Industrial Mobilization: Assessing Surge Capabilities, Wartime Risk, and System Brittleness

Abstract

With the shift of U.S. strategic focus to great power competition, interest in industrial mobilization for a long-duration, high-intensity conflict has returned. However, the highly consolidated and fragile U.S. defense industrial base is not designed to meet this challenge. To gain insight into the ability of the defense industrial base to meet the demands of great power conflict, the project analyzed the time needed to replace weapon systems’ inventory at peacetime and surge production rates. The project found that to replace Major Defense Acquisition Program (MDAP) inventories at surge production rates would take an average of 8.7 years. Some investment categories are at more risk than others, with Navy shipbuilding being uniquely challenged. Programs with analogs in the civilian economy appear to have faster replacement rates than military unique systems. Finally, the industrial base has become more brittle over time in that that it would take longer to replace inventories at Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 production rates than at FY1999 production rates. These findings indicate that existing surge capacities for major defense acquisition programs fall short of what will be needed for a long-duration great power conflict. More research is needed to provide decision-makers with options to cope with this shortfall.