During the New England section of Pete Hegseth’s manufacturing-focused “Arsenal of Freedom” tour, the Secretary of War huddled with reporters outside of Bath Iron Works and explained, in candid terms, why the defense industrial base doesn’t work as it should.
“A lot of the hangup has been us,” Hegseth said, referring to the military procurement processes that developed in the post-war period and accelerated after the end of the Cold War. “The way we do business, we’ve been impossible to deal with, a bad customer.”
He’s right. As American security is challenged on multiple fronts, the military itself has become one of the biggest obstacles to readily procuring equipment and technology from private contractors.
