A row of Guided Bomb Unit 32s lie on a munitions assembly conveyer at Langley Air Force Base, Va., March 5, 2013. The productions section of the Munitions Flight is responsible for providing munitions to the flight line. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Kayla Newman/Released)
During his recent confirmation hearings, Steve Feinberg, the nominee for Deputy Secretary of Defense, observed that more companies must be integrated into the defense industrial base to produce the scale of weapon systems the United States needs to deter conflict. He’s right, and a good place to start would be missiles and munitions.
As officials have repeatedly pointed out, even though the Pentagon spent close to $30 billion on missiles and munitions last year, its inventories of critical munitions are depleted. While some of this shortfall was driven by US support for Ukraine, the problem is a larger one, rooted in the way that we design and produce munitions in the first place.
The term “munition” covers conventional ammunition, such as the bullets and mortars used by ground troops, up to the Precision Guided Munitions (PGMs) used to shoot Russian tanks, and the missile interceptors that help to protect Israeli airspace.
There are three specific steps that DoD leaders can take to ensure that the American military has access to the munitions needs to deter conflict and if necessary, prevail in war.
Prioritize weapons that are scalable and adaptable over perfect, bespoke systems. Pentagon leaders need to ask themselves: Can this missile be produced in the numbers needed and can it be quickly modified when enemies develop countermeasures?
Traditional weapons development emphasizes peak performance over flexibility, resulting in overly specialized, difficult-to-produce munitions that depend on often-obsolete custom components and narrow production pipelines. Defense suppliers cannot surge production of these weapons, and while we could afford this artisan approach when the United States was the dominant military power, that is no longer the case.
The creativity of America’s adversaries also challenges the traditional DoD reliance on stockpiling, which risks obsolescence as threats evolve. Future conflicts will require adaptable, rapidly deployable weapons rather than rigid, slow-to-produce systems.
Adopt new ways of designing and producing munitions. The DoD should design modular weapons that use widely available commercial or government off-the-shelf components and take advantage of advanced commercial manufacturing processes. The US military’s reliance on bespoke parts produced by dedicated defense contractors limits production capacity. Modular designs facilitate the integration of new technologies and reduce the chance of supply chain disruptions and obsolescence.
To build modular weapons, the DoD should pursue contract manufacturing, where a weapon could be designed by defense experts but then assembled at multiple commercial facilities. This approach would leverage America’s considerable commercial sector advantages.
The US contract manufacturing industry is thriving, generating combined annual revenues of over $85 billion. Contract manufacturers operate on scales that dwarf normal defense needs and produce a wide range of goods across various industries, from consumer electronics to medical devices. These products often overlap with the software and digital systems that comprise a majority of a modern weapon’s cost. Hence, these firms could assemble modular weapons except for classified software and warheads, leaving those final steps to be completed at a DoD depot before delivery.
Contract manufacturers can achieve cost advantages by using widely available parts and investing in productivity improvements like automation. They can maximize the use of a factory (and amortize large capital expenditures) by enabling the same workers and machines to build millions of computers one month and pivoting to building another product, like dialysis machines, the next. During WWII, the United States relied on commercial manufacturers to meet wartime production needs. Germany, by contrast, suffered from excessive weapon specialization, which impeded mass production.
Make the best use of America’s digital strengths. Small, loosely organized militaries can quickly field precision weapons without a sophisticated industrial base because their munitions draw most of their capability from commercial digital systems. Houthi terrorists use commercially derived drones to assist their home-built missiles evade ships in the Red Sea. Modern weapons are increasingly software-driven and digital capabilities often dictate a weapon’s effectiveness. Cruise missiles are essentially computers with warheads, their effectiveness tied to electronic warfare, flight control, navigation, and target updates.
The good news is that the US leads in digital technologies. Future weapons can be “born digital” by incorporating commercial off-the-shelf components and software. Unlike traditional hardware-centric designs, software-defined weapons allow for real-time updates, improving adaptability and resilience against enemy countermeasures. These digital attributes also allow for much faster and continuous weapons testing — a process that traditionally can take years. By using digital platforms, DoD can streamline the testing and deployment of adaptable, cheaper weapons.
A magazine of inflexible high-performance weapons risks leaving the US military underprepared for future conflicts, particularly against China. Using widely available commercial components and building on US manufacturing and digital strengths, the DoD could field a complementary family of weapons that can be rapidly produced, deployed, and updated.
By embracing a new paradigm that values scalability, adaptability, and digital innovation, the United States can produce more affordable weapons and ensure that America remains a formidable force in an increasingly complex and uncertain geopolitical security environment.
Bryan Clark, Dan Patt, and Nadia Schadlow are all senior fellows at the Hudson Institute. This essay is based on their forthcoming monograph, “Defense Department weapon design and production for 21st century mobilization.”
