{
  "id": "RL30720",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "RL30720",
  "active": false,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
  "versions": [
    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 102013,
      "date": "2000-10-27",
      "retrieved": "2016-05-24T20:32:34.219941",
      "title": "The U.S. Defense Industrial Base: Trends and Current Issues",
      "summary": "The end of the Cold War precipitated one of the greatest reductions in U.S. defense spending\nsince\nthe final months of World War II. The Department of Defense (DOD) and U.S. defense industry have\nstruggled coming to terms with smaller defense budgets and ill-defined threats to U.S. security. Cold\nWar's end also transformed the defense business environment, marking the rapid worldwide\nglobalization of economics and trade and changes in DOD policy toward the industry itself.\nTechnological change, especially visible in the information processing and telecommunications\nindustries, has forced convergence between civilian and military research and applications. Shrinking\ndefense budgets worldwide have forced producers into heightened competition.\n  These factors compelled DOD to reassess its half-century relationship with the U.S. defense\nindustrial base. As a result, DOD policy has changed in two major ways. First, because the lead in\nsome state-of-the-art product lines had passed from defense to the commercial sector of the economy,\nDOD reformed the way it buys equipment. Second, DOD sought to reform structural aspects of the\ndefense industrial base itself. Instead of continuing to support excess production capacity across the\nboard, DOD focused on preserving \"defense-unique\" manufacturing capabilities, allowing other U.S.\ndefense firms to more freely respond to conventional market forces.\n  Congress has traditionally protected economically vulnerable parts of the defense industry that\nare critical to U.S. national security, but global changes in the economic and defense environments\npose new issues. First, continued mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. defense industry raise questions\nabout maintaining competition. Some maintain that surviving firms have emerged healthier and more\ncompetitive, but others worry about the potential loss of technological innovation and price\ncompetition from fewer companies. Second, defense acquisition reform has encouraged military use\nof commercial products in military systems. Proponents of this cite the advantages of rapid access to\nnew technologies for DOD and the adoption of efficient business practices, while others question the\ninappropriateness of some products to military applications, and the ability of DOD to cope with the\nspeed of obsolescence for commercial products. Third, globalization has increased cross-border flows\nof information and the availability of technology that could be used for military purposes.\n  The result has been pressure for the United States to ease defense-related technology transfer\nrestrictions that could increase exports of U.S. systems, and help the U.S. defense supplier base.\nCritics, however, worry about the extra vigilance needed to prevent the unauthorized transfer of U.S.\ndefense technology, potentially increasing U.S. vulnerabilities. Fourth, some U.S. defense firms find\nit difficult to recruit and retain qualified designers and technical managers, presaging potential\nproblems. Some analysts note a downturn in the number of recent U.S. science and engineering\ngraduates and see strong competition for their talents from commercial high-technology firms as\nominous. Others observe that perceived shortfalls seem concentrated in only some specialities, such\nas armored vehicle design, while other specialties, such as computer systems design, appear able to\nfill their requirements.",
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORTS",
      "active": false,
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      "topics": []
    }
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Foreign Affairs",
    "National Defense"
  ]
}