America Is Still Freedom’s Forge

In World War Two, the United States armed the free world to fight fascism, and again in the Cold War to defeat Communism. I wrote a book about the creation of this system for arming America and its allies, what contemporaries called the Arsenal of Democracy, entitled Freedom Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War Two. Today we are still that crucial forge where the tools for defending freedom are made and passed along to our allies.  

Now, thanks to President Trump, we are on the verge of creating the Arsenal of Democracies for the twenty-first century, with three key allies joining the U.S. in creating the decisive weapons of the future.  

Today, total U.S. defense exports to foreign allies come to over $330 billion annually. These international sales come in the form of direct government-to-government agreements, like those between the U.S. and NATO members, and private contracts between U.S. defense manufacturers and foreign buyers. 

As such, the U.S. accounts for 58 percent of major arms imports by NATO’s European member states. Trump’s success in getting NATO to raise its defense spending to five percent of GDP means that a major portion of the $1.2 trillion they will be spending over the next several years will be spent here in the U.S, on everything from Tomahawk missiles and fighter jets to Patriot missile defense systems and submarine propulsion systems. 

That’s a lot of hardware produced here in the U.S., and a lot of American manufacturing jobs. In a more complex, globalized world, however, with multiple threats from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, we are realizing that America’s forge of freedom needs to find active collaborators to create and produce the weapon systems that will keep us free and secure far into the future. 

In pursuing that goal, three democratic allies stand out: two traditional, one relatively new.  

Each brings important strategic leverage to their respective regions, along with mastery of advanced defense technologies which, when combined with U.S. capabilities, can make Trump’s goal of peace through strength a permanent reality. 

In Europe, that ally is Ukraine. The late Senator Lindsey Graham insisted that an alliance with Ukraine would be a “tremendous advantage” for America and a “tremendous gain for freedom.” In fact, the pressure of war has enabled Ukraine to build the most efficient and effective defense industrial base in the world, one that leads in drone technologies and electronic warfare (EW)capabilities—both key to future battlefield dominance.  

At the start of the war with Russia, Ukraine had exactly seven companies that made drones. Today it has approximately 450 to 500 companies in that line of work, delivering up to 200,000 drones a month to Ukrainian troops. America can learn a lot from Ukraine about how to make our defense industrial base more productive and how to make it move at the speed of innovation.    

In the Middle East, we have Israel. Lindsey Graham understood that the military aid we provide to Israel each year is not only a “great investment” for the US in terms of security, but also lays the foundation for joint creation and sharing of advanced technology. This includes not only important battlefield technologies—the IDF pioneered the use of autonomous systems—but also the “start-up nation’s” emergence as one of the leading countries in artificial intelligence, in terms of AI talent density, per capita AI start-ups, and per capita AI adoption—all useful tools in advancing AI as the key military edge for the US and other democracies. 

In Asia, Japan will be a crucial ally in an Arsenal of Democracies. After years of hesitancy about defense industrial cooperation with the U.S., the new government of Prime Minister Takaichi offers an opportunity to expand cooperation in key areas that buttress a strong defense industrial base, such as precision engineering and manufacturing, robotics, and advanced materials—as well as another area where Japanese engineering excels, namely space.  

The Trump administration has taken important steps in two of these three directions, including discussions about licensing Patriot missile production with Ukraine, while Ukrainian Defense Drones (UDD) is executing an $18.4 million investment to build a major U.S. assembly and manufacturing center in Northwest Ohio.  

At the same time, Congress has incorporated the Pentagon’s United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative into a House version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). 

In Japan’s case, the idea of a bilateral Defense Trade Cooperation Treaty, which eliminates export-import regulations for key defense and defense-related technologies, has circulated for a decade. Now’s the time to take concrete steps toward its fulfillment.  

In World War Two, it was scientific and technology cooperation between the U.S. and Great Britain that enabled the allies to defeat Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, including the creation of the atomic bomb. Cooperation with Ukraine, Israel, and Japan—as well as other democratic allies—will make sure America remains freedom’s forge for the next century, as well.   

Arthur Herman is the author of Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II, and most recently, Founder’s Fire: From 1776 to the Age of Trump.