Fight, don't fight, go nuclear...those are the obvious options. The cost benefit calculus is complex and may involve "the least bad choice" for the NCA should the worst come to pass.
Is this good? Absolutely, 100% yes...in concept. The Iron Triangle (Congress (Senate in particular), the "Primes", and senior DoD soon-to-be-retired officials (active duty and GS) will fight and derail this if their current revolving door "incentive structure" is not addressed. It is NOT in their self-interest (and profit margins) to scale and lower the cost curve...unless action is taken to make it so. I will not rule out less-than-benign" foreign influence in any discussion of revamping DoD munitions procurement and manufacturing either. "Buying" influence thru "Fat Leonard" activities and out and out bribery (CIA gold bars for sale at a discount, click here **). We got a big hill to climb. And it's a steep hill...
Scarce moat between “primes” and DoD acquisition managers in my time, aside from revolving door, the PM was encouraged to whip tests by service and USD acquisition execs.
It was always “spend the money”..
Salamander should be worried that no big MIC prime ever loses money…
Ed, when primes did approach bankruptcy back in the day like when the Apollo 1 fire resulted the North American merger by Rockwell, or the a nearly bankrupt Douglas being bought by McDonnell they were merged/acquired/bought. Since Les Aspin's Last Supper IMO they're now too big to fail.
Yes, I was not yet in acquisition in late 60-70's some big names were allowed to "go under". One was a corporation involved in warheads for ICBM's which ran out of business when Minuteman was done (as I recall the oral history I received). Their whole product line was warheads. Also is time before I came into acquisitions there were RIFs of federal civilians. In my time companies merged/bought and there were never RIF's of civilians.
That's one thing to keep in mind... the current situation is in part the result of the Clinton Administration's "peace dividend"-niks in the 1990s. But the other part is the Pentagon's switch from rewarding individual systems and subsystems contracts (how they did it before 1990) to bundling work into huge winner-take-all contracts that only the Lockheed Martins and Boeings are big enough to bid on. Smaller contractors can only get work as subs to the big primes, which means their profit margins are cut into. Add to that all the laws and regulations that set aside various bits of subcontracting for DEI purposes, and you've got a situation where the primes are pretty much locked in and smaller would-be competitors can't get off the ground.
Maybe our government recognized we burned up half of war stocks on a fight with iran that we haven't won. Has made them rework the math of what it actually takes to fight a war.
We always seem to be "reworking the math of what it actually takes to fight a war."
I remember post-Yom Kippur in 1973... US was shocked(!) at munitions expenditures by Israel, as well as by Arab foes. Off the charts, and little was done in Washington which contributed to the hollow military of 1970s.
Falklands War 1982 revealed the massive use of naval weps, esp sonobuoys & ASW torpedoes, as well as air-to-air missiles. Shocked(!)
Desert Shield/Storm (1990-91) opened eyes about weapon usage, against even a Tier III military like Iraq. People loved the video of smart bombs hitting exact targets, but when it was over they were shocked (!) at how fast the warehouses emptied out.
Rinse & repeat over past 35 yrs... US expeditions, as well as watching, say, Russia-Ukraine. One sees massive front-line usage, as well as long-range strikes that have wrecked the idea of safety in so-called "operational depth." (Hint... there is NO operational depth anymore against an opponent w targeting & systems that range from drones to IRBMs/hypersonic re-entry.) ie... other side can blow up your expensive stuff before it ever gets loaded onto the launch system. And still, people have been shocked (!)
Now here we are after... 39 days... of kinetics in Iran, and... not-quite-Winchester, but... shocked (!).
What is it about US munitions procurement that creates such a slow learning curve? Okay, yes... much of this stuff is expensive, and then just sits in bunkers & warehouses... But as Casey Stengel once said about the NY Mets: "Can't anybody here play this game?"
There's always a peacetime reset, it seems. And something universal, not uniquely American.
The same thing happened between WWI and WWII. Admiral Fletcher has taken some (unearned, IMO) stick for being overly concerned with keeping his forces fueled, but he spent the first year post-Pearl struggling constantly with that same issue -- for one example, the peacetime-written fuel consumption estimates for wartime ops turned out to be grossly lowballed. Which, combined with a severe shortage of fleet oilers (deja vu, anyone?), left the sharp end of the Pacific Fleet on a starvation diet well into '42 and even '43. And that was with the remaining old/slow/fuel-hog battleships basically benched on the West Coast to avoid further impacting the supply lines.
