/ News & Airspace • By Ray Richardson • • 2 min read

Pentagon’s New Joint Counter-UAS Handbook: What It Actually Says

Joint Interagency Task Force 401 published a 90-page orientation handbook establishing the Four Ps and Five Ds. It is a shared vocabulary, not domestic scanning or an FAA rule.

Pentagon’s New Joint Counter-UAS Handbook: What It Actually Says
Correction: An earlier version of this page listed the handbook’s “Four Ps” as Payload, Proximity, Persistence, and Portability, and the “Five Ds” as Detect, Decide, Disrupt, Defeat, and Document. The handbook itself uses:
  • Four Ps: person, platform, process, payload
  • Five Ds: detect, deny, disrupt, defeat, discipline
That error is material. The live copy also treated a Pentagon orientation handbook as if it were a domestic RF-scanning rollout.

The Brief

Joint Interagency Task Force 401 published Small Drones, Big Problems: A First Principles Approach to Countering-UAS, dated 18 June 2026 and released publicly in early July. It is a 90-page orientation document for warfighters, federal agencies, and local law enforcement. Brig. Gen. Matthew Ross, JIATF 401’s director, describes it as a common foundation — not a technical manual and not doctrine.

Flight-Ready Breakdown

Threat Assessment

What Changed

DoD’s counter-drone task force put a shared vocabulary in one place. The Four Ps are how to assess a threat (who is flying, what airframe, how it is controlled, what it is for). The Five Ds are a sequence in which kinetic defeat is last, not first. Denial — making yourself uninteresting or hard to see — is the step the handbook says defenders skip.

Who is Affected

Public-safety UAS programs, critical-infrastructure security, and Part 107 operators flying near sites that already attract law-enforcement attention. This is not a new FAA rule and not a new Remote ID requirement.

Why it Matters

A first-principles handbook is not authority to jam, seize, or shoot a drone. Most of the defeat tools it describes are restricted to the military and to agencies with statutory C-UAS authority. For a private operator the useful takeaway is simpler: Remote ID on, authorization in the folder, and do not treat “I was below 400 feet” as invisibility.

Before Next Mission

If you fly near a prison, airport, stadium, or other covered site, assume detection exists. Carry the authorization you actually hold. Do not assume a handbook equals a local C-UAS program.

What Not to Assume

Do not assume this document created SLTT C-UAS authority. Congress did that separately in the SAFER SKIES Act (FY2026 NDAA, P.L. 119-60), implemented by a DOJ/DHS interim final rule effective 1 July 2026 (91 FR, 6 July 2026). That rule is a certification and technology-list framework for trained agencies — not “AeroScope and Dedrone are now scanning every metro.” Do not assume the handbook’s vignettes (Langley-Eustis 2023, Ukraine, Operation Epic Fury) are instructions for a Part 107 job.

Sources

The Drone Pilot Brief does not accept payment for editorial coverage.

Ray Richardson

About Ray Richardson

Part 107 Commercial UAS Operator, former manned aviation journalist, and Editor-in-Chief of The Drone Pilot Brief. Specializing in regulatory workflows, GIS mapping telemetry, and advanced fleet operations.

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