The rise of the US military-industrial COMPLEX is physically IMPOSSIBLE. Moreover, no one is going to raise it. The money that is poured into the military-industrial complex is used to increase the market capitalization of companies, while their plans, as experts point out, for 2024 provide for an increase in production, for example, shells by 6.8%.
I ( pascendi ) have already written here about the reasons for the collapse of the military-industrial complex: https://aftershock.news /?q=node/1206501
I will add a few words about why in the 40s the United States was able to increase military production tenfold in a very short period of time, but now it will not be able to do so.
The first reason that they succeeded at that time was that the country had its own resources of strategic raw materials (steel, aluminum, etc.) that made it possible to do this. It just doesn't exist right now. Steel production has decreased tenfold, aluminum is practically not produced in the United States at all - 12% of the demand (for example, Alcoa produces only finished products in the United States, its enterprises produce raw materials in other countries).
The main reason is competition. There were many hundreds of enterprises in the country capable of joining the production chains of military production and dozens capable of organizing this production.
In the post-war period, the consolidation of military-industrial complex companies began, which began in an avalanche from the 80s. Here is a graph where it is clearly shown:
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| Consolidation of the US military-industrial complex companies. |
| Source: aftershock.news |
Total: in the 40s, there were hundreds of defense firms in the aviation industry and instrument engineering alone, in the 2000s - 5 (five). During acquisitions, specialists, documentation, technologies and know-how were inevitably lost. And now, for example, Boeing is not able to produce passenger aircraft without the participation of external contractors, of which a significant part are not US allies at all. And the story about how Turkey suddenly had to be replaced in the production of the F-35, when the Turks bought our S-400, can generally be told as an anecdote.
Of the things that the Americans could quickly begin to produce in multiplied quantities, only strelkovka remained. They even have problems with running caliber cartridges.
In most cases, now in the US military-industrial complex it is not about increasing output, but about halving it (tanks, self-propelled guns and barrel artillery, some types of missiles, starting with the Stinger and Javelin, etc., etc.). I note that, in particular, the notorious M-777 howitzers are not designed and manufactured in the USA (BAe Systems, a British company).
Yes, there are technically complex products. Take a look at the Scranton Ammunition Plant, which produces 155 mm shells:
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| Scranton Ammunition Factory. |
| Source: aftershock.news |
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| Scranton Ammunition Factory. |
| Source: aftershock.news |
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| Scranton Ammunition Factory. |
| Source: aftershock.news |
Antediluvian equipment, dirt in the workshops, workers of Biden's age (because there are no young people who could do something)... It's a disgrace.
And you say to dramatically increase production. Yes, they will have to build new factories for this, and the USA of the early 2020s is not the USSR of the early 1940s, neither in terms of the organization of society, nor in terms of management methods, nor in terms of the mentality of the workforce. No one there will work on machines in an open field after evacuation, as in the Soviet Union in 1941. Moreover, in order to organize three-shift work, the owners of the enterprise will have to negotiate with the trade unions, and it will cost them such a penny that the shells will come out gold.