Many moons ago I was at the National Archives and took the opportunity to make copies of about a year's worth of monthly "Operational Report/Lessons Learned" from the Inf. battalion I was in RVN with. I noticed that after a few months the so-called "lessons learned" started to get a bit repetitious. Some of the "lessons learned" had also been published prior to that year in periodicals like "Infantry" magazine. It seems that all those "lessons learned" are never actually learned.
I learned something this morning, “If it’s not on ____ Base, it’s not my problem…” (that I wasted time of two crew members who waited six hours for cargo that never showed).
Meaning… if a cargo load is not ready for pickup, the problem is on that Base. Yes, a plane went and came back empty.
Another point I’m making to my shipmates, and yes, I’ll understand NATO’s missions!
Whenever I read in this substack about Patriot Missiles sent to Ukraine, my steam valves start to blow!
When I read that Ukraine bombed a bus with children, a school, an apartment building and an oil refinery, my steam whistle blows!
Just so my shipmates are aware, the people of Ukraine will be calling for elections by the third-fourth quarter of 2026. The elected leader of Ukraine and it won’t be Voldemort Z.!, will pick up the papers dated 2014, reading forward to what must be considered for Peace and an end to the Special Military Operation.
Shipmates, what has been happening in Cambodia, thousands loosing jobs, rich business owners fleeing with stolen monies, ask yourselves, where did these scoundrels go?
Shipmates, every night the Albanian people are marching to stop the steal of their beautiful waterfront land!
The Kushner family is being asked to leave Albanian waterfront! There are three NATO bases in that area. Will there be a 72 hour war in Albania financed by the Kushner family?
Shipmates, let’s be ethical and take the high-ground… my son will be flying many missions over there for these next four weeks. Please pray for him. Thank you! Nurse Jane
Fire 20301 and pass the requirements NOW to industry to buy off shelves what exists today. Sack 20301 and tell congress NOW and 5-10 year contracts. Acquisitions and the bureaucracy had their chances and the warning and they did it again. They will as long as they can login. Start with their logins suspended and the last email they get their retirement packages. OR FAIL. Again.
Wouldn't you first figure out who your military adversaries will be in the next 30 years? There is this current huge focus on China, but as mentioned previously, we don't match up well militarily with the Chinese right now. And Xi will probably moot the issue in the next two years. And what the future of technology is likely to hold given the long-lead time with most weapons development? What happens if Quantum Sensing and Quantum Computing come togther this decade and all-of-a-sudden the ocean is as clear as a pane of glass. Now what? And what does that mean for above ground/surface detection? IMO, we ought to think through those kind of issues before cutting steel. FYI, the Royal Navy built brand-new WOODEN, screw-propelled ships of the line in the 1850s! A prominent example is HMS Duke of Wellington, launched in 1852, which was a 131-gun first-rate ship. YMMV
I read today that Poland will be building PAC3 Patriots....the only other country besides Japan to be given the clearance to do so.
Considering the build rate, probably good.
I care little for the cost per weapon. What I care about is the depth and breadth of the magazines and how fast they can be refilled. And I lack any warm feelings about it.
"This must be a bi-partisan effort" made me laugh. Much to the annoyance of a few on this porch, I will reiterate bring the unions onboard and the the Democrats will follow the power for the votes and money. Graft speaks, national defense does not.
Btw, here's a nice example what of multi-year procurement of large quantity buys can do.
Correct. Democrats flat out hate America. They will only do what benefits America if it fattens their own pockets.
If they refuse to play ball, or if the patriotic side can't offer large enough bribes, I don't think Trump & Co. will risk nuclear war to protect Taiwan. Instead, they will cut a deal and let China take over the island.
Want a strong military? Want to defend Taiwan w/o resorting to nukes? There must be a minimally patriotic House, Senate, & White House. Nothing less will make rearming possible.
I thought the context of the discussion was about munitions inventory replacement, not some retrograde Paradise Lost fantasy of an imagined satanic revolt against a revanchist heaven.
Members of the U.S. Congress convicted of federal bribery and related corruption charges since the 1970s consist of 14 Democrats and 5 Republicans. Three to one. He maybe onto something.
Sir, merely recognizing there's a huge untapped reservoir of under educated people and space available in many cities in the Northeast does not make one a cynic. Observing the unwillingness of politicians to tap into those resources while desiring to go overseas for new naval construction should make anybody question what it will take to bring them onboard with more domestic jobs. The suggestion merely offers an option.
