Re-Imagining America’s Defense Industrial Base

By BENS Board Chairman Mark Gerencser and Initiatives Associate Ethan Ingram,
published in The National Interest. All rights reserved.

“To meet the realities of modern warfare, America needs to engage most of its industrial base as well as those of its allies.”

The US military’s prowess finds its origins in the Second World War’s defense industrial base (DIB), which preemptively identified the Axis Powers’ threat. This foresight enabled the United States to churn out an “arsenal of democracy” that included 1,500 naval vessels, 303,713 aircraft, and 41 billion rounds of ammunition. The DIB today is nowhere near as capable. It cannot produce what the US military needs to face modern threats. Several issues plague this once-robust industry. 

Without significant transformation, major problems and shortfalls loom over the military. This transformation must address gaps in domestic manufacturing, the need for resilient production at scale, and the threat of disruption risk from adversaries. A re-imagined DIB can no longer be stovepiped as a separate subset of US capabilities. By necessity, it must incorporate a large part of the commercial industrial base…

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