February 16, 2023
U.S. Needs Attritable Systems, Strategic Logistics Analysis to Win Wars
Wars are won and lost well before they even start. The key to victory, if the U.S. is forced to engage in a near-peer fight, will rely on the adoption of attritable weapon systems: simplistic in design, rapidly reproducible and highly lethal. It will also depend on a sharper focus on strategic logistics planning and analysis across the defense-industrial base.
The idea of securing every inch of a complex weapon system’s supply chain—while an imperative—is perhaps a near-impossible task.
Policymakers have taken aggressive steps to shore up the defense-industrial base by harnessing lessons learned and investing in new safeguards and approaches to increase resilience. However, a fair assertion is that these efforts alone are not enough to meet the demands of a near-peer fight.
Read the full article from Defense News.
More from CNAS
-
Swarms over the Strait
Executive Summary Drones have transformed battlefields in Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Ukraine, but in a companion report, Evolution Not Revolution: Drone Warfare in Russia’s ...
By Stacie Pettyjohn, Hannah Dennis & Molly Campbell
-
Differentiating Innovation: From Performance Art to Production Scale
The Department of Defense has an innovation problem, and it’s not the one you are probably thinking about. Certainly, the Department needs to improve its ability to move with ...
By Andrew Metrick
-
The Pentagon Isn’t Buying Enough Ammo
Even in today’s constrained budget environment, the U.S. Defense Department needs to do more to prioritize munitions buys and prove it has learned the lessons of Ukraine....
By Stacie Pettyjohn & Hannah Dennis
-
Space to Grow
Executive Summary In the more than 50 years since the first satellite launch, space has become irrevocably intertwined with the American way of life and the American way of wa...
By Hannah Dennis