By lex, on February 22nd, 2012
Not what it used to be:
(When) Defense Secretary Robert Gates decided to surge production of armored trucks for the Iraq counter-insurgency campaign in 2007, it was discovered there was only one steel plant in the nation producing steel of sufficient strength to meet military needs. That plant — the old Lukens Steel Company facility in Coatesville, Pennsylvania — had been bought by European steel giant Arcelor Mittal, and already had weapons makers waiting in line for the output its limited capacity could support. Other items needed for the Iraq-bound trucks also were in short supply, such as oversized tires. The Pentagon had to cobble together an ad hoc network of domestic and foreign suppliers in order to ramp up production of the needed trucks, suggesting that the industrial complex FDR once called “the arsenal of democracy” had become a rather fragile affair.
You probably know where America’s manufacturing capacity went.
Read the rest to find out what it means.
