Recent analyses have identified the causes and consequences of shrinking munitions stockpiles. Policymakers and industry should now turn their efforts to not only rebuilding the munitions industrial base but also recasting it for the demands of modern high-intensity wars of precision and attrition. Doing so calls for both increasing the size and changing the composition of the U.S. munitions arsenal, embracing magazine breadth as well as magazine depth through equipping the joint force with a “high-low mix” of exquisite and affordable missiles and interceptors. The emergence of multiyear “framework agreements” between the Department of Defense (DOD) and contractors is important, but they need to be followed by appropriations from Congress, increased capital expenditures (CapEx) by industry, and contracts between the Pentagon and companies.

What is a realistic timeline for this rebuilding and recasting of the munitions industrial base? Looking at the president’s fiscal year 2027 budget request, subsequent initiatives, quarterly company reporting, and recent contract announcements provides a clearer picture of the planned future as well as the obstacles that need to be overcome to achieve those objectives.

The Changing Composition of the U.S. Munitions Arsenal

Based upon the DOD’s FY 2027 budget requests and subsequent policy announcements, the Pentagon plans to significantly grow stocks of the nation’s proven and capable missiles and interceptors. For example, requests for Patriot PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhanced (MSE) interceptors have grown 839 percent, from 341 in FY 2026 (by the U.S. Army and Navy) to 3,203 in FY 2027 (by the Army and Navy); asks for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors have climbed 2,216 percent, from 37 in FY 2026 (by the Missile Defense Agency) to 857 in FY 2027 (by the Army); and requests for Tomahawk missiles have surged 1,740 percent, from 57 in FY 2026 (by the Navy) to 1,049 in FY 2027 (by the Navy and Army). While expensive, these exquisite munitions are intricately designed, high-performance systems optimized to undertake the most difficult missions. Multiyear agreements, combined with coproduction efforts under consideration as well as direct-to-supplier agreements, could potentially help to reduce the 25-to-51-month manufacturing lead time for these systems. But unfortunately, these and other exquisite legacy systems were fundamentally built for performance and not designed or funded for production at scale.

Those limitations, plus the need for a broader portfolio of munitions to better address threats such as swarms of Russian and Iranian Shahed unmanned autonomous systems, have helped lead to an increased focus on lower-cost and more producible systems. Low-cost, expendable munitions have long been included in the United States’ stockpiles, ranging from the Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kit developed in the 1990s to the Coyote counter-unmanned aircraft system pioneered the following decade. Yet the amount of attention and capital devoted to expanding affordable options within the U.S. arsenal is dramatically growing. The Pentagon launched the Drone Dominance Program in December 2025, for example, a $1.1 billion initiative to scale domestic small drone production, remove acquisition barriers, and rapidly field some 340,000 units by the end of 2027.

Since May 2026, the Pentagon and munitions manufacturers have signed several multi-year framework agreements to rapidly field substantial inventories of low-cost cruise missiles. These efforts include the Air Force’s Family of Affordable Mass Missile (FAMM) program for over 27,000 air-launched cruise missiles requested over the next five years and the Low-Cost Containerized Missiles (LCCM) program for some 10,000 ground-launched cruise missiles delivered by the beginning of 2030. Through the Multi-Mission Affordable Capacity Effector program, the Navy plans to request roughly 4,500 hypersonic air-launched cruise missiles through FY 2031. The Army seeks to equip its air and missile defense systems with modular interceptors costing under $1,000,000 per unit under its low-cost interceptor (LCI) initiative. The Missile Defense Agency, meanwhile, aims to counter ballistic and hypersonic threats at less than $750,000 per interceptor through an effort of the same name. To accelerate acquisition and production timelines for these new capabilities, the DOD is holding competitions for contracts between emerging defense companies in programs such as Drone Dominance and the Army LCI and signing framework production agreements with newer firms such as Anduril, CoAspire, and Zone 5 Technologies for LCCM and FAMM. These new munitions will be welcome additions to the DOD portfolio, but government and industry need to work closely to develop, rigorously test, deliver, and effectively incorporate these low-cost systems into the joint force.

The Pentagon’s FY 2027 budget request and subsequent initiatives reinforce the shifting DOD priorities within its munitions portfolio toward more affordable weapons. As Figure 1 shows, roughly 49 percent of munitions units the DOD requested for FY 2027 cost less than $600,000 per unit, which increases to over 70 percent in FY 2031 based upon projected munitions budget requests.