coordination mechanisms, and sets the foundation for an integrated national response.

Recent events in El Paso, Texas, make it clear that even with new guidance, our system still lacks the unity and clarity this threat demands. The threat is outpacing our ability to respond, and the nation must now confront a fundamental question: What specific critical infrastructure must be protected, who is responsible for protecting it, and what capabilities can, and will be utilized? These questions are the policy gap at the center of our homeland defense challenge, including for Golden Dome. Today, no single department or agency has clear responsibility, or authority, for defending the full range of critical infrastructure, from airports and seaports to energy facilities, military bases, and major population centers. Authorities are fragmented. Responsibilities overlap and adversaries know it. Unclear responsibilities often lead to gridlock and inaction, a fact that is painfully clear to our adversaries.

In 2018, lawmakers created important counter-drone authorities through the Preventing Emerging Threats Act, allowing DHS and DOJ to detect, track, and when necessary, mitigate credible UAS threats to certain covered facilities and assets. These authorities were designed with guardrails and coordination requirements, but they were never intended to be the answer for a drone-saturated homeland. The government must act to close clear policy gaps, establish clear authorities across departments and agencies, provide adequate sustained funding, and define an end state that the American people understand, and can implement.

JIATF‑401, through a collaborative joint and interagency approach, has demonstrated that when the government unifies efforts it moves faster, and more efficiently and effectively. The task force has greatly improved information sharing across the intelligence community, accelerated technological assessments, and helped federal and state partners understand the scale and complexity of the threat. To fully succeed, however, JIATF‑401 must be empowered to do more. It must become the connective tissue between the intelligence community, the Federal Aviation Administration, industry innovators, and the Pentagon’s Golden Dome initiative, to implement a whole of nation approach and framework that addresses the threat.

What might that framework look like? 

Start with clear roles. The FAA should remain responsible for the safe and efficient operation of the National Airspace System, but it cannot be expected to manage and ensure safe airspace alone. The FAA requires real-time threat intelligence and cross agency collaboration, integrated sensor data, and decision-support tools so that malicious activity can be identified and acted on without risking aviation safety.

DHS should serve as the lead federal department for protecting domestic critical infrastructure and nationally significant events from UAS threats, coordinating with state and local partners. DOJ should remain the lead for law enforcement operations, investigations and prosecutions stemming from unlawful drone activity. The Intelligence Community must be aligned so threat indicators and foreign intelligence flow quickly to operators and decision-makers.

The Pentagon should focus on defending military infrastructure and strategic sites and providing unique capabilities in support of civil authorities when threats exceed civilian capacity. JIATF-401 should sit at the center as the integrator, setting common standards, accelerating testing and evaluation, and driving rapid fielding pathways across a diverse interagency mission.

This framework must also be scalable beyond Washington. The 2022 whole-of-government action plan explicitly called for expanded detection authorities for state, local, tribal and territorial law enforcement, and for critical infrastructure owners and operators, along with training, oversight mechanisms, and an incident tracking database. That is the right direction: empower local partners, but do it responsibly, with federal standards and oversight.

Training and exercises must match the threat. A National Interagency Counter-UAS Training Center, shared incident reporting, and routine interagency exercises would help ensure that first responders to a drone incident, often state and local authorities, are connected to federal intelligence and federal mitigation tools in real time.

Industry must be a full partner. The pace of innovation in drones, and counter-drone technologies, has, and will continue to exceed the speed of traditional government acquisition. Solutions must have open architectures, shared data, rapid prototyping and transparent performance standards, so the best systems can be identified and deployed quickly, and so operators can trust that systems will work effectively and safely in complex airspace.

Finally, any expansion of counter-UAS authorities must protect civil liberties and preserve safety. The 2022 action plan explicitly emphasized safeguarding privacy, civil rights, the communications spectrum and the national airspace even as authorities expand. That balance is not a footnote; it is a prerequisite for public trust.

The drone threat is here and growing, and it is probing the seams of our system. Our nation can’t afford to wait for a crisis to force our hand. JIATF-401 has shown what is possible when the right people collaborate to solve common challenges. The government must define responsibilities, fund integration, and demand measurable results to defend the homeland with the clarity, speed, and unity the moment requires.

About the Author: Glen VanHerck

Glen VanHerck is a retired US Air Force general. He served as commander of US Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) from 2020 to 2024. He previously served as Director of the Joint Staff from 2019 to 2020.

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