The U.S. military admitted: "The U.S. military is responsible for painting the cake, and China is responsible for executing it."
In the context of military competition between China and the United States, there have been numerous cases in which "the US military is responsible for pulling the cake and China is responsible for carrying it out." In the past, we often used "anxiety" to describe the US military's feelings about military scientific research and production. This, of course, does not conform to the habitual thinking of some people that the US military is the number one in the world.
Over the past two days, the Pentagon has released an unpublished draft of the defense industry, warning that the U.S. defense industry is losing the speed and reflexes to stay ahead in a high-tech arms race with rivals such as China. The U.S. argument is this: The U.S. defense industrial base currently does not have the capacity, capability, responsiveness, or resiliency needed to meet the full range of military production needs at the required speed and scale.
The Defense Industry Strategy U.S. report also offers a solution: a comprehensive look at the Pentagon's needs to leverage the expertise of small tech companies, while providing funding and support to traditional large corporations to develop new technologies faster.
"Traditional defense contractors will be challenged to respond to modern conflicts with the speed, scale and flexibility needed to meet the dynamic demands of major modern conflicts," the report says. The United States believes that it can develop the best ** in the world, but it cannot produce and deploy it quickly, which is exactly what we said at the beginning.
China's industry significantly exceeds not only the capacity of the United States, but also our major allies in Europe and Asia combined, the report says.
Regarding the US report "Defense Industry Strategy", some people say that the Americans exaggerate the threat of China and ask Congress for money. This is true, but it does not explain the essence of the problem at all, that is, why is the art worker so sick?
There are many examples of the failure of the US defense-industrial strategy. For example, in the field of hypersonic missiles, it still lags behind China and Russia. Progress in the field of supersonic water missiles, bicone and hypersonic cruise missiles is not going well. The United States even lacks a wind tunnel for the development of hypersonic missiles.
In the production process, US assistance to Ukraine to increase the production capacity of artillery shells has been slow. The U.S. side is very inefficient in developing, procuring, and deploying cheap drones. It is difficult to produce the American DDG1000 destroyer, and at present only Burke Class III destroyers can be produced. Both the Littoral Combat Ship and the Zumwalt-class ship are in the wrong tech tree.
The failure rate of the electromagnetic catapult capture system of the Ford-class aircraft carrier is too high;The F-35's power and cooling capacity is insufficient, and the cost of operation and maintenance is so high that it has become a vampire that devours the United States.
Today we will look at the deep causes of the decline of the US defense industry from an outsider's point of view.
First, the drawbacks of the system, which is dominated by private defense and the military industry, are emerging.
Why is the US more expensive?Why isn't there a company investing in a basic wind tunnel?Why can't startups find their place in the *** chain?The most fundamental reason is the for-profit nature of monopolies and private capital.
At present, there are several large military-industrial giants that provide the United States. Of course, they don't want competitors to show up. In the end, only one company has the ability to develop some kind of **, leaving the US military with no choice. This way they can ensure the best benefit. Change. If such a company were still a private company and could extend the chain of interests all the way to Congress, the consequences would be dire. Even if some small startups make some headway, they can be quickly acquired and killed.
It can be said that the lack of sufficient competition is causing the US defense industry to lose its impetus for innovation. For example, the United States is bidding for NGAD fighters, but does not yet want to give them to Lockheed Martin. However, the U.S. military found that Boeing was struggling to produce even the F-15EX normally. The reason was that the company outsourced the production of fighter jet parts in order to save money, which eventually led to a crisis in the ** chain.
2. The problem caused by the lack of talent is more serious. It is true that the company has been very strong historically, but it cannot be said that it is still strong today. The main reason is that people are dead. For example, it is almost difficult for the United States to develop the next generation of land-based ICBMs, because no one can understand the plans of Minuteman III.
After withdrawing from the INF Treaty, the United States will not be able to develop intermediate-range land-based ballistic missiles, because there are no more personnel involved in the development and production of the Star missile, and it is almost impossible to reorganize. This also applies to the development of hypersonic missiles and aircraft. The U.S. defense industry, rich in talent and innovative, is dead.
3. The inventory is too large, the burden is too heavy, and the turnover is difficult. U.S. military spending, while large, is also limited. At present, a large number of old equipment, such as A-10, F-15, F-16, Burke-class destroyers and even aircraft carriers, consume excessive military spending. How much money do we have to develop and buy new **?One question.
4. The rapid change of military strategic goals has led to mistakes in the development path. For example, the Zumwalt and the Littoral Combat Ship set the goal of seizing land from the sea and closing in on the adversary. Now it looks like a complete scrap.
5. The de-industrialization of the whole country will inevitably lead to the outbreak of ** production conflicts. This is very evident in the decline of the American shipbuilding and military industry. Workers are hard to find and there is a clear lack of investment in infrastructure.
In general, there are real problems with the US defense industry, but they are very difficult to solve. In the long run, time is definitely on China's side.