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Threats Require the US to Urgently Scale Its Production
The threats to the United States and its allies are growing. On September 15, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced charges against five individuals working for Russian intelligence services as part of a network that allegedly sought to carry out assassinations in the US. Russia is also engaged in provocative and aggressive behavior against US space assets. In Europe, Moscow is committing acts of terrorism against North Atlantic Treaty Organization members and continues its brutal assault against Ukraine, targeting civilian infrastructure and killing civilians. It has also threatened to open another front against Ukraine in Belarus.
At the same time, China continues its military buildup. It has tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile in international waters and has rammed Philippine vessels. Meanwhile, Russia and China provide diplomatic support and direct military assistance to the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is responsible for killing American service members.
Americans are divided over how best the US should respond to its adversaries and define its interests. Some argue that the US should let allies provide for their own defense and retrench, or even retreat entirely, so that America can maintain a far smaller, less expensive military and focus more on domestic challenges. But in an era of dynamic technological innovation, retrenchment makes even less sense now than it did in the 1930s.
Instead, the US should invest in a robust defense industrial base to produce cutting-edge weapons at scale. A preeminent, forward-engaged US military enables political leaders to make decisions on terms that best serve Americans and protect their security and freedom. The Trump administration has made progress on reindustrialization and is signing contracts with companies to build more and new types of weapons. Congress would be wise to fund and sustain bipartisan support for these efforts.
“We want to bring back and revitalize American shipbuilding here in this country. . . . If you’re a maritime country, you should have the resourcing and execution arms of the federal government constantly leaning forward. . . . We have put a number of our core theses staked in the ground as flags, and we’re building towards them. I think the last presidential memo that you saw in August was a number of those.
“We need more repair capacities. We used to have 11 public shipyards; now we have four. Our subs and our destroyers and carriers are idle because they can’t get repaired. We need a fifth shipyard at the very least; we’re in the midst of doing that. We have massive backlogs in all of the programs. . . . We desperately need more competition and more capacity. . . . With our scarcest resource being time, we’re moving very hard and aggressively to get to those flags of conviction. . . .
“If you want ships now, the only way to do this is to kind of be creative about new foreign investment. . . .
“I think you would be horrified [by] the degree to which things move through the bureaucracy, and no one ever says, ‘See something, say something.’ ‘Doesn’t make sense? Let’s change it.’ We’ve tried to do that by our intense focus in this area, which is a little unique, but we have that ability to look in and steer something and not take ‘no’ for an answer.”
— Russell Vought
Director, Office of Management and Budget
“We must deter two nuclear powers simultaneously while correcting years of underinvestment in the infrastructure and our workforce that supports our deterrent. China’s nuclear breakout extends beyond the size of its arsenal. Beijing is building the fusion facilities and high-energy-density physics infrastructure needed to improve weapon simulation, effects testing, and future designs.
“We also have to go back and look to see if there are legislative changes that need to be made that are there for a time at peace—that we’re no longer in—in order to get rid of these stovepipes, so that we can take advantage of the private sector for some of these national security applications, even the most sensitive ones.
“It seems to me that it is going to require us to take on a little bit more risk, that is just more suitable for this particular time. . . . We hear this: ‘China’s going to have an advantage because they don’t have this firewall between private and public sector, and so that’s how they’re able to mobilize their entire country to go faster.’ But my response is, ‘No, our system of government is superior; we just have to be more nimble.’ . . . This is not a nice-to-have; it’s a must-have, and it is the priority.”
— Rebeccah L. Heinrichs
Director, Keystone Defense Initiative
“These [new 500-mile-range Russian] missiles are maneuvering at the end of their flight pattern, which makes them much more difficult to intercept. Our missile interceptors are used to a predictable, ballistic trajectory, but the Russians are using this war of aggression they have chosen against Ukraine as a testing ground for new kinds of missiles, and they’re adapting them.
