Lawmakers are rethinking how legislation, funding, and oversight can help the Pentagon build a US military capable of adapting to 21st-century warfare.
Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine has forced Congress to confront supply chain challenges and defense innovation with a new sense of urgency. More than four years of battlefield evidence shows military advantage depends on the ability to rapidly integrate defense technology, scale manufacturing, increase private financial investment, and boost allied cooperation. The war against Iran has also revealed problems firsthand.
That has aided a bipartisan shift around these issues. Despite approaching national security from different political backgrounds, lawmakers on various committees are increasingly arriving at the same conclusion: the US will not sustain its military advantage simply by procuring more missiles and advanced systems. The age of the exquisite is coming to an end; the age of adaptation is underway.
The US needs to build a defense industrial base capable of adapting as quickly as modern warfare evolves, and the shift in approach is happening through several complementary efforts.
Rep. Pat Harrigan’s American Drone Manufacturing Dominance Act, for example, is focused on rebuilding the industrial base. The proposed legislation would go beyond expanding domestic drone production to strengthen secure manufacturing, cybersecurity, allied coproduction, and the resilient supply chains needed to sustain advantage.
That same logic is visible in the Strategic Unmanned Systems Partnership Act, sponsored by Sen. Jacky Rosen and Sen. Mike Rounds, which would create a joint US-Ukraine working group to co-develop, produce, and obtain Ukrainian-designed unmanned systems. This would treat Kyiv not only as a battlefield partner, but as a source of mutually beneficial operational knowledge.
Sen. Dave McCormick’s Unmanned and Autonomous Systems Strategy Act goes one step further and recognizes that autonomous systems cannot be managed through outdated acquisition programs. Instead, it calls for a comprehensive strategy to scale production capabilities, integrate commercial innovation, coordinate with allies, and establish long-term priorities for the Department of Defense (DoD).
“Unmanned and autonomous systems represent the most disruptive shift in military technology since precision-guided munitions and stealth,” McCormick said. “We’ve seen their impact in Ukraine and across the Middle East . . . Americans cannot afford to fall behind.”
Viewed individually, these initiatives appear incremental. But when seen together, they reveal something much larger. Congress is beginning to legislate around the characteristics of innovation itself.
These proposed pieces of legislation are only one part of the picture. The executive branch is also rethinking how emerging technologies are purchased and scaled.
The “Revolutionary FAR Overhaul” seeks to simplify federal acquisition rules, remove unnecessary requirements, and make procurement faster and more competitive. At the Pentagon, Michael Duffey, undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, is similarly focused on delivering capabilities faster and sending clear long-term demand signals to manufacturers.
At a force level, the United States Army is already putting many of these principles into practice. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in May, Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll outlined reforms aimed at cutting bureaucracy, giving leaders more flexibility to respond to urgent needs, and swiftly moving promising technologies into production.
Otherwise, the Army risks “not transforming fast enough” for a battlefield changing by the day rather than the year, Driscoll said.
The executive challenge is to turn legislative momentum into military advantage. While Congress can create authorities and appropriate funding, the Pentagon ultimately decides whether its initiatives are integrated.
If legislative efforts around autonomous systems and manufacturing remain disconnected from implementation, they risk becoming another collection of political promises. If aligned with executive action, they could form the basis of a more adaptive defense innovation strategy.
A sticking point is that acquisition reform, venture-backed defense startups, software modernization, and allied cooperation are still largely siloed conversations, despite reinforcing one another in practice. One of Ukraine’s greatest lessons for the US is that innovation succeeds when those pieces function as a single framework.
Congress has begun recognizing that reality, but it needs to build a coherent legislative strategy to ensure it can be translated into executive action.
First, Congress and the DoD should treat Ukraine as a true innovation partner, not simply an aid recipient. That means creating permanent mechanisms for the Pentagon, industry, and Ukrainian innovators to exchange battlefield lessons, test emerging tech, and rapidly translate their findings into US production and policy.
Second, Congress must better align acquisition with private capital. Venture-backed startups can move fast, but they need clearer demand signals from government to scale production. Multi-year contracts and clearer purchasing commitments would help ensure cutting-edge technologies do not sit unused.
Third, Congress and the executive branch should focus on bodies like the Strategic Defense Innovation Working Group and the Pentagon’s Defense Autonomous Warfare Group as the basis for a more aligned autonomous systems strategy. The goal should be to translate lessons learned into requirements for scalable production.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has forced Congress to rethink warfare. If its current legislative shift continues, the next generation of US defense policy will be defined less by individual weapons programs and more by efforts to build a brand new innovation strategy.
Daniel Gaffin is the Program Officer for Congressional Engagement and Strategic Partnerships at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). He serves in the Executive Office supporting the organization’s engagement across Congress, government, industry, and the transatlantic policy community. Daniel leads CEPA’s congressional engagement strategy, overseeing bipartisan outreach on Capitol Hill and coordinating high-level briefings, roundtables, and events that advance the organization’s policy priorities.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
