You’ve heard the problems. A $2 million interceptor to shoot down a $2,000 drone. Ukraine consuming more artillery shells in two months than the U.S. produces in a year. U.S. antiship missiles expected to run out on day eight of any war over Taiwan. A single Chinese shipyard churns out more tonnage in a year than the U.S. has since World War II.
On the advice of Wall Street sharpie Bernard Baruch, who ran U.S. war production in 1917-18, President Franklin D. Roosevelt raided General Motors in late 1939 for its production genius. For nearly a year before Pearl Harbor, and before Germany’s subsequent declaration of war against the U.S., William Knudsen was already on the job, organizing U.S. defense production.
Read the full interview by Holman W. Jenkins Jr. in The Wall Street Journal.