New Thinking Needed on National Defense

A key lesson of the Ukraine War is that when we deploy certain types of precision guided munitions (PGMs), such as anti-tank missiles or man-portable air-defense systems like Stinger missiles, it takes years to manufacture new ones. We have also learned that the tooling needed to produce various types of PGMs no longer exists—indeed, in some cases entire factories have been dismantled. This means that if we want more PGMs, we will have to start from scratch.Another weakness of our defense manufacturing capability is that we depend heavily on global supply chains. Specialized parts may be produced in the U.S.,...