A draft copy of the new National Defense Industrial Strategy says American companies can’t build weapons fast enough to meet global demand.
America’s defense industry is struggling to achieve the kind of speed and responsiveness to stay ahead in a high-tech arms race with competitors such as China, an unreleased draft of a new Pentagon report on the defense industry warns.
The first ever National Defense Industrial Strategy, which is set to be released in the coming weeks by Pentagon acquisition chief William LaPlante, is meant to be a comprehensive look at what the Pentagon needs in order to tap into the expertise of small tech firms, while funding and supporting traditional companies to move faster to develop new tech.
As it stands now, the U.S. defense industrial base “does not possess the capacity, capability, responsiveness, or resilience required to satisfy the full range of military production needs at speed and scale,” according to a draft version of the report, obtained by POLITICO.
China is still pretty far behind on all sorts of tech.
Stealth: China just figured out how to hide the exhaust inside the airframe, the US was doing that in the 70s. They don’t have stealth missles the US has thousands.
Missles: China has missles fueled with water, liquid fuel are less stealthy than solid. China is much closer here than most areas.
Logistics: US cargo planes can cary more farther. Russia has shown what bag logistics can do.
Boats: while China has more boats they are less capable. China has two aircraft carriers with one on the way US has 11 with 5 on the way.
Asymmetric warfare: US has demonstrated capability to handle drones and cruze missiles in a real world scenario, no one else has.