Summary
Reporting from the SOF Week exposition in Tampa, Breaking Defense quotes NORTHCOM/NORAD commander Gen. Gregory Guillot describing the U.S. southern border as “a literal and a figurative sandbox” for counter-drone technology. Through Joint Interagency Task Force 401, the military invites industry vendors to demonstrate counter-drone systems at the border with a buy-if-it-works promise, generating lessons that scale to “hundreds of systems” already deployed there. Guillot says NORTHCOM is borrowing lessons from CENTCOM and flags a specific capability gap: cartel drones overfly Marines and soldiers “all the time” (cartel drone threat), but existing fixed and movable C-UAS cannot follow a patrolling soldier, so he wants a portable, soldier-following option. His remarks follow an faa/DoD assessment a month earlier validating that high-energy laser counter-drone tech does not pose undue risk to passenger aircraft on the border. The piece also notes the February 2026 closure of El Paso airspace after the DoD fired a counter-drone laser system.
Key Claims
- Guillot: “We’ve made the southern border a literal and a figurative sandbox” for counter-drone tech (stated at SOF Week, Tampa).
- JIATF-401 runs a vendor pipeline at the border: bring tech down, NORTHCOM puts it to use and reports whether it works; if it works, the military “will probably buy it,” potentially “at scale.”
- “Hundreds of systems down there or components of systems” are already beneficiaries of lessons learned from other regions.
- NORTHCOM is learning “a lot” from CENTCOM and applying those lessons to the southern border (specifics not detailed).
- Cartel drones fly over Marines and soldiers on the border “all the time.”
- Capability gap: plenty of fixed and movable C-UAS exist, but “not really anything that would follow a patrolling soldier” — Guillot wants a portable, warfighter-following option and seeks lessons from countries with more experience.
- Remarks come ~1 month after an faa/DoD assessment determined high-energy laser counter-drone tech is OK on the border; FAA release said systems “do not pose undue risk to passenger aircraft.”
- The FAA assessment followed the February 2026 El Paso, TX airspace closure caused when DoD fired a counter-drone laser system, affecting the airport and surrounding airspace for several hours.
Notable Quotes
“We’ve made the southern border a literal and a figurative sandbox.” — Gen. Gregory Guillot
“We tell all of the vendors, if you’re willing to bring it down to the southern border, we’ll put it to use. We’ll tell you if it works; if it does, we’ll probably buy it. If it doesn’t, we’ll tell you exactly what you need to work on, so we can buy it potentially at scale…” — Gen. Gregory Guillot
“We have a lot of fixed and movable counter-UAS [unmanned aerial system] capabilities, but not really anything that would follow a patrolling soldier, and that’s a concern of mine…” — Gen. Gregory Guillot