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Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF-401)

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Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF-401)

U.S. Army-led Pentagon task force chartered to build out the U.S. military’s counter-unmanned-aerial-system capability across both overseas-combat and homeland-defense missions. Director (April 2026): Brig. Gen. matt-ross; deputy director (May 2026): Col. scott-mclellan; lead acquisitions specialist: Maj. matt-mellor; spokesperson: Lt. Col. adam-scher. Framed as the department-of-war’s lead organization for rapidly fielding C-UAS systems and aligning allied approaches.

Foundational homeland C-UAS guidance (Dec 2025 / Jan 2026)

The foundational primary source for JIATF-401’s homeland mission is the December 8, 2025 SecWar-signed counter-UAS guidance, announced via DoW press release on January 26, 2026 (src-jiatf-401-counter-drone-homeland-guidance-2026-01). The guidance:

  • Runs on the authority of 10 U.S. Code § 130i — DoD’s detect-and-mitigate authority over UAS threats to covered facilities.
  • Directs installation-commanders to issue installation-specific operating procedures within 60 days.
  • Names three institutional supports JIATF-401 provides to commanders: joint-c-suas-university (JCU) training, transparent knowledge sharing, and the materiel marketplace (the earliest on-record naming of the marketplace concept).
  • Earliest on-record Matt Ross quotes: “drones are a defining threat for our time,” “countering drones does not start and stop at the fence line,” “hardware alone is not sufficient.”

April 2026 commitments

Per DefenseScoop reporting:

  • Total committed: >$600 million in C-UAS investment.
  • ~$350M directed to CENTCOM’s Operation Epic Fury in just the first ~30 days of the Iran war — capabilities both already-fielded and not-yet-delivered.
  • Domestic spending: $20M+ at the southern border (13 sensors, 7 mitigation systems, 12+ data platforms; Wingman, Pitbull, and Smart Shooter rifle-mounted optics) and broad C-UAS investment across the 11 host cities of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
  • FY2027 budget request proposes a “massive increase” on top of FY2026 dollars.

tom-karako (CSIS) argues the drone problem has been “artificially divided” between combat and homeland — JIATF-401 is the institutional answer.

May 2026 — Directed-energy 5-base pilot

Per src-directed-energy-5-bases-pilot-2026-05, JIATF-401 announced on May 7 2026 a Pentagon pilot to field directed-energy-weapons (high-energy lasers and high-powered microwaves) at five U.S. bases within 180 days: naval-base-kitsap (Navy, WA), fort-bliss (Army, TX), fort-huachuca (Army, AZ), grand-forks-afb (USAF, ND), and whiteman-afb (USAF, MO). Brig. Gen. Matt Ross framed the pilot as “no silver bullet” — DEW is one element of a layered defense alongside the existing kinetic and RF C-UAS portfolio. Col. scott-mclellan cited white-sands-missile-range tests and U.S.-Mexico-border operational use as evidence that DE C-UAS does not pose “undue risk to passenger aircraft.”

NCR exercise and procurement (April 2026)

Per src-bumblebee-v2-ncr-counterdrone-2026-04:

  • Joint exercise with jtf-ncr at fort-belvoir training 3rd-infantry-regiment on Bumblebee V1 kinetic effector.
  • Procured DroneHunter F700 (Fortem) net-capture interceptors and Bumblebee V2 FPV multi-rotor.
  • March 2026 faa joint high-energy laser C-UAS test prioritizing civil-aviation safety.
  • Spearheaded a U.S.-UK common C-UAS data standards initiative for interoperability.
  • Spokesperson: Lt. Col. adam-scher.
  • Published a guide on regulating use of C-UAS detection technologies.

March 2026 — Anduril $20B enterprise IDIQ + Lattice C2

Per Breaking Defense: JIATF-401 selected anduril’s Lattice software as the C-UAS C2 backbone in an 20B / 10-year firm-fixed-price enterprise IDIQ. The vehicle consolidates 120 prior Army-Anduril contracts and is open to Pentagon-wide ordering. Sits alongside the jiatf-401-marketplace (allied procurement) as twin pillars of JIATF-401’s expanded procurement architecture.

April 2026 — Marketplace cumulative sales + stateside-events expansion

Per DefenseScoop, Army Secretary dan-driscoll told the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee on April 16 2026 that ~$13M of C-UAS tech has moved through the jiatf-401-marketplace since launch — buyers spanning the southern-border task force, CENTCOM (under operation-epic-fury), and homeland-defense services. Crucially:

  • State, local, and federal law enforcement are now eligible marketplace buyers, with purchases already made.
  • 350 state/local police departments have been brought through joint-base-myer-henderson-hall to sync them into a shared “sight picture” for cross-jurisdiction drone monitoring.
  • JIATF-401 has committed $100M to FIFA World Cup 2026 mobile C-UAS coverage across 11 cities / 9 states.
  • Marketplace tooling is being routed to harden America 250 and the 2028 LA Summer Olympics; tom-karako frames this as “Super Bowl-style bubbles over lots of things all year round.”
  • The doctrinal motivator cited is operation-spider-web (2025 Ukrainian truck-launched drone strike on Russian strategic aircraft).

May 2026 — Perennial Autonomy $500M three-year IDIQ

Per GovConWire, May 19 2026, the department-of-war announced JIATF-401’s award of a potential $500M three-year IDIQ to perennial-autonomy for enterprise C-UAS support. Bundles three Perennial product lines already fielded within centcom AOR:

Builds on a separate $5.2M Feb 2026 Bumblebee V2 agreement. Framed as a procurement accelerator complementing the jiatf-401-marketplace; all systems pair computer vision + RF sensing + secure comms with human-in-the-loop lethal-force decisions.

