February 16, 2023

U.S. Needs Attritable Systems, Strategic Logistics Analysis to Win Wars

Wars are won and lost well before they even start. The key to victory, if the U.S. is forced to engage in a near-peer fight, will rely on the adoption of attritable weapon systems: simplistic in design, rapidly reproducible and highly lethal. It will also depend on a sharper focus on strategic logistics planning and analysis across the defense-industrial base.

The idea of securing every inch of a complex weapon system’s supply chain—while an imperative—is perhaps a near-impossible task.

Policymakers have taken aggressive steps to shore up the defense-industrial base by harnessing lessons learned and investing in new safeguards and approaches to increase resilience. However, a fair assertion is that these efforts alone are not enough to meet the demands of a near-peer fight.

Read the full article from Defense News.

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