Secretary of Defense Gen. Lloyd Austin assured the military-industrial complex minions gathered in California for this year’s annual Reagan National Defense Forum on Dec. 2, that the Biden administration has laid the groundwork for the arms racket to boom for years to come. The applause was frequent.
Austin reported that he had just visited the Defense Department’s Defense Innovation Unit in Silicon Valley. That, he said, is where venture-capital firms and tech innovators work for the DOD to field and scale commercial technology across the military, and “help us deliver thousands of game-changing capabilities at speed and at scale.”
At $170 billion, the DOD’s budget has the largest commitment for arms procurement in U.S. history, he announced. Nor is this a one-off affair. The Pentagon is making “unprecedented use of the multi-year procurement authorities provided by Congress to deliver critical munitions at affordable cost.” He cited the Naval Strike Missile, the maritime-strike SM-6 missile, and the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile as examples.
With nearly 50% more money going into munitions than five years ago, “during this administration, America’s production of artillery shells won’t just increase. It won’t just double. It will quadruple!” he promised.
