The Defense Industrial Base: How Idiosyncratic and Historical Influences Dictate Its Future

The Trump Administration's 2017 National Security Strategy and 2018 National Defense Strategyrepresent a major shift from a focus on counter-terror operations to great power competition. Since the end of the Cold War until the release of these new strategies, the Department of Defense claimed to lack a near-peer--let alone peer--competitor able to exert influence globally. Coupled with the fact that the War on Terror directed the Department's strategic decision making and resource allocation since its inception, the US has been focused on anything but great power competition for the last twenty-seven years.