Photo: CoAspire
The wars in Ukraine and Iran have pushed the United States to rethink its weapons strategy, shifting focus toward cheaper, faster and more scalable missile production, according to The Financial Times.
With US ammunition stockpiles depleted by recent conflicts, the Pentagon is increasingly turning to defense startups capable of producing large quantities of affordable precision weapons.
“The American arsenal is built around expensive, sophisticated systems that take too long to produce. Warfare has changed, and the US must change with it,” said former Pentagon innovation official Michael Horowitz.
The US currently manufactures only about 600 Tomahawk cruise missiles per year, each costing around $2.6 million. Other key weapons, including the PrSM and JASSM missiles, cost roughly $1.6 million and $1.9 million apiece.
To address these challenges, several defense startups are developing simplified missile designs using commercially available components.
One of them, Co-Aspire — which is producing the RAACM cruise missile for Ukraine — says its manufacturing model resembles McDonald’s. Company representative Doug Denneny explained that each missile is simple enough to assemble using standardized instructions, allowing newly trained technicians to build them after just one month of training.
Another startup, Castelion, has secured a Pentagon contract to produce more than 12,000 hypersonic missiles over five years. Once its New Mexico facility reaches full capacity, the company expects to manufacture 6,000 missiles annually at a cost of roughly $400,000 each.
“Our focus is mass, affordability and simplicity. Every engineering decision starts with making the product easier and cheaper to build,” said Castelion co-founder and former SpaceX executive Andrew Kreitz.
Both companies rely heavily on off-the-shelf components. Co-Aspire uses engines originally designed for hobbyist remote-controlled aircraft, while Castelion incorporates parts commonly found in the automotive industry.
The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that high-intensity conflicts are ultimately wars of attrition, where production capacity can outweigh technological superiority. Recent operations involving Iran reinforced that lesson, highlighting the need for large stockpiles of affordable weapons rather than limited numbers of costly systems.
The Pentagon has also accelerated drone production. In February, US forces deployed the Lucas one-way attack drone — a SpektreWorks adaptation of Iran’s Shahed-136 — in combat for the first time. The Defense Department plans to significantly expand drone manufacturing and has proposed tripling funding for drones and related technologies to more than $74 billion next year.
Denneny argues that mass production strengthens deterrence even during peacetime.
“It sends a powerful message to adversaries that we can rapidly replenish our missile inventories at low cost,” he said.
However, experts warn that lower-cost weapons may not match the precision and reliability of legacy systems. Tom Karako of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said the Pentagon will need to accept trade-offs while placing large procurement orders to allow manufacturers to scale production and continue developing new systems.
Former White Sands Missile Range commander John Ferrari added that future weapons must also be easier for soldiers to operate.
“Software should be as intuitive as using an iPhone,” Ferrari said.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the conflict with Iran cost the Pentagon approximately $40 billion in munitions, equipment losses and damage to military bases. That figure excludes operational costs already included in the Defense Department’s proposed 2026 budget, which exceeds $1 trillion. Additional expenses for the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Veterans Affairs totaled around $1 billion.
