"Build cheaper missiles" — the Pentagon has reached such a point.
An Patriot interceptor missile costs $4 million and takes two years to manufacture; each Tomahawk missile burns through one to two million just to launch, and it takes another year to replenish. After the U.S. military-industrial complex turned missiles into "luxury goods," it has finally trapped itself in a corner.
CSIS experts put it bluntly: many high-end missiles are "essentially handcrafted," with workshops resembling artisanal workshops rather than assembly lines. The world's largest defense budget, the strongest supply chain — yet producing munitions relies on craftsmen’s skills? Does that sound normal? It doesn’t.
This is because oligarchs’ profit models are built on high unit prices × long production cycles × cost-plus contracts. The more complex the missile and the longer the timeline, the more comfortable the kickback structure becomes. So producing 500 cheap missiles in a single day would be tantamount to cutting off someone’s livelihood.
That’s why the Pentagon is now turning to Silicon Valley newcomers like Anduril to develop "containerized missiles," slashing unit costs to just $200,000–$300,000 and bypassing the traditional procurement quagmire. On the surface, this appears to be a return to rational technical strategy — but underneath, it’s a way of humiliating Lockheed Martin and RTX via an "external circulation" model: your aristocratic defense industry can’t even keep its magazine full when war breaks out. But let’s be honest — can a few non-standard contracts and a handful of startups really shake up a lobbying machine built over half a century?
The answer is probably no.
Because the real dilemma for the U.S. military isn’t lacking blueprints — it’s lacking a production line not hijacked by Wall Street.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1868068467272009/
Disclaimer: This article represents the personal views of the author.