Comparing a P-51 to an F-22 is the old "Apples and Oranges" fallacy. They are both fighter aircraft, but that is about it. I doubt there are many economies of scale to be obtained by massive purchases of any modern aircraft. For one thing, modern aircraft are orders of magnitude more complex. "Rosie the Riveter", for example, is a nostalgic memory, not a realistic solution for supplying new labor for increasing production of modern aircraft.
I disagree. Just setting up CNC or pick and place for circuit boards for a large single run can yield significant labor savings along the quantity break cost for materials. Mass production also reduces the ROI time for the acquisition of specialized automated machine tools that only perform one or two manufacturing processes.
Even by the end of WWII, Rosie was replaced by a significant number of machines at the sub and component levels prior to final assembly. Particularly with aircraft engines.
Gee, thanks, just what I needed---another addition to my reading list. And another website to add to my list. Another reduction to my beer drinking, porn viewing, and nap time. I may be retired but there are still only 24 hours in a day!
Looks like a fun read, though. Already answered a question or two I have had for some time. Pages 131-133 seem to contain footnotes to Chap. 3, and I am not going to subscribe to another website in order to download the document.
Pogo is once again proven correct, in that The Gov is our own worst enemy. In the demand for minimal impacts on non-combatants and infrastructure, Collateral Damage, our feckless 535 with the checkbook have demanded the development and use of so called smart weapons. Our FOGOs have listened and emptied the magazines. Military contractors were only too glad to develop more expensive atomic BBs.
We deal with what we can measure and collateral damage draws more attention than our own losses. The most important measure of our combat effectiveness is not enemy KIA, territory gained, lives freed, weapons surrendered, but what we didn't do is now primary. We haven't demonstrated the Will to Win since WWll. The problem is not Price, it is Political Will.
dale: I agree with you. The US (and Israel) conduct wars by trying not to hurt anyone. The result is failure to win wars, unless, of course, that is the goal.
Bombed unsuccessfully from 1965 to 1972 with considerable US losses, it was finally destroyed in 1972 by newly developed "smart" laser-guided bombs. "Smart" weapons save US lives; limiting collateral damage is merely a fortunate side effect.
This is exactly the right framing. The issue is not simply whether America can build the best individual weapon system, in my opinion we clearly can. The harder question is whether we can build enough of them, replace them fast enough, and sustain a fight after the first few weeks of high-end combat.
The “Arsenal of Democracy” cannot just be exquisite platforms and boutique production lines. It has to include depth, redundancy, commercial capacity, smaller innovators, and a procurement system that rewards speed and scale instead of only perfection.
The uncomfortable lesson from Ukraine, the Red Sea, Iran, and any future Western Pacific scenario is that magazines matter. Industrial capacity is deterrence. If we cannot refill the shelves quickly, then our strategy is only as strong as the first salvo - and then what? Great writeup and looking forward to the next one!
"This must be a bi-partisan effort. It must outlast the Trump administration. I know that is a position that is hard for some to run with in an election years, but this is more important than petty political posturing."
Not to the politicians it isn't, and theirs is the only opinion they really care about even after the drubbing some incumbents got during this year's primary season.
" Bells were ringing about inadequate magazines after every OPLAN revision and related exercises in the mid-late 1990s"
You can go back even farther to the Yom Kippur war in 1973. It only lasted about 3 weeks but there were a lot of "uh-oh!"s as US stocks of everything, including tanks and aircraft, were drawn down to resupply unexpectedly large Israeli expenditures of weapons and equipment.
Incidentally, this occurred at about the same time environmentalism was becoming fashionable and the EPA was created. This hampered the ability of industry, particularly the foundry industry, to fill the orders for replacement weapons and equipment.
The plain facts are, if the USA doesn't expand it's conventional power to over match we shall go nuclear with all the attendant horrors.
Fight, don't fight, go nuclear...those are the obvious options. The cost benefit calculus is complex and may involve "the least bad choice" for the NCA should the worst come to pass.
True.
Is this good? Absolutely, 100% yes...in concept. The Iron Triangle (Congress (Senate in particular), the "Primes", and senior DoD soon-to-be-retired officials (active duty and GS) will fight and derail this if their current revolving door "incentive structure" is not addressed. It is NOT in their self-interest (and profit margins) to scale and lower the cost curve...unless action is taken to make it so. I will not rule out less-than-benign" foreign influence in any discussion of revamping DoD munitions procurement and manufacturing either. "Buying" influence thru "Fat Leonard" activities and out and out bribery (CIA gold bars for sale at a discount, click here **). We got a big hill to climb. And it's a steep hill...
