Why America Is Out of Ammunition
Why can't the Pentagon get weapons firms to ramp up production? A new report shows the military doesn't track who owns its contractors, and has just two people looking at mergers in the defense base.
Why can't the Pentagon get weapons firms to ramp up production? A new report shows the military doesn't track who owns its contractors, and has just two people looking at mergers in the defense base.
www.thebignewsletter.com
20 Oct 2023 ~~ By Matt Stoller
Today, as the U.S. is drawn into wars in Israel and Ukraine, as well as the defense of now-peaceful Taiwan, I’m writing about war. Not the policy choices, or whether U.S. military power is a net force for good or ill, but the actual practical machinery behind the American defense base that produces the weaponry necessary to sustain the military.
As stockpiles dwindle, there is now widespread agreement among policymakers that America must rebuild its capacity to arm itself and its allies. But according to a new scorching government report released this week, that’s mostly just talk. The Pentagon doesn’t bother tracking the guts of defense contracting, which is who owns the mighty firms that build weaponry.
~Snip~
Here’s an exceptionally boring chart that involves all the money in the world. Welcome to the Pentagon.
One of the more important side stories to the recent wars in Ukraine and Israel, and competition with China over Taiwan, is that the U.S. defense industrial base, composed of 200k plus corporations, is being forced to actually build weapons again. Defense is big business, and since the end of the Cold War, the government has
allowed Wall Street to determine who owns, builds, and profits from defense spending.
The consequence, as with much of our economic machinery, are predictable. Higher prices, worse quality, lower output. Wall Street and private equity firms prioritize cash out first, and that means a once functioning and nimble industrial base now produces more grift than anything else.
The signs are unmistakable. In Ukraine, fighters are rationing shells. Taiwan can’t get weapons it ordered years ago. The Pentagon has put together a secret team to scour stockpiles to find high-precision armaments in demand on every battlefield and potential battlefield. But the problem goes beyond national defense. In Lake City, Missouri, the largest small arms ammunition plant in the world has decided all ammo production is going to the military, meaning that there is
going to be a domestic shortage for hunters, sportsmen, and maybe even police. This shortage may look like a story of a sudden surge in demand, but it’s actually, as Elle Ekman wrote in
the Prospect in 2021, a story of
consolidation and de-industrialization.
~Snip~
More to the point, the Pentagon is very powerful. The Deputy Secretary of Defense, Kathleen Hicks could simply start smashing heads on competition and begin telling contractors that if they don’t shape up, she will start an internal war against them. Or the head of the Armed Services Committees could threaten the
cushy cash flow that leads to record stock buybacks among contractors, if the ramp-up doesn’t start. Or they could grant antitrust authority for the DOD straight-up, which would rely on a national security standard that allows widespread corporate restructuring without the long slog of a court case. There are many paths.
But if you actually look at the guts of the bureaucracy, nothing is happening, because doing something about our industrial base means thwarting Wall Street, and that’s generally not something that’s considered on the table among normie policymakers. Giant bureaucracies are hard to change, but they are not immovable. One of the ways that you know a previously non-functional bureaucracy is on the right track is, ironically, if there is bitter infighting and anger among staff, who are being tasked to do things differently. But as the GAO showed this week, that’s just not happening in the Pentagon, or at least, not happening nearly fast enough.
And that’s why America is increasingly out of ammunition.
Commentary:
Word is Biden said that Lake City can only produce for the military and approved contracts.
Recent damage to Hornady factory.
As I've previously posted here, Democrat have allowed corporations to manufacture offshore rather than in America creating a service oriented nation and no longer capable of manufacturing.
It's clear the President and Congress are beholden to not only to bankers but the military, including major contractors/vendors.
Virtually everything wrong with America, from climate change to lack of universal healthcare to the military industrial complex, traces back to the 1% control of America and our destiny.
At least we have, for now, the freedom to gripe about it.
Then there's companies being snatched up by foreign investors.
To think, in the 1940's America was capable of doing all this without any Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion specialists or affirmative-action hires. Those racists.
Divide and conquer. America couldn't be more divided.
See:
Divide | Encyclopedia.com
"The policy of maintaining control over one's subordinates or opponents by encouraging dissent between them, thereby preventing them from uniting in opposition."
www.voanews.com
www.japantimes.co.jp
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/35X6IKAFCROYPBXHGG7ADQJVME.jpg)
www.reuters.com
www.eurasiantimes.com
www.telegraph.co.uk
taskandpurpose.com
www.thetruthaboutguns.com
