The U.S. defense industrial base (DIB) is struggling to meet the demands of the current strategic environment—let alone prepare for a potential conflict against an advanced adversary such as China. Today, the DIB cannot keep pace with defense modernization efforts while also filling the massive demand for defense items in Ukraine, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific. It is struggling to simultaneously meet the current needs of the U.S. military and America’s allies and partners while preparing for future challenges. The chasm between U.S. defense strategy and defense industrial reality has been exposed. Without significant industrial reform, the United States is at risk of being unable to deter China and Russia from aggression today and, if needed, win a future great power conflict tomorrow. Despite the renewed importance of industrial policy to U.S. economic and national security, the DIB is beset with chronic challenges. Decades of defense-industrial consolidation, inconsistent government demand, and bureaucratic rigidity have made the U.S. DIB more vulnerable, less capable, and slow to react. The DIB lacks the capacity to produce enough of the right kinds of capabilities to roll back adversary aggression and prevail in future conflict. It does not possess the responsiveness and flexibility to dynamically and swiftly surge production of a diverse array of weapons and platforms in times of crisis. The DIB also lacks the resilience required to withstand global shocks and the strain of modern conflict. The United States needs a different DIB than it has today if it wants to deter and prevail in future great power conflict. This report aims to bridge the gap between U.S. defense strategy and industrial planning to strengthen deterrence. It details the existing challenges within the U.S. DIB before illustrating how it is insufficient to manage the future dynamics of great power conflict. The report makes the case for improving the DIB by emphasizing four core defense industrial attributes: capacity, responsiveness, flexibility, and resilience. To meet the demands of future great power competition, the DIB must significantly expand its capacity so that it can produce the volume of critical weapons, platforms, and equipment needed to deter and defeat increasingly challenging and complex threats. The DIB also must become considerably more responsive so that it can surge production of key items at decisive moments and rapidly fill critical gaps. The diversity of systems required to address emerging threats, from low-cost attritable drones to submarines, requires the DIB to become more flexible so that it can support the high-low capability mix of future conflicts. Finally, the DIB must bolster its resilience to external disruption so that its supply chains can withstand interference, manipulation, and other shocks likely to arise in conflict. Reforming the DIB around these attributes will not be without significant time and financial cost. However, the cost of inaction is far greater. As currently organized, the U.S. DIB risks undermining deterrence today and undercutting U.S. strategic objectives in future competition and conflict. Without change, the U.S. DIB may put America at risk of failing to win a war against China, and the DIB is likely to increasingly become a critical strategic vulnerability to U.S. security and leadership. The U.S. DIB must be reformed so that it better serves U.S. interests, strengthens deterrence, and ensures American and global security today and tomorrow.
From Production Lines to Front Lines. Revitalizing the U.S. Defense Industrial Base for Future Great Power Conflict (Becca Wasser, Philip Sheers – Center for a New American Security)
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