Defense Modernization, Arsenal Readiness & Future Warfare
DEFENSE MODERNIZATION, ARSENAL READINESS & FUTURE WARFARE
POSITION
The United States must maintain the strength, technology, personnel, weapons, infrastructure, industrial capacity, and national resolve necessary to prevent war through credible deterrence; defend the United States, its territories, armed forces, citizens, and allies; survive a catastrophic attack; defeat any enemy that attacks the United States; preserve American independence and constitutional government; maintain enough surviving power to confront another enemy that attempts to exploit an ongoing war; and end a war decisively without surrendering America's security, freedom, or future.
WHY THIS MATTERS
Deterrence depends on trained people, credible plans, reliable equipment, sufficient munitions, resilient logistics, secure communications, and an industrial base capable of replacing critical systems during a prolonged crisis.
DEFENSE FUNDING & MODERNIZATION
Years 1 Through 10
The total annual national defense budget will be up to $1 trillion.
At least $350 billion annually will be dedicated to modernization, replacement, research, development, testing, production, and deployment.
Up to $650 billion annually will support personnel, readiness, operations, maintenance, training, logistics, current procurement, facilities, and other defense requirements.
Years 11 Through 25
The total annual national defense budget will be up to $1.25 trillion.
At least $450 billion annually will be dedicated to modernization, replacement, research, development, testing, production, and deployment.
Up to $800 billion annually will support personnel, readiness, operations, maintenance, training, logistics, current procurement, facilities, and other defense requirements.
The annual amount is a ceiling, not an automatic requirement to spend every available dollar. Funding must correspond to verified needs, measurable progress, lawful objectives, and demonstrated results.
Unused money may not be spent merely to protect a future budget. It will be handled under the MPA debt repayment, savings, emergency funding, and post-debt taxpayer refund policies.
RELATIONSHIP TO MAQSTEM & AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT
The $300 billion annual MAQSTEM program will absorb existing federal research spending when that research qualifies under MAQSTEM, including eligible defense work involving science and advanced materials; computing and secure software; artificial intelligence; quantum science and computing; robotics and autonomous systems; medicine and battlefield care; physics and directed energy; aerospace and space technology; cybersecurity; nuclear science and energy; and other qualifying research with both civilian and national-defense applications.
The $700 billion annual American Development and Modernization program will absorb existing federal infrastructure spending when the project qualifies under that program, including eligible military or dual-use ports and shipyards; airports and airfields; roads, bridges, and rail systems; power generation and electrical grids; water and fuel systems; communications infrastructure; manufacturing facilities; housing and community infrastructure near military installations; supply-chain and logistics infrastructure; and facilities that serve both national defense and the public.
These programs may fund the qualifying portion of a defense-related project. The defense budget may fund the uniquely military portion. No project, contract, activity, employee, or expense may be counted or funded twice. Transferring an eligible program to MAQSTEM or American Development must reduce the corresponding defense expense. The transfer may not disguise spending or evade the national defense ceiling.
OBJECTIVE FORCE & ARSENAL REQUIREMENTS
At least every two years, the Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, combatant commanders, intelligence officials, independent operational testers, and other appropriate officials must produce a force and arsenal assessment.
The assessment must determine what the United States needs to:
Defend the homeland and American territories.
Meet treaty commitments.
Fight simultaneous or overlapping conflicts.
Withstand losses, sabotage, cyberattacks, and disrupted supply chains.
Replace weapons and supplies consumed during a prolonged war.
Continue operating after attacks on bases, satellites, ports, communications, power systems, and national leadership.
Maintain a sufficient reserve against another enemy entering the conflict.
Defeat any continuing attack against the United States or its allies.
Congress must establish enforceable minimum levels for ammunition and missiles; strategic and conventional weapons; aircraft, ships, submarines, and ground systems; drones and autonomous systems; spare parts and repair equipment; fuel and energy supplies; medical supplies; transportation and logistics; domestic production capacity; and strategic reserves.
A critical inventory may not remain below its approved minimum for more than 90 days without classified notice to Congress, written risk acceptance by the President and Secretary of Defense, a funded restoration plan, and a defined restoration date.
Inventory records must prove that an item exists, is in its reported location, functions, can be delivered, has trained operators, and can be repaired or replaced. Book inventory alone is not military readiness.
MODERNIZATION PRIORITIES
Modernization will include the nuclear triad; nuclear command, control, and communications; early warning; integrated air and missile defense; conventional long-range weapons; ground, air, naval, submarine, space, and cyber capabilities; artificial intelligence; robotics and autonomous systems; unmanned aerial, ground, surface, and underwater vehicles; counter-drone and counter-autonomous defenses; electronic warfare; directed-energy weapons; space defense and counterspace capabilities; hardened and geographically distributed military facilities; secure communications and computing; battlefield medicine; logistics, maintenance, airlift, and sealift; domestic manufacturing and surge capacity; resilient energy, fuel, water, and transportation systems; civil defense; and continuity of constitutional government.
New systems must undergo realistic testing under cyberattack, electronic warfare, degraded or destroyed satellites, disrupted communications, contested airspace and waters, damaged infrastructure, interrupted supply lines, severe environmental conditions, and loss of primary command facilities.
Major systems should use secure software, modular designs, replaceable components, government access to necessary technical data, and competitive upgrade paths where practical.
A system is not operational merely because a contractor delivered it. It must function under realistic conditions, integrate with the force, have trained operators, possess necessary support equipment, and be maintainable at a sustainable cost.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, DRONES & ROBOTIC FORCES
The United States will develop large, integrated families of reconnaissance drones; armed drones; drone swarms; counter-drone systems; robotic ground vehicles; robotic support and logistics systems; unmanned aircraft; unmanned surface vessels; unmanned underwater vehicles; autonomous defensive systems; human-machine combat teams; and artificial-intelligence systems for warning, planning, logistics, maintenance, cyber defense, and threat detection.
