Under the Gun: Understanding America’s Defense Spending Paradox

These days, the buzzwords for defense planners, as well as the crop of Silicon Valley-linked defense startups that have emerged in this post-Last Supper era, are systems that are “attritable,” meaning cheap and replaceable, and “modular,” meaning they can be easily adapted for future wars. Plans for the defense of Taiwan, for instance, involve building swarms of cheap and most likely AI-controlled drones to create a “hellscape” for Chinese invaders. But given how fast battlefield technology and tactics are advancing, even those plans may soon be obsolete. 
“The whole system has to be shaken up because the move, counter-move cycle in modern warfare is eye-wateringly short, and we are not prepared,” says Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense analyst and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. 

In response, the Pentagon has announced a series of steps to speed up weapons acquisition by centralizing buying authority and cutting red tape. Though some of the plans have received pushback from Congress over the new powers being claimed by the department and concerns that it will incentivize companies to deliver inferior products quickly, it’s notable that virtually nobody is standing up to defend the old system—and changing this system will likely be a significant challenge in its own right.