Historically, manufacturing was time, cost, and labor intensive. For technologically driven industries like aerospace, energy, and automotive this comes at the cost of innovation. A plurality of the OEMs, primes, and high-growth startups in the modern era are building the technology of the future on 50-100 year old supply chains. This culminates to 5-10+ year long manufacturing timelines when factoring design engineering, procurement, fulfillment, assembly, and testing that we have normalized.
When the pandemic exposed domestic manufacturing capabilities and international supply chain predicaments, it was clear that western countries faced more issues. The unit economics of defense, space, and other heavy industries is at an all time low, and many vendors have gone out of business or changed focus. The ability to maintain vehicles, let alone develop additional vehicles is incredibly costly and timely, especially in harsher environments like on a battleship, in space, or by an oil rig.