The U.S. defense industrial base faces a radical restructuring over the next several years. As a result of deficit reduction concerns, new domestic spending priorities, and the collapse of the Soviet bloc, many basic issues of national security planning are currently being questioned and debated. Not only is U.S. defense policy undergoing a major review of roles and missions in the post-cold war era, but, within the armed forces, such basic concerns as force structure, U.S. basing, and overseas deployments are in flux. The transformation in U.S. national security policy will have a particularly profound impact on private industry. Those firms that sell to the American defense market must face up to the emerging reality of significantly smaller defense budgets and a greatly reduced force structure, which makes a fundamental readjustment within the U.S. defense industrial base inevitable.

Read the full article here.