Given how quickly war can happen today, we need to beef-up our military NOW.

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In the last couple of days, a story came out about a USN oiler ship operating along the USS Abraham Lincoln that had an "allision" event after hitting something fixed in the water. The ship is being towed to a nearby port for inspection but the ship is not going to be quickly turned around and put back into operation. And here's the kicker. It's the only oiler available in that region. The USS Abraham Lincoln is a nuclear vessel so it won't have any issues but the fighters on board and suporting ships do need fuel to run their missions.

Procurement plans in each of the military branches seem to be completely out of sync not only with the state and readiness of our current gear but lessons we should be learning from current wars. Any attempt to rectify these gaps will highlight other issues with the American economy and our governmental and corporate priorities. We should make more of the specialized steel used in military gear. We need more shipbuilding capacity (military and merchant). We need to be capable of manufacturing the complicated chips required in modern weaponry rather than relying on a TSMC plant in Taiwan that could be gobbled up by China.

These shortfalls are not going to be closed in 3-5 years. That's bad but it is also an indication that the problem requires a much more strategic spending and timing plan to build up these capabilities in a sensible order. We need to start thinking about the supply chain for these capabilities and smoothing demand to provide more consistent incentives for firms to build up the capabilities required to make some of these specialized goods. Firms will be very reluctant to invest in this space if the spending plan could change up or down 50% every two years when Congress or the White House changes hands.


WTH

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