DARPA, Col. Macgregor & American Manufacturing

In the August 20, 2010 edition of MIT's Technology Review, Christopher Mims wrote about DARPA's goal to make everything from heavy armor to bombers in "fabs" right here in the good ole' USofA in his article How DARPA Plans to Reinvent U.S. Manufacturing.

For those not up on government agency acronyms, DARPA stands for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.  And just what does DARPA do?  It was DARPA that was the guiding hand and funding source behind what we know as the internet (sorry Mr. Gore), the stealth fighter and the M16 Assault Rifle.  One of their recent creations is the "Boomerang".  


The Boomerang is essentially a listening device with  special technology that enables it to identify where gun fire is coming from even while moving.  This of course has powerful real world implications for urban warfare as well as low intensity conflict areas such as Afghanistan and Iraq where snipers and potshot takers abound.  Deployment of this technology should dramatically decrease the effectiveness of enemy snipers as they won't be able to take advantage of stealth or camouflage.


Further into the article Mims links to another article regarding DARPA in InfoWorld.  In the InfoWorld story by Paul F. Roberts, he quotes DARPA's Director, Dr. Regina Dugan's testimony before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities wherein she stated for the record "One of the biggest challenges we face as a Nation is the decline in our ability to make things". 

DARPA's Director's warnings echos those of retired U.S. Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor.  In Season 5 of Dan Rather Reports on HDNet entitled What Happened Next:  The Future of the Military, Col. Macgregor stated that the core reason behind the United States reign as a military and economic super power in the 20th century was due to its heavy manufacturing base.

Col. Macgregor lays it straight out:  "The first concern for every American should be prosperity because economic prosperity is the foundation for military power. We are not a great military power because we had genius generals. We are not a great military power because God necessarily selected us for the role. We are a great military power because of this economic engine that was constructed between the Civil War and World War I and then expanded as a result of World War II. That engine is in trouble. We have exported much of its manufacturing base overseas. We don't have the skilled labor force that we once had because we haven't trained them, we haven't educated them. We don't have the ability to absorb millions of people into this manufacturing base anymore. So we have to build a new manufacturing base. That should be our number one-- concern: prosperity, economic prosperity."
 

So according to the experts, it is clear from a military and national security standpoint, that America will not continue to be a super power unless it can actually manufacture the technology and products that it invents and designs.