> The current procurement system favors highly sophisticated weapons, usually made in small numbers. The F-22, widely considered the world’s best stealth fighter, costs three hundred and fifty million dollars per plane.

The F-22 costs three hundred and fifty million dollars per plane, because they built less than 200 of the thing. All the research and production line costs got condensed to less than 200 jets.

If they had ordered 750 as originally planned the cost per plane would be significantly lower.

The incremental cost when they stopped making them was 138 million.

>the American way of war is no longer viable. “We are not moving fast enough,”

The last time the US military really let rip was in Iraq, where they wiped Iraq's military just fine and I can't see how that would have played out much differently if Iraq had drones. Where the US struggled and will probably still struggle was policing and nation building afterwards.

If I wanted an answer to this question, one of the last places I’d look for an answer is in the New Yorker. Not that the writing would be biased or inaccurate (necessarily), but why the New Yorker? I’d go to them for well-written articles on active war reporting, but what policy expertise do they claim in this area as contrasted with hundreds of actual policy-focused channels available across the Internet?