HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE


To understand the challenges of today’s Army organic industrial base, it helps to look to the past


by LTC(P) Richard B. Debany I n every conflict after its struggle for independence


against King George III, the United States relied upon a national


industrial base to deliver and sustain the war fighting materiel necessary for victory. Te segment


of that base catering specifically to the military is the defense industrial base, a multitude of prime contractors and a com- plex web of sub-tier suppliers that span the globe. Within the domestic defense industrial base, there is a comparatively small but strategically critical component—a collection of government-owned manufacturing


arsenals, maintenance


depots and ammunition plants providing rare, often unique, industrial capabilities and skill sets. For the U.S. Army, these facilities are collectively called the Army organic industrial base or “organic base.”


Changing Army requirements, strategic priorities, tolerance to risk and budgetary realities have molded the organic base throughout its existence. Twelve years of persistent war, the approaching end of military operations


Evolution of the organic base over the past 236 years has been characterized by cycles of expansion and contraction that, not surprisingly, reflected the nation’s periods of war and peace. While Great Britain benefited from the dawn of what would later be coined the Industrial Revolution, mid-18th-century America was primarily an agrarian society, with the first significant benefits of domestic industry still decades in the future. With severely limited manufacturing capacity, the fledgling Continental Army received much of its armament from Europe.


in Afghanistan and


the anticipated economic landscape now necessitate another evaluation of the Army’s approach to organic manufacturing and depot maintenance. Tis reexamination should be mind- ful of history while it considers challenges faced by the organic base and the Army’s ability to leverage the entire defense indus- trial base. In the end, the Army must manage risk in terms of


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Te disadvantages of relying upon foreign sources of military supply were apparent at the outset of the Revolutionary War. In an effort to reduce this strategic vulnerability, significant effort was made to rapidly increase domestic industrial capabil- ity. During the war, the Continental Congress established five arsenals to manage the arms, ammunition and related materiel required to fight England.


In recognition of a largely successful wartime framework, in its 1794 Act for Erecting and Repairing of Arsenals and Maga- zines, Congress authorized President Washington to establish or retain up to four national arsenals. While the act formally


balancing affordable industrial capability with the ability to meet any manufacturing demand.


Army AL&T Magazine


January–March 2014


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