A SHARP WARNING.  One of the things we like to do at Urgent Agenda is to direct our readers' attention to things they might otherwise not notice.  Well, here's one of them.  President Roosevelt called America the "arsenal of democracy."  It turns out that the arsenal, the backbone of our defense, has gotten several coatings of rust.  We are not prepared for a sustained conflict, and our enemies know it.  From the New York Post: 

WASHINGTON – As defense manufacturers struggle to keep up with the Pentagon’s needs and the threat from China grows, the chairman of a key House subcommittee told industry leaders Wednesday to shift from the current peacetime production pace and get on a “war footing.”

“In my opinion, we have not mobilized to prevent a war in the Pacific,” Cyber, Information Technologies and Innovation subcommittee head Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) said. “We have not moved to maximum production rates of long-range precision fires.”

Hindered by the after-effects of slowed production during the COVID-19 pandemic and the task of keeping Ukraine stocked with the systems they need to fight off Russia, the defense base has been unable even to refill the Pentagon’s dwindling weapons stockpiles, let alone produce new defense capabilities.

With 10 days left of the 2023 fiscal year, the Pentagon has failed to spend its entire weapons and development budget largely because the defense industry’s slowed production rate left it unable to fulfill the orders, according to Gallagher.

“In one week, $11 billion of previously appropriated defense money – previous year’s money we’ve already given to the Defense Department – is going to evaporate [and] will turn into a pumpkin on midnight on September 30,” he said, referencing the expiration of prior unspent funds with the coming of the new fiscal year.

The hearing came one week after Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall gave a sobering speech in which he said China is rapidly galvanizing its military in preparation for a potential conflict.

“The intelligence couldn’t be clearer. China is preparing for war, and specifically for a war with the United States,” Gallagher said, paraphrasing Kendall. “If we took this warning from the secretary of the Air Force seriously, and thereby got serious about preventing a war with China, preventing World War III, we would immediately shift the Pentagon away from a posture optimized for peacetime efficiency and onto a war footing.”

“We would embrace that basic paradox,” he added, “that to avoid a war we have to adopt a war footing.”

Warning that a war with China “has the potential to make previous world wars look restrained in comparison,” Gallagher asked representatives from Anduril Industries, Saildrone, Inc. and defense industry powerhouse Lockheed Martin how the government can help allay issues causing the slow production pace.

“Tell us … what we need to do to fix this problem; what we need to do to turbocharge our innovation enterprise in defense; what we need to do to defibrillate a sclerotic defense industrial base and thereby prevent war – which is the business we are all in,” he said. “We cannot keep wasting time.”

It’s not a new problem; Gallagher said he’d been discussing the issue for years with military and industry leaders. But the matter is becoming more urgent as China grows and revolutionizes its military.

COMMENT:  A thoughtful man with a serious message.  We saw in World War II what lack of preparedness did to us.  We pledged that we would learn our lesson.  But World War II is now ancient history, and the lesson is being forgotten.  Indeed, we have a young generation that probably doesn't know when World War II was fought. 

We are lacking in the kind of trusted leadership that could lead us out of this potential nightmare.  That could be our undoing. 

September 21, 2023