“So that’s what we’re seeing, which is why, Stuart, it’s so critical that the United States also collaborate with the Ukrainians and our Western allies to also adapt. We need missile defense interceptors that can intercept these kinds of missiles.
“Then, of course, we need to make sure Ukraine is equipped to go on the offensive so they’re not just playing catch with these new sophisticated weapons that Russia is building.”
— Rebeccah L. Heinrichs
Director, Keystone Defense Initiative
Hudson Highlights
Rebeccah L. Heinrichs | National Review
“While partisans place the blame for the munitions crisis on US efforts to support Ukraine and counter the Islamic Republic, they miss how these efforts have boosted military readiness. The United States is now set to produce 2,000 PAC-3 and 400 Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile interceptors a year, tripling and quadrupling their respective production rates since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. . . .
“Those rightly worried about munitions stockpiles and the nation’s ability to produce the necessary weapons at scale should consider supporting the following measures. First, we need spending bills that propose to invest 5 percent of US GDP in defense. . . .
“Second, we must pass regular defense bills that keep defense spending at 5 percent or more of GDP year over year, which means taking inflation into account and increasing the top-line expenditure. . . .
“Third, we must extend to other allies arrangements similar to Pillar 2 of the AUKUS partnership between the US, the UK, and Australia, which makes sharing technological advances with our allies standard practice while allowing exceptions to protect certain technologies. This knowledge-sharing is essential to expand defense manufacturing co-production and coordination initiatives with allies—the only chance we have to compete against China’s manufacturing base.”
Peter Rough | Freedom Frequency
“Russia has significantly increased the pace and scope of its hybrid attacks since the start of its full-scale invasion. These attacks have ranged from active measures like election meddling and severing deep-sea cables to electronic operations like Global Positioning System jamming and criminal acts like arson. Moscow has also repeatedly violated the airspace of NATO’s eastern flank, most notably with Russian fighter jets entering Estonian skies for a dozen minutes last September and a Russian drone hitting an apartment block in the Romanian city of Galaţi just last month. . . .
“As the European Commission points out, ‘In the period 2015-2025, the deficit increased over fivefold in volume, while more than doubling in value.’ Last year, the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China’s] trade surplus in goods with the EU hit €360 billion. . . .
“The PRC is destroying Germany’s export demand, with Berlin’s vaunted automobile industry emblematic of a broader economic malaise. In 2025, sales of Porsche, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz in China declined 26 percent, 5 percent, and 19 percent, respectively. Strong periodic employment data notwithstanding, German industry sheds approximately 10,000 jobs per month.
“The breakdown of the largest industry in Europe’s largest economy would trigger social upheaval in the heart of the continent, with all the risks to regional stability that normally accompany de-industrialization.”
Michael Doran | The Free Press
“The Iranian proxy system is mobilizing to squeeze the global energy system at every gate, and put the US Navy under fire while doing it. . . .
“Iraq gives Tehran something no launcher in Iran can: a land border with Jordan. And no interceptor can defend a border. Jordan will not be the only target. Once Iran is able to launch campaigns from Iraq, it is likely to graduate to sabotage and subversion while continuing its bombardment: cross-border raids, cells inside Kuwait and Jordan, pressure on Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. . . .
“It can send raiding parties and operatives across thin borders rather than lofting drones over them. Its militias can use the months before Baghdad’s new disarmament deadline to tighten their grip on ports and border crossings. And because the work will be done from Iraqi soil, by Iraqi hands, Tehran can widen the war while blurring its responsibility for any single attack. . . .
“We must all understand that the American departure from Iraq is not an end to anything; it is an opening. Keeping the oil moving will now require defending Kuwait, Jordan, and the Kurdistan Region from the country American forces just left. Trump says the war will be over very soon. In Tehran, they are preparing for the next round.”