Robotic systems should perform dangerous duties when doing so can protect American personnel without sacrificing mission effectiveness.
Artificial intelligence may assist human decision-makers, identify threats, coordinate defensive systems, and operate within lawful, tested, and clearly defined limits. No artificial-intelligence system may independently authorize or initiate the use of a nuclear weapon.
Autonomous weapons must have defined authorized targets and operating areas; reliable identification and abort safeguards; human supervision appropriate to the weapon and mission; cybersecurity and anti-spoofing protections; recorded decision and command data where technically practical; testing against malfunction, deception, lost communications, and unintended engagement; and a clearly accountable chain of command.
DIRECTED-ENERGY DEFENSE
The United States will research, develop, test, and deploy land-based, air-based, naval, and space-based directed-energy systems where they are safe, effective, and strategically useful.
These systems may include high-energy lasers; high-power microwave systems; directed-energy missile defense; counter-drone systems; close-range defense for ships, bases, aircraft, and ground forces; defense against missiles, aircraft, drones, satellites, and other weapons; and protection for critical infrastructure and population centers.
The objective is to create layered defenses capable of detecting and defeating attacks at multiple stages, from launch through final approach.
Directed-energy programs must demonstrate effectiveness, reliability, power availability, cooling capacity, environmental performance, cybersecurity, and sustainable cost before full deployment.
SPACE DEFENSE & SPACE-BASED CAPABILITIES
The United States must be able to operate, defend itself, and preserve military communications in space.
The space-defense program will include resilient and distributed satellite networks; rapid satellite replacement; protected communications; missile detection and tracking; space-based sensors; space-based missile-defense research; defensive laser research; protection against hostile satellites; the ability to disable or destroy enemy satellites being used to attack the United States; ground, air, naval, and space-based counterspace systems; redundant navigation and timing systems; and the ability to continue military operations after the loss of major satellite networks.
America should investigate space-based kinetic systems, sometimes described as orbital kinetic bombardment or “Rods from God,” to determine whether they can provide a lawful, controllable, accurate, strategically useful, and cost-effective conventional capability.
No space-based weapon should be deployed merely because it is technologically possible. It must demonstrate a genuine defensive or military advantage, command security, reliability, controllability, and protection against unauthorized or accidental use.
America will not allow an adversary to dominate space, blind the United States, destroy American communications without consequence, or use satellites as protected instruments of war.
LAYERED DEFENSE OF THE UNITED STATES
The United States will build overlapping systems to defend against ballistic missiles; hypersonic weapons; cruise missiles; aircraft; drones and drone swarms; submarine-launched weapons; cyberattacks; electromagnetic attacks; attacks against satellites; sabotage of military and civilian infrastructure; and nuclear, biological, chemical, radiological, and other catastrophic threats.
No single technology will be treated as a complete defense. Detection, interception, hardening, dispersal, redundancy, continuity planning, civil defense, and retaliatory capability must operate together.
DOMESTIC PRODUCTION & SURGE CAPACITY
Critical weapons, ammunition, propellants, explosives, semiconductors, batteries, rare materials, machine tools, software, medicine, and replacement components must have secure domestic or trusted-allied sources. More than one qualified source should be maintained where practical.
Strategic production capacity must include operating production lines, preserved machinery and tooling, a trained workforce, verified suppliers, secure designs and software, stockpiled critical materials, plans for rapid expansion, transportation and distribution capacity, and repair and recycling systems.
Strategic reserves must be rotated, tested, geographically distributed, and connected to active production. The government must know how quickly every critical item can be replaced at both peacetime and wartime production rates.
Defense suppliers may not conceal foreign ownership or control; dependence on an adversarial country; counterfeit or defective components; known material shortages; cybersecurity compromises; failed testing; cost and schedule failures; or inability to meet production or surge requirements.
Long-term contracts may maintain essential capacity when they include enforceable requirements for delivery, price, quality, cybersecurity, auditing, surge production, repayment, and termination.
TESTING, AUDITING & ACCOUNTABILITY
Every major defense program must have defined capability requirements, a responsible official, cost and schedule baselines, development and testing milestones, independent operational testing, cybersecurity testing, a production and maintenance plan, measurable deployment goals, corrective actions for failure, and suspension or termination provisions.
Repeated failure may result in leadership removal, contract suspension or termination, repayment or clawback, disqualification from future contracts, civil liability, and investigation for fraud or criminal misconduct where the evidence supports it.
Officials and contractors may not misrepresent readiness, testing, cost, inventory, performance, safety, or delivery.
Congress, the Government Accountability Office, inspectors general, independent operational testers, and appropriate scientific bodies must receive the access necessary to evaluate cost, schedule, reliability, survivability, cybersecurity, stockpile sufficiency, industrial capacity, testing integrity, compliance with law, and whether the system actually meets the military need for which it was funded.
Public reports must disclose aggregate performance, expenditures, failures, and corrective actions without revealing classified quantities, operational plans, targeting information, or vulnerabilities.
Related policies: Military; Veterans, Servicemembers & Military Families; War Powers, Military Force & Congressional Authorization; National Cybersecurity Standards & Trusted Personnel; National MAQSTEM Research, Innovation & Advancement; Federal Spending & National Debt.
Status: Proposed / Draft, not yet formally adopted.
Originally published: October 4, 2026.
Last updated: October 4, 2026.
Version: Draft 0.1.