But Katherine Blakeley, a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, says not all companies can diversfy equally. Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, for example, still mostly serve the Pentagon, but Boeing has a "pretty robust" commercial sector to offset a drop in defense sales.
Capped budgets have forced industry to become more efficient to protect its profit margins, searching for ways to assemble something faster or improve the manufacturing process, Blakeley added.
"Any time there's less money, there's more pressure to demonstrate how you're bringing value," she said. "It's a challenging time for industry, but what isn't?"
But adaptation can only go so far. If Washington decides to buy only eight planes instead of 20, industry inevitably takes a hit. Its revenue is cut by the reduced sale, but its costs also rise because it has less price leverage with suppliers, Blakeley said.