America’s “munitions shortage” is now making headlines, but the real problem is deeper and more dire: The entire US weapons-building industry is not only woefully weak, but geared up wrong.
While the United States must continue to have the best, cutting-edge defense tech, we also need to produce massive amounts of relatively cheap missiles and interceptors as well as drones on a huge scale.
The problems go all the way back to the misbegotten “reforms” of Vietnam-era Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who all but eliminated real competition and entrepreneurial energy from Pentagon procurement.
They’ve been exacerbated by vast contraction of purchases and the industrial might to build as Washington began eviscerating Defense budgets in the Obama years (though the fateful reduction of US Navy shipbuilding dates back to the Bill Clinton era).
Start with the missile/interceptor shortage: In a July analysis, the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that the US military may have expended more than half its already-depleted inventories in the ongoing Iran war.
It’s an issue the Biden Pentagon should have confronted as the US rushed supplies to Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion — and one the Trump Pentagon has been slow to focus on as it aimed to restore warfighting capacity on so many different fronts.
To be fair, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been pushing hard for a reorientation, for example, striking framework agreements with innovators Anduril, CoAspire and Zone 5 to quickly produce a new family of low-cost, air-launched cruise missiles.
This crisis requires more outside-the-box thinking, like President Donald Trump’s bid to let Ukraine produce Patriot interceptors, as well as the private sector stepping up, as with JP Morgan’s move to resurrect US shipyards.
Above all, the Pentagon urgently needs Congress to approve emergency spendingto get the ball rolling.
Instead, Democrats are stallingon funding Defense, obsessing over US cooperation with Israel and raging against Trump’s Iran war.
The nation can’t afford back-biting blame games here: That these shortages are showing in a contest with a second-rank powerlike Iran is a warning that we’re not remotely ready if, say, China moves to conquer Taiwan and its strategically vital cutting-edge chip industry.
Democrats in particular must wake up: They could easily win back the White House in 2028 only to find their new president helpless to contest Beijing’s aggression, and “it’s all Trump’s fault” won’t fly if they’ve refused to let this prez rebuild and retool our defenses now.
With US defense production lines badly dependent on foreign sources for key materials and minerals, Team Trump’s drive to lock down rare-earth suppliesis also vital.
Across-the-board change is crucial: Reform R&D licensing; cut procurement red tape; opt for cheaper non-“mil-spec” armaments that are easier to mass-produce in American factories — especially dual-use industries, like the automobile manufacturing.
Far too many vulnerabilities have been baked into America’s military-industrial base; that bipartisan complacency must end.
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