Scarce moat between “primes” and DoD acquisition managers in my time, aside from revolving door, the PM was encouraged to whip tests by service and USD acquisition execs.
It was always “spend the money”..
Salamander should be worried that no big MIC prime ever loses money…
Or went bankrupt.
Ed, when primes did approach bankruptcy back in the day like when the Apollo 1 fire resulted the North American merger by Rockwell, or the a nearly bankrupt Douglas being bought by McDonnell they were merged/acquired/bought. Since Les Aspin's Last Supper IMO they're now too big to fail.
Yes, I was not yet in acquisition in late 60-70's some big names were allowed to "go under". One was a corporation involved in warheads for ICBM's which ran out of business when Minuteman was done (as I recall the oral history I received). Their whole product line was warheads. Also is time before I came into acquisitions there were RIFs of federal civilians. In my time companies merged/bought and there were never RIF's of civilians.
That's one thing to keep in mind... the current situation is in part the result of the Clinton Administration's "peace dividend"-niks in the 1990s. But the other part is the Pentagon's switch from rewarding individual systems and subsystems contracts (how they did it before 1990) to bundling work into huge winner-take-all contracts that only the Lockheed Martins and Boeings are big enough to bid on. Smaller contractors can only get work as subs to the big primes, which means their profit margins are cut into. Add to that all the laws and regulations that set aside various bits of subcontracting for DEI purposes, and you've got a situation where the primes are pretty much locked in and smaller would-be competitors can't get off the ground.
Maybe our government recognized we burned up half of war stocks on a fight with iran that we haven't won. Has made them rework the math of what it actually takes to fight a war.
We always seem to be "reworking the math of what it actually takes to fight a war."
I remember post-Yom Kippur in 1973... US was shocked(!) at munitions expenditures by Israel, as well as by Arab foes. Off the charts, and little was done in Washington which contributed to the hollow military of 1970s.
Falklands War 1982 revealed the massive use of naval weps, esp sonobuoys & ASW torpedoes, as well as air-to-air missiles. Shocked(!)
Desert Shield/Storm (1990-91) opened eyes about weapon usage, against even a Tier III military like Iraq. People loved the video of smart bombs hitting exact targets, but when it was over they were shocked (!) at how fast the warehouses emptied out.
Rinse & repeat over past 35 yrs... US expeditions, as well as watching, say, Russia-Ukraine. One sees massive front-line usage, as well as long-range strikes that have wrecked the idea of safety in so-called "operational depth." (Hint... there is NO operational depth anymore against an opponent w targeting & systems that range from drones to IRBMs/hypersonic re-entry.) ie... other side can blow up your expensive stuff before it ever gets loaded onto the launch system. And still, people have been shocked (!)
Now here we are after... 39 days... of kinetics in Iran, and... not-quite-Winchester, but... shocked (!).
What is it about US munitions procurement that creates such a slow learning curve? Okay, yes... much of this stuff is expensive, and then just sits in bunkers & warehouses... But as Casey Stengel once said about the NY Mets: "Can't anybody here play this game?"
There's always a peacetime reset, it seems. And something universal, not uniquely American.
The same thing happened between WWI and WWII. Admiral Fletcher has taken some (unearned, IMO) stick for being overly concerned with keeping his forces fueled, but he spent the first year post-Pearl struggling constantly with that same issue -- for one example, the peacetime-written fuel consumption estimates for wartime ops turned out to be grossly lowballed. Which, combined with a severe shortage of fleet oilers (deja vu, anyone?), left the sharp end of the Pacific Fleet on a starvation diet well into '42 and even '43. And that was with the remaining old/slow/fuel-hog battleships basically benched on the West Coast to avoid further impacting the supply lines.
"Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose".
"What's past is prologue."
"Those who do not know history are .......".
"There is nothing new under the sun."
Etc.
Many moons ago I was at the National Archives and took the opportunity to make copies of about a year's worth of monthly "Operational Report/Lessons Learned" from the Inf. battalion I was in RVN with. I noticed that after a few months the so-called "lessons learned" started to get a bit repetitious. Some of the "lessons learned" had also been published prior to that year in periodicals like "Infantry" magazine. It seems that all those "lessons learned" are never actually learned.
Good Morning Shipmates,
I learned something this morning, “If it’s not on ____ Base, it’s not my problem…” (that I wasted time of two crew members who waited six hours for cargo that never showed).
Meaning… if a cargo load is not ready for pickup, the problem is on that Base. Yes, a plane went and came back empty.
