Titled “Report Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States,” the Interagency Task Force document was commissioned a year ago in a little-noted Executive Order 13806 of the US President.

The report is the first such detailed analysis of the adequacy or lack of, of the industrial supply chain that feeds vital components to the US Military in recent years.

The 300 Gaps

The declassified version of the report is shocking enough. It cites a laundry list of 300 “gaps” or vulnerabilities in the US military industrial base. What it reveals in stark detail is a national economy no longer able to support the most basic essentials of a national defense, a direct consequence of the economies of globalization and offshore outsourcing. It details dramatic shortages of skilled workers in areas such as machine tooling, welding, engineering. Vital machinery such as numerically-controlled machine tools must be imported, most from Germany, which has not the best relations with Washington at present. Many of the small, specialized suppliers of key sub-components are single-source suppliers many on the brink of insolvency owing to US Budget uncertainties in recent years. And the US defense industry is dependent on China for virtually all its rare earth metals. Since the 1980’s US domestic mining of the metals has virtually collapsed for economic reasons as suppliers turned to China for far cheaper sources. Today 81% of world rare earth metals needed in military equipment, superconductors, smart phones and other high tech applications come from China.

Vulnerablities

The Pentagon defense industrial base report is an attempt to go behind the surface of the dozen or so giant military contractors such as Boeing or Raytheon to the tens of thousands of smaller companies which provide critical sub-components to determine the state of vulnerability in event of a war.

Here the report notes, “In multiple cases,the sole remaining domestic producer of materials critical to DoD are on the verge of shutting down their US factory and importing lower cost materials from the same foreign producer country who is forcing them out of domestic production…”It highlights such alarming “single source” potential bottlenecks as reliance on a single source for propeller shafts for Navy ships, gun turrets for tanks, fuel for rockets and space-based infrared detectors for missile defense.

https://journal-neo.org/2018/11/12/trump-trade-war-hides-military-industrial-agenda/

James Mattis, Donald Trump headed for showdown over military budget cut demands

Defense secretary's National Defense Strategy likely in fiscal crosshairs

By Ben Wolfgang - The Washington Times - Monday, November 19, 2018

U.S. military services on Monday began a process few expected under President Trump: finding programs they’re willing to sacrifice in the face of looming multibillion-dollar budget cuts demanded by the White House.

Each of the military’s five branches delivered their first preliminary spending plans for fiscal year 2020 to Defense Department officials on Monday. While the documents are fluid, they represent the Pentagon’s first stab at finding ways to pare its budget from this year’s original projection of $733 billion to $700 billion, a 2.3 percent drop from FY2019 levels that insiders say was completely unexpected by the military brass until just weeks ago.

The move also seems to fly in the face of Mr. Trump’s vow to undo the damage he says was done to the military under President Obama by boosting national defense spending. Mr. Trump delivered on that promise with a major increase for the Pentagon in the current fiscal year, but now is seeking cuts in defense spending in 2020 and beyond because of looming budget deficits, cuts that would be 5 percent below the administration’s initial projection.

Specialists say the budget reductions — which come at a time when tensions between Mr. Trump and military leaders are already high given the commander in chief’s persistent criticism of high-ranking retired officers such as Navy Adm. William H. McRaven — could lead to a “showdown” between the White House and Defense Secretary James N. Mattis, with the Pentagon chief potentially even resigning over the issue.

The sticking point is likely to be Mr. Mattis’s comprehensive National Defense Strategy, a vision for the U.S. military unveiled earlier this year which assumed a spending level for the Defense Department that at the very least keeps pace with inflation. If the budget falls, some analysts say, Mr. Mattis could tell the president and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mick Mulvaney that he’s unable to put that plan in place.

“There’s going to be a showdown between Mattis and Mulvaney, probably the first week in December,” said Mark Cancian, senior adviser with the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Mr. Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel, formerly worked on defense spending strategy at OMB.

“Mattis will come in with his two budgets — the higher one they had been working on and the lower one they’re now building,” Mr. Cancian continued. “And he’s going to say, ‘Mr. President, I cannot execute the strategy we published last year and do the things you’ve asked me to do with the lower budget amount.’ And then Trump can do what he wants. My guess is he will backtrack, at least some.”

“If he doesn’t … I don’t think there’s any way Mattis can stay on as secretary of defense,” he concluded.

Risks for Trump

For Mr. Trump, reining in the Pentagon’s budget carries two risks, analysts say. The first is that he could be seen as breaking his own pledge to ramp up military spending — which many specialists argue was already too low, even if the current level is maintained.

“As if it weren’t enough that $733 billion was too little to provide for the common defense of America and meet the Pentagon’s own stated objectives and requirements, the administration now would like defense to absorb a 5 percent spending cut in 2020,” Mackenzie Eaglen, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies defense budgets and military readiness, wrote in a piece for the online news site Breaking Defense on Monday. “Why is the Trump administration doing this? Because scoring political points about the deficit and debt while doing nothing to solve that problem is easy.”

Given the need to curb the growing federal deficit across the board, “no matter how much money the Pentagon gets, the president’s budget for next year is still flat or declining,” Ms. Eaglen added. “Contrary to the president’s rhetoric, there is no forthcoming Trump buildup, and the new strategy emphasizing China and Russia is becoming ever more elusive and out of touch with fiscal reality.”

Defense budget analysts say the unexpectedly lower spending levels could be felt in a number of areas, from a freeze in the size of the regular Army and constrained pay raises to slower aircraft and ship construction and deferred advanced weapons systems designed for a war with a “peer competitor” such as Russia or China.

Mr. Trump will be seen as not only badmouthing military leaders but actively undermining them financially.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/nov/19/james-mattis-pressed-pentagon-budget-cuts/

WashingtonTimes is usually proTrump.

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