Comment by hedora
10 hours ago
Stockpiling doesn’t really do much vs. investing in manufacturing.
Contrast the US in the civil war or wwii to the current situation. In both those wars, civilian factories were rapidly converted for the war and manufacturing capabilities were ramped fast.
In Iran, we’ve burned through years or decades of manufacturing capacity and probably used up most of our top tier stockpile.
That only exhausted/destroyed about 33% of Iran’s cruise missile stockpiles. It’s unclear what it did to their drone manufacturing capabilities. It guaranteed they’ll pursue nuclear capabilities moving forward.
At the same time, US investment in manufacturing is tanking due to warmongering and isolationist economic policies.
Iran stalemated us in a month or two, and all the trends I see (education, manufacturing, high tech innovation) point to US capabilities eroding rapidly in the short to medium term.
> 33% of Iran’s cruise missile stockpiles
Which cruise missiles are you referring to?
Being able to stockpile is not the goal, it's a pre-requisite. Having a serious manufacturing capability helps to scale, but you can't convert an iphone assembly line to ballistic missile interceptors, and especially when you don't produce the interceptors at some low rate. There is a lot of technology and know-how that goes into those capabilities, and both get lost if they aren't exercised.
But that means either trashing the output in a few months (emulating Ukraine), or being able to stockpile.
Why would you waste the factory output during peacetime?
It seems like pork spending to me. Put the factories to good use, and maybe have 1% of output go to prototypes; 10% to dual use.
Miniaturization of weaponry (like drones) makes this even more attractive. Also, a iPhone factory (if such a thing existed) could certainly convert to drone manufacturing in short order. Aluminum and glass aren’t great materials for drones, but aluminum is useful for things like machinery that manufactures plastic.