May 2026 — Army FY27 small-counter-UAS budget breakdown

Per Carley Welch, May 15 2026, the Army’s FY27 budget request itemizes **596M baseline (260M reconciliation). Eight line items:

  • $414M — operational sUAS (c-UAS batteries, expeditionary mobile platforms and sensors).
  • $165M — “fixed” homeland/installation defense and sUAS logistics.
  • $132M — effectors: 800 kinetic + 29 non-kinetic + 24 Freedom Eagle-1 units (aerovironment).
  • $108M — squad / individual soldier dismounted systems.
  • $80M — brigade-and-below Group 1/2 sUAS defense.
  • $66M — directed energy: two E-HEL systems, IBCS-M interoperable.
  • $24M — 12 expeditionary + 10 mobile launchers for one c-UAS battery.
  • ~$5M — FoCUS ground readiness / logistics.

This is the first FY27 dollar-itemized procurement breakdown in the vault — distinct from the $20B Anduril Lattice IDIQ (a contract ceiling) and the jiatf-401-marketplace cumulative-sales line.

April 2026 — JIATF-401 Marketplace partner expansion

Per U.S. Army release: the Secretary of the Army and romania’s Minister of National Defense signed an agreement enabling Romania to procure C-UAS capabilities through the jiatf-401-marketplace. Romania becomes the second named partner nation after the united-kingdom. The Army secretary’s stated goal is 25 partner nations by end of summer 2026. Brig. Gen. matt-ross frames the marketplace as scaling the C-UAS industrial base “from the tactical edge to critical infrastructure protection.”

May 2026 — Southern-border vendor “sandbox”

At SOF Week, NORTHCOM commander Gen. gregory-guillot described JIATF-401 using the U.S. southern border as a counter-drone “sandbox”: vendors are invited to demonstrate C-UAS at the border, NORTHCOM trials them operationally, and “if it works… we’ll probably buy it… potentially at scale.” Guillot said “hundreds of systems or components of systems” are already fielded there and that NORTHCOM imports lessons from centcom (src-northcom-southern-border-counter-drone-sandbox-2026-05). The framing operationalizes the marketplace’s “tactical edge to critical infrastructure” pitch at the homeland border.

June 2026 — CACI SkyValor validation

Per src-defensescoop-autonomous-cuas-approved-2026-06 (Drew F. Lawrence, Jun 9 2026), JIATF-401 validated CACI’s SkyValor (formerly Merlin) autonomous C-UAS system on June 7, 2026 for Joint Force-wide use following a two-day test at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona alongside Joint Task Force–Southern Border and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. SkyValor adds a new layer: RF jamming at 40+ mile range and net-capture at ~4 miles, running 24/7 on automated “sense and shoot” algorithms. Lt. Col. adam-scher confirmed it as “one component of a layered C-UAS defense.” Gen. gregory-guillot separately flagged that no portable C-UAS currently exists to follow patrolling soldiers — a gap SkyValor does not fill.

JIATF-401 has spent “at least hundreds of millions of dollars” on domestic counter-drone systems since inception.

July 2026 — AeroVironment Domestic Shield $500M IDIQ

aerovironment was awarded a second, separate sole-source three-year 80.5M) fields Titan-MS AI-fusion sensing/C2 plus EO/IR and radar to defend air-force-global-strike-command bases including barksdale-afb, citing its March 2026 incursions (src-defensescoop-titan-drone-defense-2026-07). Col. jason-idleman (Chief, Multi-Domain Operations Division) is quoted alongside Matt Ross.

July 2026 — CACI SkyValor $500M contract

Following its June 2026 Joint Force-wide validation, CACI’s SkyValor system was awarded a contract worth up to **500M Domestic Shield IDIQ. Col. tony-lindh (deputy director for rapid acquisitions) framed the IDIQ structure as deliberately avoiding “product-centric” lock-in to preserve layered, multi-vendor flexibility. The contract references new SkyValor variants CORIAN v3 (fixed-site) and BEAM (backpackable) — a step toward the portable soldier-accompanying capability Gen. gregory-guillot had flagged as missing — plus a separate truck-integrated variant. (src-caci-skyvalor-counter-drone-contract-2026-07)

July 2026 — Counter-drone handbook publication

JIATF-401 published “Small Drones, Big Problems: A First Principles Approach to Countering-UAS,” a public doctrine/outreach handbook building shared C-UAS vocabulary across government, industry, and academia, drawing on CENTCOM and European battlefield lessons (src-jiatf401-counter-drone-handbook-2026-07). Maj. joe-amoroso (deputy chief of strategic initiatives) and Matt Ross reiterate the “no silver bullet” layered-defense framing.

July 2026 — CBO whole-of-DoD cost estimate

A July 9, 2026 CBO report independently estimated the cost of protecting the Pentagon’s 100 most important installations with a multilayered C-UAS defense: up to **500M/year to maintain (src-cbo-counter-drone-cost-2026-07). This is a top-down whole-of-DoD baseline, distinct from JIATF-401’s incremental IDIQ/task-order spending (>$600M committed as of April 2026) — the CBO also found the C-UAS industrial base sufficient, citing 135 vendor responses to a DoD demonstration RFI.

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