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Recently a colleague sent me two important studies on a topic that has received too little scrutiny for too long: the post-Cold War erosion of America's formerly unequaled defense industrial base.
That isn't a problem calculated to prompt headlines, although its consequences occasionally do, when politicians complain of unacceptable delays in furnishing our troops critical equipment like mine-resistant vehicles or bemoan the escalating cost of aircraft, warships and other high-dollar weaponry.
But no recent news stories have pointed out that, during the past two decades, the nation's defense industrial base has radically contracted: that of our fifty-odd major defense contractors at the end of the 1980s, fewer than ten remain, that six shipbuilding yards today are owned and operated by only two firms, or that, increasingly, we can depend on only one manufacturer to produce modern combat aircraft.
Meanwhile, the cost of high-tech weaponry continues to rise together with our appetite for it. The old joke about a future Army with one tank, a Navy with one ship, and an Air Force with one plane no longer seems so funny.
A host of reasons can be cited to explain what has happened to the one-time "Arsenal of Democracy" since...