Mike Gallagher | Wall Street Journal
“Mr. Xi has said the issue of Taiwan can’t be put off forever. He has ordered the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade the island nation by 2027. The PLA has restructured its forces, expanded its rocket and amphibious capacity, and conducted an unprecedented tempo of provocative exercises in the Taiwan Strait. . . .
“America’s AI stack runs through Taiwan because the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. manufactures 90 percent of the world’s most advanced semiconductors and 60 percent of all semiconductors. . . .
“If Mr. Trump is right that ‘whoever wins AI, whoever wins super intelligence, wins,’ then, to borrow a poker term, the pot odds on winning Taiwan are becoming too good for Mr. Xi to pass up. Beijing would want Taiwan even if it were a barren rock, but this island has become the single point of failure in the single most important technology the Communist Party wants to dominate. . . .
“The biggest threat to humanity isn’t rogue AI; it is AI controlled by China, which would use this transformative technology to take Taiwan and displace America as the world’s dominant superpower.”
Luke Coffey | The Sun
“Across Europe you have these spontaneous, unexpected explosions happening in different factories, including munitions factories, airports, train depot areas. It’s happening now; it’s happened in the UK as well. The UK, in many ways, is like the original victim of Russia’s hybrid warfare if you look at what happened in Salisbury a few years ago, or even going back to London twenty years ago with some of the assassination attempts.
“Politicians and policymakers in Europe like to call this ‘hybrid warfare’ because, if they call it for what it really is, which is state-sponsored terrorism, then they might actually have to do something about it. But as long as they keep referring to it in this vague term of ‘hybrid warfare,’ then it gives them some wiggle room to dither, to not be decisive, to not take real steps and measures.
“Someday they’re going to have to because Russia will keep pushing until they are pushed back. . . . Luckily, this hasn’t led to a mass casualty event but, I hate to say, it’s probably just a matter of time. And then at that point the alliance is going to have to think hard, do some soul-searching, on what the response is going to be, and it’s going to require the US to be fully engaged.”
Key Insights
Alex Wong | School of War
“If you go back to the peak of when the United States was at its shipbuilding prowess, this is in the 1970s, the US. . . had about 5 percent of the global commercial shipbuilding market by gross tonnage. Now it’s less than 1 percent, and in 2025, it was 0.1 percent. . . . If you look at China, in 2025 they had 53 percent. . . .
“What America has is an ally in Korea, an ally in Japan where they can press ‘fast forward’ on the modernization and on the scale. . . . I think the key jumping-off point here is, ‘Can we bring the modern processes, the modern technology that we have in Korea into the Philly shipyard or elsewhere in the United States to speed up and make more efficient the shipbuilding?’
“Hanwha, because of all of the advantages of having consistent commercial demand in 30 years of doing this, we have been able to invest in R&D at a constant rate. What that has produced is, currently, we have thousands upon thousands of patents that are exclusive, that we use and employ in the yard in terms of design, materials, processes, etc., robotics, automation. . . .
“We take these innovations; we have the experience in using them; can we transfer that to the United States? Where, again, they don’t have to spend 20 years building this, they can have it now, on top of all the investment that we’re doing.”
Benjamin Netanyahu | United Nations
“For the past three years, our heroic soldiers have fought day in and day out in a seven-front war. Do you know any other country the size of New Jersey capable of fighting a seven-front war? And for three years, seven fronts—Hamas, the Houthis, Iran, militias in Iraq, militias in Syria, Palestinian terrorists in Judea, Samaria—they all ganged up on us to wipe us off the face of the earth. . . .
“The remaining terrorists are desperately trying to regroup. Every day they try to murder our people. . . . Thousands of attempts per year on families, peaceful families driving along the roads. They shoot at pregnant women. They shoot entire families. . . .
“Three days ago, a French citizen, Netanel Shukrun, a father of six, was gunned down when he visited a spring with his 16-year-old son, and a Hamas terrorist in Judea, Samaria, comes and fires point blank at him. . . . Two days ago in Judea, Samaria, a reserve soldier, Neria Leiter, was mowed down by a Palestinian terrorist. He’s fighting for his life now in a Jerusalem hospital.”
