Fragility

When looking at  the M1 Abrams Tank, one thinks all is well with the US Military but in looking at the real picture, a disquieting picture emerges, thanks to disastrous economic policies that has compromised to the max, the manufacturing base of a once great nation called America.

The U.S. military has a tent problem.

The only domestic supplier of the specialist polyester fibre used in its tents has gone out of business with potential “significant impact to multiple tent and fabric systems”, according to a multi-agency assessment of weaknesses in the U.S. defence complex.

Tents are just one of nearly 300 strategic frailties identified in the country’s military supply chains. (“Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States”, September 2018)

The list ranges from the cold-rolled aluminium used for armour plating through submarine shaft maintenance to the silicon power switches used in missile systems. And that’s just the handful of examples that made it into the declassified section of the report.

As per the report, fragility is part of the problem, caused by the economic policy that encouraged companies to offshore manufacturing in order to maximize profit has gutted GE and significant others in ways that stagger the imagination. 

A fragile market occurs when domestic markets have structurally challenging economics and

face a potential move toward foreign dependency. Fragile suppliers exist at the firm level,

whereas fragile markets exist across an industry or sector.

Domestic printed circuit board manufacturing struggles to compete in the global marketplace. Since 2000, the U.S. has seen a 70% decline in its share of global production. Today, Asia produces 90% of worldwide printed circuit boards, and half that production occurs in China. As a result, only one of the top 20 worldwide printed circuit board manufacturers is U.S.-based.With the migration of advanced printed circuit board manufacturing offshore, DoD risks losing visibility into the manufacturing provenance of its electronics.

Also in the electronics sector, and ubiquitous in platforms and systems across the industrial

base, strategic radiation-hardened microelectronics have no commercial applications. These

components must be able to withstand short bursts of intense radiation and high temperatures

in order to satisfy mission requirements. Being commercially unviable creates continual risk for

this critical capability due to changing business conditions or technological obsolescence. 

Click here for the report. Disquieting indeed.