by
Austin BayOctober 30, 2024
In a recent post discussing shifting U.S. domestic political views, John Hinderaker of Powerlineblog.com noted "that many conservatives have changed their ideology ... in response to events. Pretty much all of us grew up as doctrinaire free traders, but events since the 1980s have convinced many -- including me -- that while free trade is the default assumption, it is not the whole story. National security considerations demand that exceptions be made."
Adam Smith, the father of free enterprise and classic free trade, wasn't a free trade absolutist. Smith wrote that the only thing more important than luxury (wealth) was security -- more specifically, a state's ability to protect its physical security and to secure its interests.
In his first administration, President Donald Trump used tariffs as leverage to secure U.S. interests. This included returning manufacturing capacity to U.S. soil -- industrial capacity to produce cars and air conditioners but also weapons, ammunition and fuel.
The sad truth is that in the mid-1990s, the U.S. began offshoring defense industrial capacity. Not intentionally but with the dreamer free trader's goal of being most productive for the dollar allocation of resources. Cheaper labor in Mexico and China? As long as the product works well, who cares where it's made?
Recall the mid-1990s. The U.S. and its NATO allies had won the Cold War. The smart set demanded the defense budget be cut and the "peace dividend" (what a phrase) spent on ... on what? Despite Tiananmen Square 1989, Clinton Democrats and idealistic Republican free traders saw a wealthier China as inevitably inclining toward political liberalism. I admit I thought it was possible.
But by 2010, the signs were clear Red China wasn't liberalizing politically. In fact, Beijing used economic muscle as a strategic weapon to bully the poor in the developing world. Beijing's multibillion-dollar "mining and infrastructure" deal with Congo (2008) was a corrupt raw deal that's just now being exposed.
But let's get back to making things that you need for American security. I recall in 2007 discussing U.S. industrial base issues with two professors at the National War College in Washington. The discussion was background (no attributed quotes), but I can paraphrase one of the experts: "We can't mass produce weapons anymore." We'd been discussing tube artillery and tanks. "We can't build (those kinds of weapons) like we could in 1942." (We don't have the same kind of automotive industry.) His solution: America needs to concentrate on designing quick and easy-to-build smart missiles. The Army's MLRS (multiple launch rocket system), for example.
MLRS, especially in its now famous HIMARS mode, is an outstanding weapon. But note that months of playing Red Sea missile footsies with the Houthis, of supplying Israel and Ukraine with anti-air and anti-missile missiles, of providing anti-missile coverage for Israel (Navy, Army and Air Force) while improving missile defenses in Alaska, Guam, Hawaii and Japan -- the U.S. faces an air and space anti-missile shortage. Ukraine has shown cheap drones are deadly, but tube artillery is still a big killer on the battlefield. The Finns, Swedes and French make fine gun tubes -- but they are Over There.
The 2007 discussion also addressed U.S. tank production. At that time, congressional budgeteers wanted to close our lone tank manufacturing plant in Lima, Ohio. See, it was superfluous, an economic drain.
The Army managed to keep it alive -- as a national security asset, which it was and is.
In March 2019, Business Insider wrote: "Two factors have seen the Lima's tank plant roar back to life: Trump's massive defense-spending hikes and the US's assessment that rivalries with China and Russia are now the country's foremost threat."
In the last three years, I've written several columns about America's loss of shipbuilding capacity. It's a nightmare. Allies South Korea and Japan build excellent ships, but they are close to China and their industrial infrastructure can be quickly destroyed with conventional weapons.
Free trade? I'm all for free and fair trade. But national security comes first. To repeat Hinderaker's insight, "National security considerations demand that exceptions be made."