Politico: Pentagon warns of falling behind China in weapons production
The Pentagon warns of the US lagging behind China in weapons production, Politico reports.
“Currently, the US defence industrial base “does not have the capacity, capability, agility or sustainability necessary to meet the full range of military production needs at speed and scale,” the publication quoted a draft of the National Defence Production Strategy as saying.”
Its “world’s best weapons” the US can not produce fast enough, the newspaper says.
“This mismatch represents a growing strategic risk as the US faces the need to support active combat operations while deterring a large and technologically advanced threat looming over the Indo-Pacific region,” the publication says.
The publication notes that the report said China has become a “global industrial centre” in shipbuilding, mining and microelectronics over the past 30 years, and China’s industry now far surpasses the capabilities of the US and key allies in Europe and Asia.
“The cost of this call to action may seem high, but the consequences of inaction or failure are even higher,” the report emphasises.
Meanwhile, the US, with a record foreign debt of $33 trillion, already has the world’s largest military budget; in 2022, according to open sources, US defence spending was about 40% of the spending of all other countries combined. The amount allocated each year has only grown to more than $800 billion and accounts for about half of all government spending; China planned to spend several times less on defence in 2023.