The Arsenal of Democracy: Technology, Industry, and Deterrence in an Age of Hard Choices

by Harry Halem, Eyck Freymann, Niall Ferguson (Foreword)

The US military stands at a moment of profound risk and uncertainty. China and its authoritarian partners have pulled far ahead in defense industrial capacity. Meanwhile, emerging technologies are reshaping the character of air and naval warfare and putting key elements of the US force at risk. To prevent a devastating war with China, America must rally its allies to build a new arsenal of democracy. But achieving this goal swiftly and affordably involves hard choices.

 

The Arsenal of Democracy is the first book to integrate military strategy, industrial capacity, and budget realities into a comprehensive deterrence framework. While other books explain why deterrence matters, this book provides the detailed roadmap for how America can actually sustain deterrence through the 2030s—requiring a whole-of-nation effort with coordinated action across Congress, industry, and allied governments.

 

Rapidly maturing technologies are already reshaping the unmanned systems on air, land, sea, and undersea; advanced electronic warfare; space-based sensing; and more. Yet China's industrial strengths could give it advantages in a protracted conflict. The United States and its allies must both revitalize their industrial bases to achieve necessary production scale and adapt existing platforms to integrate new high-tech tools.

 

Chapters explore the key domains of modern military power,

 

Scouting, which will determine success or failure in any US-China warLogistics, the greatest vulnerability in US force postureMunitions and drones, which the allies must produce at scaleThe fleet, which is racing to stay relevant against fast-evolving threatsThe defense industrial base, which allied nations should reform and rebuild together Space and nuclear, where emerging technologies are shifting the strategic balance 

The book concludes with a call for urgent action. Unless policymakers recognize the scale of the challenge and take decisive steps to modernize US force structure and procurement processes, deterrence could fail—leading to potentially the most catastrophic conflict in modern history. This balanced, comprehensive, and actionable book is the essential implementation guide for policymakers, defense officials, investors, and strategists.

416 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2025

Reviews

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

In The Arsenal of Democracy, the authors provide a general survey of the state of US military readiness across the board. Although the US is currently ready and willing to fight a war anywhere, it is falling behind, particularly in relation to peer competitor China, the latter a constant point of comparison, it is implied. Assuming a war in the Indo-Pacific would be a Naval and Air scenario, the authors pay particular attention to the state of the US Navy, including the merchant marine, submarines and related air arm. However, all other departments of the war machine are also examined, including nuclear readiness. This book is a fascinating and sometimes disturbing read -- inadequate readiness, coordination and scale in multiple areas must surely be a wake-up call. Ultimately, as the authors point out, it will require politicians to persuade the American public to accept the cost of recapitalising many areas of the US Défense Industrial Base that will need to be ramped up at short notice in an actual war. More critically, war is ultimately a political event, certainly as understood by the Chinese communists, and perhaps the best defence for democracy is democracy itself; the authors do not examine cognitive warfare, the Chinese Communist Party’s speciality. Taiwan is mentioned several times in the book, as an old/new partner, with plenty of scope for closer cooperation, along with all other allies.

[Austin Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

90/100

5 stars - 90/100
4 stars - 80/100
3 stars - 70/100
2 stars - 60/100
1 star - 50/100