The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict

by Elbridge A. Colby

The largest Western Allied counteroffensives in the Second World War did not take place until 1944, almost three years after the United States entered the conflict—and even longer after the United States, then the world’s largest industrial power, began to ramp up military production as the Arsenal of Democracy.6 And modern military weaponry can take considerably longer to field than that of the Second World War. Producing individual missiles under current circumstances can take years; production could be accelerated, but it is not clear by how much, especially since the demand would vastly outstrip current production capacity.7 Moreover, unlike in the Second World War, the United States would not enjoy a decisive advantage in industrial capacity; it is no longer unquestionably the world’s premier industrial state—indeed, that moniker may go to China.8