An interview from June 22 in the Daily Mail expresses some of hysteria and imbecility over the West’s current plans for war against major powers, in this case China. The Daily Mail interviewed retired U.S. Army Major General John G. Ferrari, who served as a deputy commander for NATO in Afghanistan and is now at the American Enterprise institute. Ferrari said he had “grave concerns” about the fact that America was utterly reliant on China in all facets of the supply chain, and that in the event of a war between the two countries, when an economic blockade would most certainly ensue, the ability for the U.S. to produce the weapons and ammunition to actually fight the war would be crippled.
Ferrari said that Chinese manufacturers are deeply embedded in U.S. defense systems, providing critical technology and raw materials used in everything from air-to-air missiles to fighter jets. “If we were in a war with China and it stopped providing parts, we wouldn’t be able to build the planes and weapons we needed,” he said.
Ferrari of course concludes that the U.S. must rapidly begin to expand its supply chains in preparation for an eventual war with China.
The Daily Mail then goes on to discuss a report on the U.S. defense industry by a firm named Govini published earlier this year. The report concludes that “Chinese firms have a stranglehold across 12 critical technologies that are vital to U.S. national security, including nuclear modernization, hypersonic and space technologies.” The report allegedly concludes that “U.S. domestic production capacity is a shriveled shadow of its former self. Crucial categories of industry for U.S. national defense are no longer built in any of the 50 states.” It also found that 40% of semiconductors that supply DoD weapons systems are from China.
Returning to General Ferrari for comments on how the U.S. could recover this supply chain from China, he admitted it was not going to be easy. “You can’t just turn around on a dime because the [manufacturing] capacity doesn’t exist here,” adding that it could take 10-15 years.
