ONE SIZE FITS NONE: THE UNITED STATES NEEDS A GRAND DEFENSE INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
JONATHAN CAVERLEY, ETHAN KAPSTEIN, AND JENNIFER KAVANAGH
NOVEMBER 16, 2023
The war in Ukraine has been simultaneously described as the first networked war and a “return of industrial warfare.” Lockheed Martin repurposed a diaper factory to make HIMARS launchers, the Ukrainian prime minister claims his country buys 60 percent of DJI’s Mavic drone production, and the conflict has introduced the term “FrankenSAM” for the cobbled together systems — like a Soviet-era Buk launcher firing Sea Sparrow missiles donated by NATO navies — defending Ukrainian air space.
While relying extensively on heavy artillery, tanks, advanced missiles, and millions of rounds of ammunition, Ukraine has also leveraged both cheap and advanced commercial technology to hold its own against its bigger and better equipped adversary. The scale and complexity of resourcing Ukraine’s requirements has challenged Western backers, and that was before the war in Gaza created further demand on U.S. munitions stocks. Future wars are likely to create still greater burdens.
So, how can the Pentagon ensure that it receives, at scale, the remarkable range of weaponry and military-related systems it needs now and in the future? The Department of Defense has promised to address this question with a new Defense Industrial Strategy to be delivered by the end of this year. The strategy will guide the Department of Defense’s policies, programs, and investments for at least the next three years and is “meant to catalyze a generational change” in how the Pentagon does business. But a real danger exists that this “first-ever” strategy document, like so many others generated by the U.S. government, will collapse into irrelevance under the weight of its many competing demands.
https://warontherocks.com/2023/11/one-size-fits-none-the-united-states-needs-a-grand-defense-industrial-strategy/
