The Briefing Room
General Category => Military/Defense News => Topic started by: rangerrebew on November 12, 2018, 07:02:15 pm
-
How President Trump Saved The Last Tank Plant In America
Loren Thompson
If you want to believe America is still the "arsenal of democracy" that Franklin Roosevelt described in 1940, you might want to avoid looking too closely at the U.S. manufacturing sector. China has become the world's premier industrial power, greatly out-producing the United States in everything from steel to smartphones. Germany's machine-tool industry outshines our own. No U.S. shipyard has built a commercial ship destined for international commerce in decades.
The economic consequences of America's manufacturing decline have been widely reported. What gets less attention is how industrial decay might impact national defense. Nobody really knows how a future great-power conflict might unfold, but Washington could be forced to use nuclear weapons to avert defeat if it can't mobilize quickly for conventional combat. President Trump is the first chief executive since the Cold War ended who seems to grasp what a waning industrial base might one day mean for our security.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2018/11/02/how-president-trump-saved-the-last-tank-plant-in-america/#13ae95c33d01 (https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2018/11/02/how-president-trump-saved-the-last-tank-plant-in-america/#13ae95c33d01)
-
That our defense industry had problems was evident when there wasn't enough steel around (of the correct grade and composition) to up-armour humvees. We aren't going to be able to import the stuff we need when the place we'd likely import it from is the same bunch we may be in conflict with.
This is another problem with closing mills, mines, and other facilities involved in resource extraction. Not to mention the skills lost when the workers move on, retire, or simply die of old age. Some things just can't be put on the shelf for later.
-
Because the American “industrial base†was tied to defense, no one (especially the Dems) gave a crap about it, until now.
-
I doubt the Dems. are too much concerned about it, even now. They have traditionally been quite hostile to the military. :headbang: