by Gary O'Neill

Created on: January 10, 2009

National Security is a term we have heard many times since the attacks on 9/11, but most of us don't realize that it encompasses a large number of factors. Since those attacks, we consider National Security to be be about keeping enemies of our country from attacking us, and creating conditions in the world that promote peaceful conditions for our nation. We have also discussed national security in the context of economics and finance, as our nation can't be secure unless our economy is strong, any more than as individuals we can have a prosperous life without the means to produce income.

National Security is mostly focused on intelligence and military means to defend the country. The US has traditionally relied on technology to provide the advantage on the battlefield, and that technology requires an industrial base to support it. The industrial base is composed of both commercial and government organizations, each contributing specific talent and capabilities to the whole. If this industrial base is lost, then both the ability to develop new equipment and the long term support for the equipment that the military uses is put at risk. Producing new technology is vital to keeping up with new threats and tactics, such as the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) used recently in Iraq. Without an industrial base to respond to these new threats, our losses would have been far greater.

But maintaing the ability to repair and modify equipment is also vital to the military because much of its equipment is used for decades, not years. For example, an aircraft carrier, the largest ship in the Navy, may have a lifetime of 50-60 years, and much of the equipment on board the ship cannot simply be removed and replaced; support for that equipment is needed for the life of the ship. Similarly, we ar flying B-52 aircraft today that were built in the 1950s, and parts of that aircraft must be supported throughout its lifetime. For many products in our daily lives, support for the product only has to last a couple of years or at most a decade. Not many of us are driving 50 year old automobiles.

Maintaining the ability to repair and modify equipment is an essential part of winning any armed conflict. Without the ability to resupply the forces with new parts, such as tires for HUMVEES and tank treads, our forces would be at risk very early in any conflict. Because the parts and equipment are highly specialized designs, it is difficult to produce the parts on short notice without some prior experience, and time is always a critical factor when the military is engaged in operations, as we see with the Israeli army in Gaza.

It is essential to maintain the industrial base for National Security so that the country can react whenever necessary in its defense. Maintaining that industrial base may appear to be inefficient by modern commercial standards of 'just in time' manufacturing, but the results of failure in the case of National Security far outweigh any marginal increased costs.

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