War Department Asks Industry to Make More Than 300K Drones, Quickly, Cheaply
This week, the War Department issued a press release that announced a billion-dollar push for “drone dominance,” calling on industry to deliver more than 300,000 cheap and expendable one-way attack drones. The department envisions four “gauntlet” phases that will reduce unit costs from $5,000 to about $2,300 and jump-start a permanent US drone industrial base. The press release also emphasizes that the goal is to shift authority to commanders, embed drones in all relevant combat training, and to embrace a fight tonight doctrine around cheap, numerous unmanned systems rather than a few exquisite platforms.
Read alongside David Kirichenko’s “Affordable Drones and Civilian Supply Chains are Transforming Warfare” in SWJ—which shows how cheap, commercially enabled drones are already reshaping modern conflict—this piece sketches what it would look like if Washington fully committed to an attritable-drone, quantity-over-quality model of warfighting.
