How the U.S. must establish a wartime-based economy
A full-spectrum mobilization doctrine to restore American industrial power, military dominance, and strategic sovereignty in an era of great-power conflict.
The hour is late. China’s shipyards launch a warship every six weeks while America’s rust. Russia’s hypersonic glide vehicles slice through our aging missile defenses. North Korea’s nuclear-tipped ICBMs rattle the Pacific with repeated tests. Beijing’s gray-zone fleet tightens the noose around Taiwan. The remedy is no longer debate. It is mobilization. The United States must convert its peacetime consumer economy into a wartime production machine—directed, protected, and relentless. This transformation draws on the Manhattan Project’s urgency, Hamiltonian Federalism’s national vision, Reagan’s peace-through-strength doctrine, and a neo-hybrid Monroe Doctrine that declares the American industrial heartland off-limits to foreign supply chains.
Hamiltonian Federalism: The Federal Hand That Directs, Does Not Beg
Alexander Hamilton did not trust markets alone to forge cannon and frigates. He built the First Bank, imposed protective tariffs, and assumed state debts to create a creditworthy sovereign capable of waging war. We must do the same. A new, expanded Defense Production Act will empower the federal government to issue direct contracts, seize idle capacity where necessary, and offer tax-accelerated depreciation on any factory converting to strategic output. Critical minerals, semiconductors, rare-earth magnets, and precision machine tools will be designated national assets. Private capital that refuses the call will face tariffs on imported substitutes and lose access to federal lending windows. This is not socialism. It is Hamiltonian realism. The market must serve the nation; the nation does not serve the market.
Manhattan Project II: Nuclear Supremacy, Offensive and Defensive
The original Manhattan Project took just thirty months from authorization to the Trinity test. We have far less time. The nuclear triad must expand from roughly 3,700 deployed warheads to a credible 10,000-weapon stockpile by 2035. Every Minuteman III replacement and Columbia-class submarine will carry full MIRV reloads. New designs—low-yield, variable-yield, and earth-penetrating warheads—will be fast-tracked through the laboratories at Los Alamos, Livermore, and Sandia.
Defensively, Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative is reborn as a layered, space-based kinetic and directed-energy shield. Orbital battle stations armed with neutral-particle beams and exo-atmospheric interceptors will safeguard the continental United States and forward bases. Ground-based systems—THAAD-ER, Aegis Ashore upgraded with SM-3 Block IIA, and a new Mid-Course Ground-Based Interceptor variant—will be mass-produced at rates matching Chinese DF-21D and DF-26 output. Hypersonic glide vehicles will face high-power microwave arrays and laser-dazzling satellites already in design at DARPA. The goal is straightforward: any first strike against the homeland must become national suicide for the aggressor.
Reagan Military Doctrine Reapplied: Peace Through Overwhelming Strength
Ronald Reagan refused to negotiate from weakness. He spent the Soviets into bankruptcy. Today we must outspend and outproduce the combined Sino-Russian defense budgets while maintaining fiscal discipline through targeted growth rather than endless borrowing. Annual defense appropriations must rise to 6–7 percent of GDP and remain at that level for a decade. Every dollar will be audited by a new bipartisan Victory Board modeled on the Truman Committee.
Neo-Hybrid Monroe Doctrine: American Manufacturing Sovereignty
James Monroe warned Europe to stay out of the Western Hemisphere. The 21st-century version declares that America’s industrial commons—steel, shipbuilding, electronics, pharmaceuticals, and machine tools—shall be produced exclusively on sovereign soil or in allied North American treaty territory. Tariffs of 25–100 percent on strategic imports, paired with “Buy American Plus” procurement rules, will force rapid reshoring. The War Department will maintain a rolling five-year stockpile of every component in the F-35, Virginia-class submarine, and Ford-class carrier. Just-in-time fragility ends here. This is not protectionism for its own sake. It is strategic denial of leverage to Beijing.
Supply-Chain Stabilization: The Hidden Front
China controls 80 percent of global rare-earth processing and 60 percent of lithium refining. A wartime economy will break that dependency within eighteen months. Federal loan guarantees and accelerated permitting will establish three new rare-earth separation facilities in Texas and Wyoming, two graphite anode plants in Alabama, and semiconductor fabs in Arizona and Ohio—doubling the scale of existing CHIPS Act projects. Every critical supply node will receive hardened microgrids, on-site diesel backups, and physical security perimeters under Title 10 authority. Dual-use civilian factories will maintain “warm” production lines convertible to 155 mm shells or Javelin seekers within ninety days.
Naval Buildup: The Fleet That Rules the Waves
The 355-ship Navy is merely the floor, not the ceiling. We require 400 hulls by 2035, with a heavy emphasis on blue-water dominance to counter the combined threats from China’s 370-ship fleet, Russia’s nuclear-powered submarines, North Korea’s expanding missile-armed coastal forces, and Beijing’s gray-zone operations. Twelve additional Ford-class carriers will be constructed. Each will feature advanced electromagnetic catapults, drone recovery systems, and integrated air wings of 80–100 manned and unmanned aircraft capable of sustained 24-hour operations. These carrier strike groups will be augmented with nuclear armaments, including deployment of nuclear-capable Tomahawk cruise missile successors and integration of low-yield nuclear warheads deliverable by carrier-based aircraft. This provides flexible theater nuclear options to deter escalation across the Indo-Pacific.
