Production Is Deterrence

The credibility of conventional deterrence is no longer determined only by deployed forces, technological superiority or the quality of weapons available at the opening of a crisis.

The war in Ukraine, the debate over a possible Taiwan contingency, depleted inventories, long missile-production timelines and the renewed European focus on ammunition, missiles and air-defence capacity have exposed a more fundamental condition: a power deters only if its adversaries believe it can continue producing, replacing and sustaining military capability under pressure. Production has therefore become part of strategic credibility.

This analysis answers: How has production capacity become a variable of strategic credibility alongside deployed forces and weapon quality? How do lessons from Ukraine, depleted inventories and long missile-production timelines reshape industrial deterrence? Which actors and mechanisms (LaPlante's codification, Replicator, demand signals) reveal hidden bottlenecks, and where does Europe lag? What analytical and capital-allocation implications follow from treating production as part of deterrence?