The New (Old) Defense Industrial Strategy – The Challenge of Doing More with Less
By Jeffrey P. Bialos
January 25, 2024
The Defense Department’s recently released National Defense Industrial Strategy offers a strong set of recommendations, drawing heavily on strategies past, in an effort to shape a more robust set of industrial capabilities necessary to meet our 21st century war fighting needs. The challenge, however, is how to move from defense industrial aspirations to executable realities in a constrained budgetary environment both today – with ongoing conflicts in Europe and the Middle East – and tomorrow as we realign our forces for the pacing threats in the Indo-Pacific.
First and foremost, the overall thrust of the new DoD report is that today’s defense industrial base (“DIB”), after years of post-Cold War consolidation, is insufficient to meet our needs, and that we need a more robust, broader, and deeper set of industrial capabilities that can yield additional production (not just prototypes) and deeper weapons stockpiles.
Yet, here’s the dilemma. The size, scope and breadth of the DIB is a function of the demand side of the market – the defense budget, military requirements, and acquisition programs. The “Last Supper” and the consolidation that followed – which the report says has increased our security risks –wasn’t due to predatory commercial behaviors by firms but was a result of declining post-Cold War defense budgets, requirements, and programs in response to declining threats after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/01/25/the_new_old_defense_industrial_strategy__the_challenge_of_doing_more_with_less_1007296.html
