October 21, 2024
It’s Time for a True Industrial Strategy for American National Security
Earlier this year, the bipartisan congressionally-appointed commission on which we serve sounded the alarm that America is at risk of losing its military and technological edge to China. One way to meet that challenge is to redefine how the industrial base fits into national security to create an all-elements of national power approach.
Currently, the view of industrial national security tends to focus on efforts to keep the defense industrial base healthy, productive, and resilient. The emphasis has been ensuring China or Russia cannot buy companies that are integral parts of the defense supply chain, improving and expanding production of the weapons in demand around the globe, and ensuring the security of critical infrastructure essential to the defense industrial base.
For an industrial strategy to work, the president must make it a White House priority that pulls together all elements of national power.
But in 2024, and certainly going forward, this is simply too myopic a view of the role industrial policy plays as the backbone to American security. There is an integral link between the defense industrial base and American industry as a whole. The materials, components, and manufacturing produced by American industry are as essential to the defense industrial base as they are to U.S. economic strength. The next administration should ensure that industrial policy receives significant attention to strengthen national security.
Industrial policy requires making strategic public investments designed to strengthen economic and national security — not only what is traditionally thought of as the defense industrial base, but in broader goods and manufacturing category for both America and its allies. This means ensuring effective production of and supply chains for goods and manufacturing that serve interests and needs across the economy – not just the defense industrial base — as an expanded aperture strengthens U.S. security.
Read the full article from Breaking Defense.
More from CNAS
-
More than the Sum of its Parts: Developing a Coordinated U.S.-Australian Response to Potential Chinese Aggression
Commentary
If China engaged in a war of aggression, the United States, Australia, and other nations would not have much time to develop a coordinated response....
By Stacie Pettyjohn
-
How We Survive Ep 5: Wargames
Podcast
Dr. Ed McGrady, Adjunct Senior Fellow for the Defense Program at CNAS, joins the show to discuss how climate began to factor into humanitarian crisis war games as far back as ...
By Dr. ED McGrady
-
Wars Are Not Accidents
Commentary
The road to conflict is an action-reaction process. Leaders decide whether and how to respond to a rival’s moves, and they often search for ways to lower the temperature. Esca...
By Erik Lin-Greenberg
-
Aiming higher: Accelerating US-Australia cooperation on precision-guided weapons
Commentary
Both the United States and Australia have made deterring coercion in the Indo-Pacific the focus of their defence strategies and plan to do so by denying an aggressor the abili...
By Stacie Pettyjohn
