The Pentagon should take an active role in managing the defense industrial base by identifying a handful of "critical" sectors that produce must-have capabilities, funding them with money shifted from weapons programs that are not essential to combating future threats, a new study recommends.
Barry Watts and Todd Harrison, senior fellows at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, argue in a report published today that the private-sector defense industry does not function like a normal free-market entity. Accordingly, a DOD industrial strategy is needed immediately to ensure the preservation of relevant weapons-making capacity as military budgets are tightened.
In light of "the fiscal austerity likely to constrain U.S. spending on national security in the years ahead and the growing complexities and dangers in the nation’s security environment, a long-term strategy seems imperative if the vital sectors of the defense industry are to be preserved," the authors argue in their report, “Sustaining Critical Sectors of the U.S. Defense Industrial Base.”