We're Not Alone
The Pentagon put it in writing.
Congress put it in writing.
The defense industry graded itself and failed.
The people on the shop floor called it decades ago.
Manufacturing is national security. That's not our opinion. That's the official record. Read it for yourself.
THE PENTAGON SAYS IT
Today's defense industrial base "does not possess the capacity, capability, responsiveness, or resilience required to satisfy the full range of military production needs at speed and scale."
National Defense Industrial Strategy — the first ever written
China's shipbuilding capacity is estimated at more than 200 times that of the United States.
Unclassified briefing slide prepared for Congress
"One shipyard has more capacity than all of our shipyards combined. That presents a real threat."
Testimony to Congress on China's 13 naval shipyards
CONGRESS SAYS IT
A bipartisan committee found the CCP has spent decades making China less dependent on the United States "while making the United States more dependent on the PRC" — and issued nearly 150 recommendations to reverse it.
"Reset, Prevent, Build" — bipartisan report, Gallagher (R) & Krishnamoorthi (D)
Congress's own research arm reports that decades of contractor consolidation and just-in-time supply chains "have reduced the capacity and resilience" of the U.S. defense industrial base.
The 2024 National Defense Industrial Strategy: Issues for Congress
INDUSTRY SAYS IT
The defense industry's own trade association scored the health of the industrial base at 69 out of 100 — a failing grade.
Vital Signs annual report on the defense industrial base
In wargame after wargame, the United States ran out of key long-range munitions in under a week of fighting. Some take nearly two years to build. They called the problem "empty bins."
"Empty Bins in a Wartime Environment"
LABOR SAYS IT
"We must ask ourselves at what point does it threaten national security?"
Testimony to Congress on offshoring — 16 years before COVID proved him right
America went from 30 aluminum smelters in the 1980s to four. Eight integrated steel plants left in the whole country. The people who work these industries have been sounding the alarm the entire time.
The record of forty years of offshoring
So Why Hasn't It Been Fixed?
Because reports don't vote.
Every institution on this page has been sounding the alarm for years. Nothing structural has changed, because nobody loses an election over it.
They answer to voters. That's us. That's the missing piece.