Key suppliers for weapons such as the AIM-120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missile are fleeing the defense-industrial base, which could have an impact on the ability of America to wage war in the future. (R. Nial Bradshaw/U.S. Air Force)
Defense News: The US is running out of bombs — and it may soon struggle to make more
WASHINGTON ― The Pentagon plans to invest more than $20 billion in munitions in its next budget. But whether the industrial base will be there to support such massive buys in the future is up in the air — at a time when America is expanding munitions at increasingly intense rates.
The annual Industrial Capabilities report, put out by the Pentagon’s Office of Manufacturing and Industrial Base Policy, has concluded that the industrial base of the munitions sector is particularly strained, something the report blames on the start-and-stop nature of munitions procurement over the last 20 years, as well as the lack of new designs being internally developed.
Some suppliers have dropped out entirely, leaving no option for replacing vital materials. Other key suppliers are foreign-owned, with no indigenous capability to produce vital parts and materials ― setting up the risk that a conflict with China could rely on Chinese-made parts.
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WNU Editor: No planning. Start and stop production over the years. Who would want to invest monies in such a chaotic and uncertain environment.
4 comments:
Let’s just buy our bombs from China.... I bet they’ll be glad to sell at a deep deep discount
That's the American fault 100%. 27 years ago the fall of USSR makes, little by little, a feeling of "no more enemy" = " no need of emergency in defense". On top of that, the war on terror make us forgetting the possibility of a real war. We are harvesting the result of neglecting our defense...especially with the "sequestration" under the Obama administration.
Restarting an industrial base for weapons will take a lot of time, and maybe too much time. General Mac Arthur said " defeat can be contained in two words: too late".
6 some years of Obama sequestration didn't help either. Republican dupes were played over and over by Team O. Hopefully production will now tool up for consistency.
and now a year and a half later, and you still blame O?
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