A U-Turn In Defense Demand?

I argued in a posting here last Friday that recent overseas surprises are likely to shift the vector of demand for defense goods. My reasoning was that unrest in the Middle East will make it harder to sell weapons there, but China’s military buildup will force policymakers in Washington to pour money into high-end weapons capable of assuring U.S. access to the Western Pacific. The East Asian littoral is now the industrial heartland of the global economy, I said, and America cannot allow China to become the dominant power there. Over the weekend, I elaborated these themes into an essay for Forbes.com, explaining how difficult it is for the Pentagon and its suppliers to project future military needs. You can find that essay here.