Western democracy will not be preserved by speeches, sanctions, or abstract commitments to shared values alone. It will be preserved on factory floors, in supply chains, and through the hard realities of production economics.
Ironstead exists because the West’s defense industrial base has a structural problem. It is too slow, too expensive, and too disconnected from the operational reality of modern conflict. These inefficiencies are strategic liabilities that cost taxpayers billions, constrain deterrence, and ultimately weaken the credibility of Western power.
Saving Western democracy starts with saving how we build.
Efficiency as a Strategic Imperative
At its core, Ironstead focuses on increasing the operational efficiency of critical defense and defense adjacent manufacturers. These are the Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers that quietly underpin everything from naval vessels to missile systems to aerospace platforms.
When efficiency improves at these layers of the supply chain, costs fall downstream. That reduction flows directly to the end customer, whether that is a government buyer, an armed force, or a prime contractor delivering to the state.
Lower production costs are not merely a budgetary win. They allow governments to buy more capability with the same taxpayer dollar. They also reduce the pressure on primes to pass through inflated costs driven by inefficiency rather than necessity. This dynamic is well documented in analyses by the Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Budget Office of U.S. defense acquisition inefficiencies, both of which repeatedly cite production inefficiencies and supply chain fragility as cost drivers rather than technology itself.
Industrial efficiency is the foundation of industrial base viability.
Why Reduced Cost Determines Industrial Survival
A defense industrial base that cannot produce affordably will eventually collapse under its own weight. Rising costs shrink procurement volumes. Shrinking volumes erode supplier margins. That erosion leads to supplier exits, consolidation, and brittleness.
This cycle has already begun. The U.S. Department of Defense has warned repeatedly about single-point failures across critical manufacturing categories, particularly in castings, forgings, energetics, and precision machining. When suppliers fail, it is not because demand disappears. Inefficient cost structures make survival impossible.
Ironstead’s thesis is simple. If you want a resilient industrial base, you must build companies that can operate profitably without relying on inflated pricing, administrative overhead, or artificial scarcity.
Efficiency is the difference between a supplier that survives geopolitical shocks and one that becomes a headline risk.
The End of Cost Plus Pricing
Cost-plus pricing is a relic of a different era. It emerged in a time when industrial capacity was abundant, competition was limited, and inefficiency could be hidden behind national urgency.
That era is over.
Cost-plus contracts incentivize higher costs, longer timelines, and minimal pressure to innovate. Numerous studies by RAND and the Defense Acquisition University have shown that cost-plus structures correlate with schedule overruns and budget growth, particularly during production phases.
Modern threats do not allow for that complacency. Near-peer competition demands speed, adaptability, and accountability. Production systems must respond to demand signals in months, not decades.
Ironstead’s model rejects the assumption that inefficiency is inevitable. Operational excellence is not a nice-to-have. It is a strategic necessity.
Agility, Deterrence, and the Reality of Modern Conflict
Deterrence is built on the credible ability to produce.
As explored in a previous article, the ability to rapidly scale production convinces adversaries that escalation will fail. A nation that can replenish, surge, and adapt faster than its rivals changes the calculus of conflict before it begins.
China understands this reality deeply. Its civil-military fusion strategy, documented extensively by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is built around industrial scale, manufacturing velocity, and integrated supply chains.
The West cannot respond with bureaucratic inertia.
Agile, nimble, and efficient production systems are the only credible counterweight. Ironstead’s work focuses precisely on that layer of the stack.
Efficiency as the Engine of Innovation
Defense efficiency is about enabling innovation to proliferate.
When manufacturing systems are slow and rigid, innovation is bottlenecked. New designs struggle to move from prototype to production. Small suppliers cannot scale. Novel approaches die in procurement queues.
By contrast, efficient and digitally enabled factories shorten iteration cycles. They reduce the cost of experimentation. They allow new ideas to reach the field faster.
Innovation is the lifeblood of any society that seeks to remain free, competitive, and prosperous. Defense manufacturing efficiency does not suppress innovation. It unlocks it.
Modernizing Procurement to Match Modern Manufacturing
Even the most efficient factory will fail if procurement systems remain slow, opaque, and disconnected from reality.
Western defense procurement processes were designed for a different era. They are often paper-based, fragmented, and hostile to smaller suppliers. These inefficiencies add cost, delay timelines, and discourage participation from the very companies the industrial base needs most.
Ironstead enables a different model. Digitized systems, real-time operational visibility, and tighter integration between buyers and suppliers reduce friction across the entire acquisition lifecycle.
Streamlining procurement is about replacing bureaucracy with clarity and speed.
Why This Matters
Western values of democracy, liberty, and individual freedom are worth preserving. But values do not defend themselves.
They are defended by credible deterrence, resilient supply chains, and the ability to outproduce threats faster than they can escalate.
Ironstead’s mission is practical execution: still more production. By saving billions of taxpayer dollars and speeding up production, we strengthen the foundations that allow Western democracies to endure.
The future of the West will not be decided in conference rooms.
It will be decided in factories.
George Payne 