Which word is confusing, "out"? It's a common word in both meanings that constitute the pun in the title. > I have every confidence that America's industrial

Which word is confusing, "out"? It's a common word in both meanings that constitute the pun in the title. > I have every confidence that America's industrial base will happily expand to fulfill any (funded) mandate—does Stoller seriously disagree? I do not have that confidence and yes Stoller seriously disagrees with your belief (emphasis mine): > Surges due to wars aren’t new, and there’s always some time lag between the build-up and the delivery. But today, the lengths of time are weirdly long. For instance, the Army is awarding contracts to RTX and Lockheed Martin to build new Stinger missiles, which makes sense. But the process will take.. five years. Why? What is new is Wall Street’s role in weaponry. We used to have slack, and productive capacity, but then came private equity and mergers. And now we don’t. The government can’t actually solicit bids from multiple players for most major weapons systems, because there’s just one or two possible bidders. So that means there’s little incentive for firms to expand output, even if there’s more spending. Why not just raise price? > But don’t take my word for it, take that of the Pentagon. In 2022, the DOD reported that “that consolidation of the industrial base reduces competition for DOD contracts and leads DOD to rely on a more limited number of suppliers. This lack of competition may in turn increase the risk of supply chain gaps, price increases, reduced innovation, and other adverse effects.” And that’s why, more than a year into the Ukraine conflict, the ramp-up is still not where it needs to be. > ...it's not like these resources are going to waste, the war in Ukraine (we will elide the other conflicts) is very much worth the investment from NATO's perspective. This point is orthogonal to the article.