Reimagining the American War Machine
By Maximilian K. Bremer and Kelly A. Grieco
A cartoon-style illustration of a boot standing upright. The shadow cast by the boot onto a green area is that of a combat helicopter. / Credit...Debbie TeaNot long after Elon Musk was tapped by Donald Trump to help lead a “Department of Government Efficiency,” he set his sights on a prime target: what the Pentagon spends its money on.
In posts on his platform X in December, Mr. Musk, the chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla, declared that “America needs a large quantity of long-range drones (air, surface water and submarine) and hypersonic missiles.”
He warned, “Anything manned will die very fast in a drone war.”
In some ways, Mr. Musk’s call is not new.
Experts have been warning for years that we have entered a new age of autonomous warfare, and the Pentagon needs to keep up.
The Trump administration is unusually open to remaking the U.S. war machine: Weeks before his inauguration, Mr. Trump began preparing to stack his Pentagon with executives from start-ups and tech investors like Stephen Feinberg, his nominee for deputy secretary of defense.
But for the Trump administration to bring meaningful reform, it will need to do more than buy drones and change the type of weapons the Pentagon buys.
It will also need to change how our weapons are built and the speed at which they are acquired and introduced into U.S. forces.
The biggest challenge for any peacetime military is preparing for the next war.
What weapons, capabilities and strategies will it need to fight and win a conflict that may be a few years to a decade or more away?
This is a gamble of immense consequence.
Like any organization, militaries prefer certainty, but since they cannot eliminate uncertainty, they seek to manage it.
The Pentagon’s traditional approach is to incrementally improve existing weapons, bring the latest technology to battle-tested platforms and build a better version of the same U.S. military.
This, however, is a winning strategy only if old ways of fighting can still win.
Today, America faces a different challenge.
Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, material sciences and microelectronics are upending the status quo of weaponry and tactics.
China is racing to secure a military advantage in this new era, acquiring new weapons five times faster than the United States and building lethal A.I. and autonomous systems on which this country imposes limits.
Simply adding new technology to the same kind of platforms — such as manned aircraft or larger warships — could leave the U.S. military outmatched by China’s.
Technological transformation is happening faster than ever and speeding up change across the battlefield.
Incremental improvements of current systems and development cycles of over 10 years for new ones aren’t just part of an outdated approach — they’re dangerous.
In an era when rapid change is no longer an advantage but merely the price of keeping up, the U.S. military needs to be prepared to adapt on the fly.
In Ukraine, drones of all types — from cheap quadcopters and radio-controlled boats to long-range attack drones — have radically altered battle in the war with Russia.
The main air threat comes not from fighter jets and bombers but thousands of small, off-the-shelf drones, denying either side air superiority and relentlessly attacking ground forces.
The story is similar at sea, where Ukraine, a country without a traditional navy, has shocked Russia by using explosive-laden sea drones to damage or sink dozens of its ships and force Moscow to withdraw its fleet farther to the east.
And drones are only growing more intelligent: Ukraine’s A.I.-enabled drones can now identify and, after human approval, attack targets autonomously.
These innovations would be disruptive enough. But the speed of change is dizzying.
The Ukrainian military reportedly introduces drones with new capabilities every few weeks.
As the Russians adapt, the Ukrainians respond in turn.
That lightning-quick innovation is possible for two reasons: First, Ukraine has a large and diverse domestic drone industry of over 200 companies — along with hundreds of smaller firms and volunteers — that turn out hundreds of thousands of small, cheap drones a month.
Second, Ukraine’s military prizes agility over certainty in adopting and adapting new technologies, including faster approvals, rapid prototyping and testing and direct collaboration between engineers and soldiers on the front lines.
This war is both a lesson and a warning to the United States: Adapt now or be left behind.
In 2016, the Marine Corps commandant, Gen. Robert Neller, announced a “quads for squads” program, promising to equip every Marine squad with its own quadcopter drones by the “end of next year.”
Eight years later, the Marines are still trying to make that happen.
So, what’s the problem?
The U.S. drone industry lags behind China’s, manufacturing only 5,000 to 6,000 small drones per month, compared to China’s more than 100,000 per month, according to some analysts, and they are no match for China’s in capability or cost.
To stay ahead, the new administration must place new bets.
It needs to diversify risk.
This means developing a wide array of systems, made by many companies in smaller numbers, rather than putting all its resources into a few big-ticket platforms from a few major players.
When such systems prove their worth, they can be rapidly scaled up and upgraded.
Systems failing to make the grade — and the companies behind them — get left behind.
The diffusion of technology means U.S. military superiority must come not just from the weapons it has but also from how it uses them.
This calls for close collaboration among operators, engineers and industry figures. Innovation thrives when ideas are tested and refined in the field, not just in labs.
The Pentagon’s current approach is rooted in a mind-set that worked for 20th-century industrial-era wars, including the Cold War.
The Trump administration’s task is to bring the military into the 21st century.
The future of warfare and deterrence requires diversity, flexibility and speed.
The sooner the United States adapts, the better prepared it will be for the conflicts to come.
Maximilian K. Bremer is the director of the special programs division at Air Mobility Command of the Air Force.
Kelly A. Grieco is a senior fellow with the Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center and a nonresident fellow at the Brute Krulak Center of the Marine Corps University.
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