Another point I’m making to my shipmates, and yes, I’ll understand NATO’s missions!
Whenever I read in this substack about Patriot Missiles sent to Ukraine, my steam valves start to blow!
When I read that Ukraine bombed a bus with children, a school, an apartment building and an oil refinery, my steam whistle blows!
Just so my shipmates are aware, the people of Ukraine will be calling for elections by the third-fourth quarter of 2026. The elected leader of Ukraine and it won’t be Voldemort Z.!, will pick up the papers dated 2014, reading forward to what must be considered for Peace and an end to the Special Military Operation.
Shipmates, what has been happening in Cambodia, thousands loosing jobs, rich business owners fleeing with stolen monies, ask yourselves, where did these scoundrels go?
Shipmates, every night the Albanian people are marching to stop the steal of their beautiful waterfront land!
The Kushner family is being asked to leave Albanian waterfront! There are three NATO bases in that area. Will there be a 72 hour war in Albania financed by the Kushner family?
Shipmates, let’s be ethical and take the high-ground… my son will be flying many missions over there for these next four weeks. Please pray for him. Thank you! Nurse Jane
Fire 20301 and pass the requirements NOW to industry to buy off shelves what exists today. Sack 20301 and tell congress NOW and 5-10 year contracts. Acquisitions and the bureaucracy had their chances and the warning and they did it again. They will as long as they can login. Start with their logins suspended and the last email they get their retirement packages. OR FAIL. Again.
Wouldn't you first figure out who your military adversaries will be in the next 30 years? There is this current huge focus on China, but as mentioned previously, we don't match up well militarily with the Chinese right now. And Xi will probably moot the issue in the next two years. And what the future of technology is likely to hold given the long-lead time with most weapons development? What happens if Quantum Sensing and Quantum Computing come togther this decade and all-of-a-sudden the ocean is as clear as a pane of glass. Now what? And what does that mean for above ground/surface detection? IMO, we ought to think through those kind of issues before cutting steel. FYI, the Royal Navy built brand-new WOODEN, screw-propelled ships of the line in the 1850s! A prominent example is HMS Duke of Wellington, launched in 1852, which was a 131-gun first-rate ship. YMMV
Still have to be looking in the right place. Theoretically, no ship on the surface isn't constantly monitored right now; in practice.....
Seeing into and preparing for the future has always proved to be difficult.
I read today that Poland will be building PAC3 Patriots....the only other country besides Japan to be given the clearance to do so.
Considering the build rate, probably good.
I care little for the cost per weapon. What I care about is the depth and breadth of the magazines and how fast they can be refilled. And I lack any warm feelings about it.
"And I lack any warm feelings about it."
"It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state,"---Milton Friedman
I would add that a corollary of that is "You can't have a super-power military and a welfare state".
You can have Guns OR Butter, but not Guns AND Butter.
"This must be a bi-partisan effort" made me laugh. Much to the annoyance of a few on this porch, I will reiterate bring the unions onboard and the the Democrats will follow the power for the votes and money. Graft speaks, national defense does not.
Btw, here's a nice example what of multi-year procurement of large quantity buys can do.
https://www.warbirdsandairshows.com/Aircraft%20manufacturing/aircraftcostswwii.htm
Correct. Democrats flat out hate America. They will only do what benefits America if it fattens their own pockets.
If they refuse to play ball, or if the patriotic side can't offer large enough bribes, I don't think Trump & Co. will risk nuclear war to protect Taiwan. Instead, they will cut a deal and let China take over the island.
Want a strong military? Want to defend Taiwan w/o resorting to nukes? There must be a minimally patriotic House, Senate, & White House. Nothing less will make rearming possible.
OhioCoastie: Taiwan is as good as gone. The US does not have the assets and consumables, nor the desire. to defend Taiwan
I thought the context of the discussion was about munitions inventory replacement, not some retrograde Paradise Lost fantasy of an imagined satanic revolt against a revanchist heaven.
Members of the U.S. Congress convicted of federal bribery and related corruption charges since the 1970s consist of 14 Democrats and 5 Republicans. Three to one. He maybe onto something.
You're cynical. You're right.
Sir, merely recognizing there's a huge untapped reservoir of under educated people and space available in many cities in the Northeast does not make one a cynic. Observing the unwillingness of politicians to tap into those resources while desiring to go overseas for new naval construction should make anybody question what it will take to bring them onboard with more domestic jobs. The suggestion merely offers an option.
