Will Thibeau writes for the Federalist about a new component of American national security.
The success of Midnight Hammer must not lull policymakers into complacency. Awe is not strategy. If America hopes to retain superiority across multiple areas of the world, it must build for repetition. It must build for a redundant, expendable mass — which means America must invest in unmanned, expendable, and scalable weapons platforms capable of delivering persistent force across time, space, and threat.
President Trump’s decision to authorize Operation Midnight Hammer demonstrated the kind of bold leadership that only a commander-in-chief with strategic clarity and moral resolve could exercise. He acted swiftly, unflinchingly, and with a full grasp of the stakes involved — not only to neutralize a mounting nuclear threat, but to signal to both allies and adversaries that American will remains unbroken. The precision and audacity of the strike underscored his ability to effectively deploy the resources at his disposal.
That success, however, carries a corresponding obligation for the Pentagon and the broader defense industrial base: They must equip the president with the tools necessary to sustain and repeat that kind of action across future, more complex conflicts. The president brought vision and decisiveness to the battlefield; it is now the Department of Defense’s responsibility to replenish and expand the commander-in-chief’s menu options — through scalable unmanned systems (like drones), stockpiles of bombs like the GBU-57, and next-generation capabilities — so that American leadership never finds itself constrained by logistical scarcity in the face of strategic opportunity.
The Russia-Ukraine war is instructive. Russia and Ukraine are each going to build two million or more expendable (or, attritable, as the Army calls them) one-way attack drones this year. The People’s Republic of China will build one million of these drones in 2025 too, even in a period of peacetime for the nation. These are the same kinds of drones that account for almost 80 percent of casualties on both sides of the front lines.
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Author: Mitch Kokai
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