In the context of Sino-US military competition, there have been many cases of "the US military is responsible for drawing the pie, and China is responsible for realizing it." In the past, we often used "anxiety" to describe the feelings of the US team in the field of military scientific research and production, which of course does not conform to some people's habitual thinking, that is, it is necessary to say that the US military is the first in the world.
In the past two days, the Pentagon has released an unpublished draft on the defense industry, warning that the US defense industry is losing the speed and responsiveness to maintain a leading position in a high-tech arms race with competitors such as China. The American narrative is this: The U.S. defense industrial base currently does not have the capacity, capabilities, response capabilities, or resilience needed to meet the full range of military production needs at speed and scale.
The U.S. Defense Industry Strategy also offers a solution: a comprehensive look at the Pentagon's needs to leverage the expertise of small technology companies, while providing funding and support to traditional large companies to develop new technologies faster.
It mentions that "traditional defense contractors will face the challenge of responding to modern conflicts with the speed, scale, and flexibility necessary to meet the dynamic demands of major modern conflicts." The United States thinks that it can develop the best in the world, but it just can't 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 European and Asian allies combined, the report says.
Regarding the statement in the US "Defense Industry Strategy" report, some people say that the Americans are exaggerating the Chinese threat in order to ask Congress for money. That's true, but it simply can't explain the essence of the problem, that is, why the US military industry is so sick
There are many examples of the failure of the US defense industry strategy. For example, China and Russia are still seriously lagging behind China and Russia in the field of hypersonic missiles, including hypersonic water drifting missiles, twin cones and hypersonic cruise missiles, and the United States even lacks a wind tunnel to develop hypersonic missiles.
In the production link, the increase in the production capacity of artillery shells aided by the United States to Ukraine is the speed of snails. The U.S. team is very inefficient in the research and development, procurement and deployment of cheap UAVs. The American DDG1000 destroyer is difficult to deliver, and now only Burke III destroyers can be produced, and the Littoral Combat Ship and Zumwalt-class ships are all wrong with the tech tree.
The failure rate of the electromagnetic ejection and interdiction system of the Ford-class aircraft carrier is too high;The appearance of the F-35 has insufficient power supply and cooling capacity, and the cost of use and maintenance is too high, so high that it has become a vampire that consumes the United States.
Today, we will look at the root causes of the decline of the U.S. defense industry from an outsider's perspective.
First, the drawbacks of the system dominated by the private defense industry are emerging. Why is the United States getting more and more expensive?Why is there no company investing in even a basic wind tunnel?Why can't startups find their place on the *** chain?The most fundamental reason is the profit-seeking nature of monopolies and private capital.
At present, the United States provides the military with several major military industrial giants, and of course they do not want to see competitors appear, which will eventually lead to the development of a certain ** company that only one company has the ability to develop, so that the US military has no choice, so as to ensure the maximization of interests. If such a company is still a private company and can still extend the chain of interests to Congress, then the consequences are very terrible. Some small startups, even if they have a little improvement, may be quickly acquired and killed.
It can be said that the lack of adequate competition is depriving the U.S. defense industry of the incentive to innovate. For example, the United States is bidding for NGAD fighters, which it does not want to give to the Loma company yet. However, the U.S. military found that it is difficult for Boeing to even carry out F-15EX production normally, because the company outsourced the production of fighter parts in order to save money, which eventually led to a chain crisis.
Second, the problems caused by talent disconnection are more life-threatening. The art industry is indeed very strong in history, but you can't say that he is still very strong, the main thing is that people die. For example, if the United States wants to develop the next generation of land-based intercontinental missiles, it will be almost impossible to advance because no one can read the drawings of Minuteman III.
Since withdrawing from the "INF Treaty," the United States has not been able to develop land-based intermediate-range ballistic missiles, because there are no more people involved in the development and production of the Fanxing missile, and it is almost impossible to organize them again. This is true even in the field of hypersonic missile and aircraft development, where the American defense industry, which is full of talent and innovation, is dead.
Third, the stock is too large and the burden is too heavy, which makes it difficult to turn around. Although there are many US expenses, they are also limited. Now a large number of old equipment, such as A-10, F-15 F-16, Burke-class destroyers, and even aircraft carriers, etc., consume too much military spending, and how much money is used to develop new ** and purchase new ** has become a problem.
Fourth, the rapid change of military strategic objectives has led to the wrong route in the development of the first class. For example, both Zumwalt and Littoral Combat Ships set the goal of using the sea to dominate the land and close to the opponent. Now it looks like it's all scrap metal.
Fifth, the de-industrialization of the whole country will inevitably bring about the outbreak of contradictions in production. This is very obvious in the decline of the US shipbuilding and military industry, it is very difficult to find some workers, and the investment in infrastructure is obviously insufficient.
Overall, the U.S. defense industry is really in trouble, but it's a very difficult problem to solve. In the long run, time is, of course, on the Chinese side. List of high-quality authors