Comparing a P-51 to an F-22 is the old "Apples and Oranges" fallacy. They are both fighter aircraft, but that is about it. I doubt there are many economies of scale to be obtained by massive purchases of any modern aircraft. For one thing, modern aircraft are orders of magnitude more complex. "Rosie the Riveter", for example, is a nostalgic memory, not a realistic solution for supplying new labor for increasing production of modern aircraft.
I disagree. Just setting up CNC or pick and place for circuit boards for a large single run can yield significant labor savings along the quantity break cost for materials. Mass production also reduces the ROI time for the acquisition of specialized automated machine tools that only perform one or two manufacturing processes.
Even by the end of WWII, Rosie was replaced by a significant number of machines at the sub and component levels prior to final assembly. Particularly with aircraft engines.
https://www.scribd.com/document/805320678/Building-Engines-for-War#page=115
Please see pages 131-133 in the print addition.
Gee, thanks, just what I needed---another addition to my reading list. And another website to add to my list. Another reduction to my beer drinking, porn viewing, and nap time. I may be retired but there are still only 24 hours in a day!
Looks like a fun read, though. Already answered a question or two I have had for some time. Pages 131-133 seem to contain footnotes to Chap. 3, and I am not going to subscribe to another website in order to download the document.
And those primes can read the writing on the wall:
GM and Lockheed sign pact aimed at accelerating weapons production for US military
Read more at: https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2026-06-17/general-motors-lockheed-martin-collaboration-21992950.html
Source - Stars and Stripes
It is always about the beans, bullets and black oil.
Pogo is once again proven correct, in that The Gov is our own worst enemy. In the demand for minimal impacts on non-combatants and infrastructure, Collateral Damage, our feckless 535 with the checkbook have demanded the development and use of so called smart weapons. Our FOGOs have listened and emptied the magazines. Military contractors were only too glad to develop more expensive atomic BBs.
We deal with what we can measure and collateral damage draws more attention than our own losses. The most important measure of our combat effectiveness is not enemy KIA, territory gained, lives freed, weapons surrendered, but what we didn't do is now primary. We haven't demonstrated the Will to Win since WWll. The problem is not Price, it is Political Will.
dale: I agree with you. The US (and Israel) conduct wars by trying not to hurt anyone. The result is failure to win wars, unless, of course, that is the goal.
Smart weapons were not developed to limit collateral damage, and they were "demanded" by the military just as much as by Congress. Why?
Just one example---The Thanh Hoa bridge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanh_H%C3%B3a_Bridge
Bombed unsuccessfully from 1965 to 1972 with considerable US losses, it was finally destroyed in 1972 by newly developed "smart" laser-guided bombs. "Smart" weapons save US lives; limiting collateral damage is merely a fortunate side effect.
Amazing it has taken this long. Here are two easy reads on success in this area:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/arthur-herman/freedoms-forge/
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/aj-baime/the-arsenal-of-democracy/
Suppose Musk decides that military armament would be a good investment.....
Well, he certainly has enough money to avoid taking NRE with the government then owning the data rights.
This is exactly the right framing. The issue is not simply whether America can build the best individual weapon system, in my opinion we clearly can. The harder question is whether we can build enough of them, replace them fast enough, and sustain a fight after the first few weeks of high-end combat.
The “Arsenal of Democracy” cannot just be exquisite platforms and boutique production lines. It has to include depth, redundancy, commercial capacity, smaller innovators, and a procurement system that rewards speed and scale instead of only perfection.
The uncomfortable lesson from Ukraine, the Red Sea, Iran, and any future Western Pacific scenario is that magazines matter. Industrial capacity is deterrence. If we cannot refill the shelves quickly, then our strategy is only as strong as the first salvo - and then what? Great writeup and looking forward to the next one!
"This must be a bi-partisan effort. It must outlast the Trump administration. I know that is a position that is hard for some to run with in an election years, but this is more important than petty political posturing."
Not to the politicians it isn't, and theirs is the only opinion they really care about even after the drubbing some incumbents got during this year's primary season.
" Bells were ringing about inadequate magazines after every OPLAN revision and related exercises in the mid-late 1990s"
You can go back even farther to the Yom Kippur war in 1973. It only lasted about 3 weeks but there were a lot of "uh-oh!"s as US stocks of everything, including tanks and aircraft, were drawn down to resupply unexpectedly large Israeli expenditures of weapons and equipment.
Incidentally, this occurred at about the same time environmentalism was becoming fashionable and the EPA was created. This hampered the ability of industry, particularly the foundry industry, to fill the orders for replacement weapons and equipment.