This fragility is a result of an intentional trend - lean supply chains. To cut capital tied up in inventory, manufacturing and retail businesses have worked ve

This fragility is a result of an intentional trend - lean supply chains. To cut capital tied up in inventory, manufacturing and retail businesses have worked very hard to remove warehouses full of inputs and finished products from their supply chains. Unfortunately, those inefficiencies had the secondary function of a buffer in case of disruptions, which means the lag between the disruption and its consequences has gotten shorter. (The two functions are closely related, in that pre-lean manufacturing had all kinds of disruptions occur all the time, meaning their supply chains were essentially under constant low-grade stress tests. Lean logistics has been in part a massive effort to get rid of those unnecessary disruptions.)