To compete with China’s potential to mass-produce a billion weaponized drones annually, the U.S. must move beyond policy tweaks and launch a full-scale industrial mobilization, reports Martin C. Feldmann and Gene Keselman of War on the Rocks. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s call for drone dominance highlights the urgency, but achieving it requires leveraging America’s existing strengths in plastics, motors, batteries, and assembly. A $25–$30 billion, five-year procurement program would enable scalable, low-cost drone production, spur commercial innovation, and create a credible deterrent. In a future defined by drone swarms, only a cheap, mass-produced counter-swarm, not expensive missiles or lasers, can win. They write:

Wars are won by factories before they are won on the battlefield. Recognizing that the United States lacks the manufacturing depth for the coming drone age, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued his “Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance” memo, pledging to “bolster the nascent U.S. drone manufacturing base” and delegating buying power to frontline units. That promise, however, will take far more than procurement tweaks and approving “hundreds of American products for purchase” — it demands a national-level, wartime-scale industrial mobilization.

Beijing shows why. Chinese civilian manufacturers have the capacity to retool in under a year to turn out one billion weaponized drones annually — without slowing the rest of China’s economy. By our calculations, that would require less than 1 percent of its assembly capacity, less than 5 percent of its battery output, and a fraction of its printed-circuit-board capacity. If the United States is to deter a capability of that magnitude, industrial policy should focus on enabling the mass production of autonomous systems. Part of the effort should be the establishment of new enterprises and the development of new capabilities. At least as important, however, will be the efficient utilization of the existing national industrial base. […]

Batteries are an Achilles’ heel. Hitting a billion drones would require roughly 0.25 terawatt-hours of lithium-ion capacity. The United States is projected to have 0.8 terawatt-hours online next year. An effort to produce a billion drones would be a significant burden on the entire supply chain and substantially reduce our ability to produce electric cars, but these numbers also indicate that it is possible. While not all announced capacity will come online, long-term offtake contracts — not new technological innovations — are what our battery cell makers need. […]

In his memo, Hegseth stated: “Emergent technologies require new funding lines. To address the urgent need for drones, investment methods outlined in Executive Order 14307 are being investigated.” In line with this, Congress should authorize a five-year, $25–$30 billion procurement — about what the Navy spent on just three Zumwalt-class destroyers — to buy Group 1 drones and their subcomponents at pre-agreed price caps. The Defense Department’s message to industry should be unequivocal: Stand up the line and we will clear the loading dock.

They should also incentivize performers to partner with Tier 1 and Tier 2 auto suppliers for frame molding, precision metal parts, camera modules, and sensors. These firms already understand Six Sigma quality at million-unit volumes — what they lack is a reason to pivot. Guaranteed drone orders supply that reason. Once domestic output clears 100 million units, the United States should allocate export packages to European and Indo-Pacific allies willing to mirror our manufacturing lines and processes. Distributed production complicates enemy targeting and reinforces collective deterrence.

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