OPINION — The Pentagon’s push to overhaul its gradual, specification-driven procurement system is an overdue acknowledgment that our protection industrial base has change into too slender, too fragile, and too depending on international provide chains. America’s protection institution is lastly waking as much as a vital weak point that has metastasized in current a long time: we’ve got drifted away from the commercial may that when fashioned the bedrock of our financial system and allowed us to out-produce any adversary on the planet.
Whereas there are numerous warning indicators, one symptom of the issue is unmistakably clear: the US just isn’t producing what it wants on the pace and scale fashionable battle calls for. Latest reporting reveals the U.S. Military remains to be struggling to satisfy its 155mm artillery-shell manufacturing targets after years of effort. Throughout the spectrum—from superior missile interceptors to one thing as fundamental as black powder—we’re falling dangerously behind in each manufacturing capability and supply-chain resilience. For now, these shortfalls are showing in conflicts that don’t immediately contain American troops, however the fact is {that a} main battle will see the US compelled to ration supplies and munitions, deploying untested prototypes on the battlefield whereas the protection industrial base races to catch up. We should act now to stop this from occurring.
If we’re critical about profitable the following battle—or higher but, deter it—we should rethink each how we purchase navy gear and weapons, and how briskly we are able to make them. We don’t want one other half measure or a completely authorities resolution. As a substitute, the federal government ought to leverage the non-public sector to construct a nationwide community of multifaceted, resilient manufacturing nodes that may surge manufacturing of every thing from drones, autos, and physique armor to medication, munitions, and microelectronics in occasions of disaster, whereas sustaining manufacturing traces for business merchandise in peacetime. The ability of the U.S. financial system can, and may, be leveraged to resolve this drawback.
This community of manufacturing facilities, or campuses, would carry collectively startups and established producers in the identical ecosystem, enabling the sort of fast prototyping, pilot manufacturing, and full-rate manufacturing the Pentagon is urgently looking for. Every of those campuses could be designed for flexibility, with modular manufacturing capabilities that may be quickly upgraded, and shared heavy infrastructure reminiscent of take a look at beds, utilities, and analytical techniques. Moreover, these amenities could be a part of a linked nationwide community, leveraging the regional strengths of every a part of the nation whereas avoiding the one factors of failure generally present in immediately’s extremely concentrated manufacturing hubs.
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Immediately, the hole between a profitable prototype and real-world manufacturing is usually a chasm within the protection industrial base. Main companies are sometimes tied up sustaining legacy techniques whereas cash-strapped startups can’t afford to construct compliant, capital-intensive factories with out manufacturing contracts. These startups are sometimes advised that contracts received’t come till they show they’ll manufacture at scale. So promising applied sciences stall in a chicken-or-egg limbo whereas delays snowball. The Pentagon’s renewed embrace of OTAs helps, however cash alone received’t repair a bodily bottleneck. We want locations the place cutting-edge companies can scale shortly, and affordably.
A nationwide community of business campuses is designed to fill this hole. Underneath this mannequin, firms wouldn’t pay building prices up entrance; lease funds would start solely after they transfer in and begin producing income. Layering into the mannequin a sure variety of shared amenities—initially funded by the Pentagon—would cut back threat, speed up growth, and dramatically shorten manufacturing timelines. Younger firms achieve room to develop. Established companies achieve entry to recent innovation – and taxpayer {dollars} go additional.
This isn’t a radical concept. It’s an evolution of the mannequin that when made America unstoppable. In World Conflict II, factories throughout the financial system—automotive, textile, client items, and extra—reworked to assist the battle effort. That surge capability occurred as a result of the US had an current industrial ecosystem able to mobilize. Immediately, we not have one.
Many years of offshoring, consolidation, and a fixation on short-term effectivity have left our industrial base brittle and stuffed with holes. COVID-19 made that painfully clear when the world’s largest financial system discovered itself depending on international suppliers for PPE and fundamental provides. Semiconductor shortages nonetheless gradual protection and automotive traces. In the meantime, our adversaries are turning fundamental industries into warfighting property. Russian bakeries are producing drones and China is treating its manufacturing capabilities as a strategic weapon whereas in America, we’ve been treating our manufacturing base like an accounting train.
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The federal government should shift course. Manufacturing is a strategic asset—each bit as essential as ships, planes, satellites, or submarines. Washington ought to fund shared industrial infrastructure, de-risk non-public funding, and let market forces drive effectivity.
The maths is straightforward. In some instances, firms piloting these packages have delivered 4:1 to 25:1 returns on tax {dollars}, producing main positive factors for minimal authorities investments. With a protection finances exceeding $800 billion, the Pentagon can simply afford to take a position a sliver of that—effectively beneath one p.c—to ship a transparent, unambiguous demand sign to the non-public sector that America is rebuilding its industrial spine, and doing it now.
Historical past reveals what occurs after we do. Modest seed capital throughout World Conflict II and the Apollo program unlocked huge non-public funding and generated a whole lot of improvements which have come to outline the trendy age. These campuses could be greater than factories—they might be hubs the place producers, universities, traders, and federal companions construct self-sustaining ecosystems able to accelerating innovation, fostering expertise, and producing vital items at scale. They’d restore American industrial depth, innovation, and adaptability—our most dependable, most underestimated instruments of deterrence.
America is racing into the following complicated period of great-power competitors with a protection industrial base limping alongside from the final period; one which is just too small, too fragile, and too gradual. We are able to invent extraordinary applied sciences, however what use are they sitting in a lab if we are able to’t produce them at scale? If that doesn’t change, the US dangers discovering—too late—that innovation with out industrial energy is a hole benefit.
Rebuilding American manufacturing shall be troublesome. However the price of inaction is way greater. A nation with a deep, versatile industrial base can surge manufacturing, take up financial shocks, and outlast any adversary, on the battlefield and the house entrance. A nation with out one is compelled to ration weapons, delay deployments, and scramble to maintain its provide chains functioning.
We are able to construct this community now or we are able to watch for a disaster to reveal, as soon as once more, how fragile our industrial base has change into. Within the subsequent battle, the world’s strongest navy should be capable to rely on its factories to maintain up.
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