Gilberto C. Teodoro, Jr. | Philippines Department of National Defense
“I have a note here. I think this is from China. . . . ‘China’s position on the South China Sea arbitration is clear, consistent, and firm.’ They have no position. ‘The arbitration violates fundamental principles of international law.’ So what you signed, UNCLOS [United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea], you mean, violates international law. That’s what you mean.
“‘The so-called award is illegal, null and void.’ So say you. ‘And has no binding force.’ Because you don’t want to be subjected to UNCLOS. ‘China neither accepts nor recognizes the award.’ Of course, because you lost. ‘And opposes it and will never accept any claim or action arising from it.’
“These are words slipped to me. And there is a legal principle called res ipsa loquitur, ‘the thing speaks for itself.’ . . . It not only disrespects international law, throwing UNCLOS to the floor and trampling upon it, but it also disrespects the basic decency accorded—that should be accorded—to our most gracious hosts, the Republic of Korea, and the rest of the audience here.
“So, perhaps basic decency and behavior is what China needs to do. . . . This is not ‘gray zone’ anymore. This is actual coercion, bullying, and aggression. I will keep this paper as a memento of how desperate China is, and how ineffective its position is in the face of a free audience.”
Mark Rutte | North Atlantic Treaty Organization
“On 9/11, America was not alone. Your Allies in NATO stood with you. For the first and only time in NATO’s history, we invoked Article 5 of our founding treaty, the solemn promise to defend one another, that an attack against one is an attack against all. America was attacked, and that meant we all were, and we responded together, because that’s who we are. . . .
“While our security environment has changed since 2001, the threats we face remain real, whether from terrorist groups or from states who seek to cause chaos, stoke instability, and undermine our way of life. We see it in Ukraine every day. Russia’s brutal attacks against innocent Ukrainians are unrelenting, and our own nations are targeted too through cyberattacks, sabotage, arson, airspace incursions, and more. We also face a dangerous Iran, an assertive China, and a nuclear North Korea. . . .
“Russia is massively building up its production, its armed forces. At the moment, for example, industry in Russia—not defense industry but the general industrial base—is producing for the war effort. This is something we still have to develop further in Europe and in the United States. . . . They are massively ramping up their production. They are spending 12 percent of their national income on defense. They spend almost 50 percent of their state budget on defense.”
Top Reads
Allied Preparation Efforts
After B-1s Leave England, Analysts Point to Limited Options, Importance of Base Defense
Michael Marrow | Breaking Defense
US and Allied Burden Sharing: A Progress Report
Jerry McGinn and Celia Barrie | Center for Strategic and International Studies
Multinational Capability Delivery
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Threats from the Middle East
Enabling Iran: A Timeline of China’s Role During and After Operation Epic Fury
US-China Economic and Security Review Commission
From Russia with Expertise: Iranian Students Return Home with Potentially Deadly Knowledge of Drones, AI, and More
Systema | Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
See How the Houthi Advance Was Powered by Arms from Iran and China
Andrew Barnett, Daniel Kiss, and Benoit Faucon | Wall Street Journal
Questions Remain over Iran’s Link to Alleged RAF Fairford Bomb Plot
Dan Sabbagh | The Guardian
Threats from China
Dismantling China’s Supply-Chain Weapon
Joris Teer | Council on Foreign Relations
China and Taiwan Update, September 15
Daniel Shats et al. | Institute for the Study of War
China Vessel Rams Philippine Boat on Refueling Mission, Coast Guard Says
Reuters
Threats from Russia
NATO Jets Shoot Down Drone over Lithuania and Russian Ship Fires Flares at Danish Helicopter
Liudas Dapkus | Associated Press
Estonia Blames Russia in Arson Attack on Military Robotics Firm Milrem
Linus Höller | Defense News