Thirty more Virginia-class attack submarines must be built at a rate of two per year through modular construction at Electric Boat and Newport News. These boats will incorporate enhanced acoustic quieting, larger vertical launch systems for 40 or more Tomahawk or future hypersonic missiles, and select hulls armed with nuclear-tipped submarine-launched cruise missiles or advanced sea-launched ballistic missile variants for strategic deterrence at sea.
A new class of arsenal ships—unmanned or lightly manned—will enter serial production. Each will displace 20,000 tons and carry up to 500 land-attack and anti-ship missiles in vertical cells, with options for nuclear payload integration on designated hulls to extend nuclear strike reach without relying solely on the SSBN fleet. Littoral Combat Ships will be retired early in favor of tripled Constellation-class frigates. Each frigate will carry 32–48 vertical launch cells, over-the-horizon anti-ship missiles, and variable-depth sonar for anti-submarine warfare. Select frigates will also field nuclear-capable anti-submarine rockets or depth charges for layered defense against nuclear-armed adversary submarines.
The entire surface fleet will receive rail-gun prototypes for hypervelocity projectiles and high-energy laser systems rated at 300–500 kW for drone and missile defense. Merchant shipbuilding will be revived under a strengthened Jones Act, supported by federal subsidies and accelerated permitting. This effort will create a 500-vessel strategic sealift reserve, including 20 new Expeditionary Sea Base vessels and 30 additional T-AKE dry cargo ships. All will be capable of surging two armored divisions and their sustainment across the Pacific in thirty days.
Amphibious warfare capacity will expand with 12 additional America-class LHA ships optimized for F-35B operations and Marine littoral regiments. Every carrier strike group will gain dedicated anti-submarine helicopter squadrons with MH-60R Seahawk successors and unmanned underwater vehicles for mine countermeasures, alongside nuclear command-and-control enhancements to ensure seamless integration of naval nuclear forces in both conventional and escalated scenarios. This naval buildup will secure command of the sea lanes, deny adversaries any sanctuary in the Indo-Pacific, and guarantee that no hostile fleet can project power against the American homeland or its forward allies—while maintaining a credible, forward-deployed nuclear deterrent distributed across the fleet.
Missile and Air-War Strategy: Precision Dominance
Sixth-generation fighters (NGAD) and B-21 Raiders must roll off assembly lines at three per month. Hypersonic conventional strike weapons—ARRW, CPS, and HAWC—will be produced in the thousands, not dozens. Air-to-air and surface-to-air missile inventories will be quadrupled: AIM-260 JATM, SM-6 Block IB, and Patriot PAC-3 MSE. Forward bases in Guam, the Philippines, and Australia will receive hardened aircraft shelters and rapid runway repair kits. The strategy is clear: kill the archer before he draws. Preemptive conventional strikes on enemy launchers will be ready if deterrence fails.
Information Warfare and Space Buildup: The New High Ground
Space Force must grow to 50,000 personnel and control a constellation of 1,000 hardened satellites dedicated to resilient communications, missile warning, and battle management. Offensive counter-space capabilities—co-orbital inspectors, directed-energy dazzlers, and cyber payloads—will neutralize Chinese ASAT threats. Information warfare will include hardened domestic networks resistant to deepfake propaganda and a dedicated Truth Command to counter Beijing’s narrative dominance in real time. Every carrier strike group will receive its own electronic-warfare squadron equipped with next-generation EA-18G Growler successors.
Ammunition Buildup: The Arsenal of Democracy Reloaded
Current 155 mm shell production hovers near 40,000 rounds per month. Wartime rates demand 200,000 rounds per month within two years. New plants in Pennsylvania, Texas, and South Carolina will employ automated forging lines and AI-driven quality control. Javelin, Stinger, and ATACMS stocks will be tripled. Small-arms ammunition will reach World War II levels—billions of rounds—stockpiled in climate-controlled depots across the interior. Propellant and explosive precursors will be sourced exclusively from domestic chemical plants retrofitted under federal mandate.
Army and Marine Corps Buildup: The Bayonet at the Ready
The Army will expand from ten active divisions to sixteen, adding four new armored brigades equipped with M1A2 SEPv4 Abrams tanks and future Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicles. Recruitment standards will be raised, not lowered. Pay and bonuses will reflect the gravity of the mission. The Marines will stand up two additional Marine Expeditionary Forces optimized for island-hopping in the first island chain. These forces will be armed with long-range precision fires, unmanned surface vessels, and anti-ship missiles. Both services will receive integrated drone swarms and exoskeleton infantry kits for urban and littoral combat.
This is not a spending spree. It is a national resurrection. By wedding Hamiltonian direction to Reagan audacity, Manhattan urgency to Monroe sovereignty, America will once again deter war through unmatchable strength. The alternative—continued decline, supply-chain blackmail, and eventual battlefield defeat—is unthinkable. The factories must roar again. The forges must glow white-hot. The American flag must fly over an arsenal that no adversary dares test. America First is not a slogan. It is the only policy that secures the Republic for the next American century. The time to raise the standard is now.
Travis A. Karnes is a strategic analyst who was the FMR lead editor of the Peace Through Strength Institute.