Building the Arsenal of Freedom Can No Longer Wait

Here’s How We Do It

From the halls of Congress, the White House, the Pentagon E-ring, to the leaders of traditional defense and defense technology, a reckoning is underway: there is finally consensus to do the hard work of reshaping our defense industrial base. Discussions throughout last weekend’s Reagan National Defense Forum made this all the more clear. 

But good rhetoric will only take defense reform so far on its own. There is no substitute for the sustained action and funding needed to reshape the volume and velocity of weapons and platforms that the United States now requires.

There are positive signs. A month ago this week, the Department of War reflected that growing momentum with the release of a new acquisition reform strategy to “accelerate fielding of urgently needed capabilities.” Building on the principles laid out earlier this year in the FoRGED and SPEED Acts, Congress’s annual defense policy bill includes meaningful reforms to the acquisition system. These efforts also follow the passage of reconciliation funding earlier this year, which is providing significant dollars to support the rapid scaling of new and innovative capabilities.

Today we’re not set up to procure needed weapons for a long, drawn-out war

There is also a common understanding of the problem. Earlier this year, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine observed that the U.S. is “contending with an acquisition process and defense industrial base that are not optimized for protracted conflict.” Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ken Calvert, R-Calif., recently noted that “we’re low on everything,” and it will take more production across the board to improve our position. The White House’s new National Security Strategy concurs with these assessments.

These are stubborn facts — those that are not easily changed by one strong speech or a single year’s authorization cycle. If the ‘reform and rebuild’ agenda is a one-off, it will fail. It must be extended, protected, and constantly advanced through strong department-level leadership and investment in new programs alike. The strategic situation won’t permit otherwise. Washington consensus is that the “window of maximum danger” begins in 2027, hardly more than a year away. 

Readiness for the next era of strategic competition hinges on the effective implementation of these proposed reforms. Below are a few dimensions through which we can measure how well they are executed.

Tolerating risk with the “85 percent solution.”

The Department’s new acquisition reform memo had a key line tucked within it: portfolio acquisition executives will have the authority to “make prudent cost, schedule, and performance trades that prioritize time-to-field, including execution of portfolio-level programming within defined and authorized boundaries.” 

Though these directions may seem like minutiae, their implications are colossal. They bookend an era of defense acquisition when program managers were most concerned with achieving the exquisite, high-performing, “100 percent” solution at the expense of soaring costs and ever-extending delivery schedules. Instead, as Secretary Hegseth said last month, it’s time to build the 85 percent solution and iterate alongside industry to improve and adapt its performance.

Truly buying weapons for the “high-low mix.” 

There need not be tension between pivoting toward a force that prioritizes unmanned systems and autonomy and one that still retains some high-end capabilities. In fact, both ways of deploying combat power can be reconciled through a high-low mix of systems.

There will always be things that only a stealth bomber or a submarine can do. But there are many missions that our most valuable assets do not need to perform, or that autonomous systems can augment. It is in this middle zone where Pentagon planners must seize this reformist moment to be more creative than ever with new concepts of operation and opportunities for mass production.

Demand signals for next generation priorities. 

The Department has long prioritized some amount of clarity for the largest programs and mission systems so that the largest companies have contract stability. If Pentagon leadership and Congress are going to make rapidly producible autonomy is the future, they must put demonstrable resources into programs that support these priorities. As OMB Director Russ Vought put it last weekend, there are certain weapons needed for the high-end fight, but we can and should continue to investigate the usage and production of lower-cost weapons.

This means shifting from small dollar pilot programs for new systems to large procurement contracts in which speed to deploy and cost to deliver are recognized and rewarded. For example, to achieve a true high-low mix in munitions, in which low-cost munitions make up a meaningful portion of the weapons portfolio, we must apply the dollars appropriately — moving from a 90-to-10 (at best) exquisite-to-attritable spend ratio to 70-to-30, or even 50-50.

Budget is strategy. 

Small pockets of stray cash to build adjunct capability won’t suffice for deterrence efforts centered on 2027. New tech will need to see clear statements of need as codified in the form of budget dollars in FY26 appropriations, the FY27 presidential budget, and beyond.

Defense acquisition reforms have long been either ignored or outright discarded. This year’s flurry of legislation, speeches, and executive orders mark a fundamental shift that, if properly implemented, would yield lasting strategic results — and position the United States to deter or win the next conflict.

The Department, Congress, and industry now have short time to make a choice: business as usual, or investment in new programs designed to procure next-generation capabilities. We’ll know soon which path is chosen.

This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.