U.S. must pivot to mass drones and sensors or risk being outgunned by China

KUALA LUMPUR, 24 AUGUST 2026 —

U.S. defence production needs to shift to low-cost, mass-produced systems or face being outpaced by China within two years, a Council on Foreign Relations report says.

The 68-page study “Out of Ammo: A Two-Year Sprint to Rebuild the American Arsenal and Deter China” argues the Pentagon’s reliance on small batches of exquisite, expensive platforms cannot be scaled fast enough to deter Beijing. Michael C. Horowitz, director of Perry World House and Richard Perry professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said the current inventory “cannot be rebuilt within a two-year period regardless of the resources invested.”

The study, co-authored by Horowitz, points to recent conflicts—Operation Epic Fury, the Israel-Hamas war, and Iran’s operations against U.S. forces—as evidence that legacy munitions and platforms are being exhausted faster than they can be replenished. Air-defence interceptors and precision-guided munitions, central to the U.S. warfighting strategy in the Pacific, have already been drawn down to critical levels. Horowitz said the stock drawdown “will need to be rebuilt,” a process that typically spans years.

Instead, the report urges a pivot to “precise mass systems”: low-cost, attritable, often autonomous weapons, sensors, and platforms that can be churned out using commercial supply chains. The blueprint draws on lessons from Ukraine’s fight against Russia and Iran’s asymmetric operations, where expendable drones and massed sensors proved decisive at low unit cost.

To meet the two-year window, the report calls for five immediate moves. First, Congress and the White House should fast-track procurement rules to allow rapid purchase of commercial-off-the-shelf drones and sensors. Second, the Pentagon should redirect existing appropriations—an estimated tens of billions already budgeted—to mass production lines already running at scale. Third, the Department of Defense should relax testing and certification timelines for proven commercial designs, treating them as wartime-ready.

Fourth, Washington should expand the Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment program to include rapid tooling and additive-manufacturing hubs in allied states. Fifth, the National Defense Stockpile should be repurposed to hold attritable munitions and spare parts, not just legacy warheads.

The report acknowledges a key objection: shifting to precise mass will dilute the Pentagon’s existing force structure built around stealth fighters and nuclear-powered attack submarines. Horowitz said the trade-off is unavoidable. “Waiting until conflict begins will be too late,” he wrote. “The two-year clock is already running.”

The recommendations stop short of a full redesign of the U.S. defence industrial base, which the authors plan to address in a follow-up report covering a ten-year horizon. For now, the authors argue, the priority is sheer volume: fielding hundreds of thousands of expendable drones and distributed sensors within 24 months to deny China the ability to achieve fait accompli in the Western Pacific.