The U.S. defense industrial complex has entered a new phase of its centuries-long development, the latest characterized by globalization of supply chains and the inability of U.S. defense contractors and laboratories to drive technological change. Gone are the days when the Department of Defense could depend on American industry to provide it with high-tech components used in advanced weapons systems. Gone too are the well-funded defense R&D enterprises responsible for the creation of entire industries such as the Internet, high-performance computing and the global position system.
[Reposted from Manufacturing & Technology News | Richard McCormack | May 20, 2015]
The Department of Defense and its major contractors are now dependent on foreign manufacturers for many of the military’s most advanced weapons systems.
DOD is slowly catching up to the structural change caused by globalization of technology and supply chains. It is wrestling with the regulatory and procurement systems it has in place to monitor and conduct business with foreign suppliers, but it has little time to waste, says Bill Lynn, CEO of Finmeccanica North America and former Deputy Secretary of Defense from 2009 until 2011.
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