The Marine Corps is standing up two new organizations at its major training bases—one on the West Coast and one on the East—to focus on drone warfare. The West Coast unit, named the Marine Corps Robotics Integration Group, will be housed at the Marine Corps Air‑Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, California, where it will craft doctrine, training curricula, and certification standards for Marines deploying with or defending against unmanned systems. Maj. Hector Infante and Maj. Gen. Mark H. Clingan emphasized that small UAVs have moved from niche tools to essential assets for reconnaissance, precision strike, force protection and survivability.
At Quantico, Virginia, the new counter‑drone team sits within the Weapons Training Battalion and will experiment with emerging technologies and tactics to neutralize hostile drones. This group complements an attack‑drone team created last year, and both will funnel findings to the Robotics Integration Group to shape future training.
The moves underscore the Marine Corps’ broader push to embed drone capabilities across line units, including programs that equip troops with systems to shoot down drones and teach protective measures against quadcopter threats.
