“My main question is why haven’t we ever had a conversation about the end goal? The only discussions or ideas that get floated around are about negotiations and peace processes — and all that makes a lot of people in my part of Europe quite nervous. Okay, so we talk about victory, and we talk about standing with Ukraine to the very end — but let’s also talk about this.”

According to Landsbergis, military experts know exactly what’s needed to finish the job. “It’s mathematics,” he said.

But without having agreed on objectives, everything is ad hoc — without a real attempt to match equipment and munitions, missiles and armor — and it’s left to Ukraine to push for whatever it can secure. “So, we ambiguously commit to Ukrainian victory, but do not go into detail,” he added.

Interestingly, during a similarly fateful February in 1941, Britain’s Winston Churchill gave a take-stock speech to the House of Commons, noting that “In wartime, there is a lot to be said for the motto: ‘Deeds, not words.’ All the same, it is a good thing to look around from time to time and take stock, and certainly our affairs have prospered in several directions during these last four or five months, far better than most of us would have ventured to hope.”

Last summer brought another wake-up call. As Washington sent Ukraine Javelin anti-tank missiles and Stinger surface-to-air missiles, along with howitzers and ammunition, it began to deplete its own stockpiles, demonstrating its own lack of resilience.

A third shock as regards US ability to counter China is only now dawning, according to Flournoy, a potential future contender for Secretary of Defense: the presence of Chinese-made components throughout defense supply chains that create “unacceptable dependencies if not vulnerabilities.”

“Most prime contractors can’t even tell you how much Chinese content is in their systems, ranging from semiconductors to displays to nuts and bolts,” she said.

The Defense Department acknowledged that the defense industrial base faces many of the same supply-chain challenges as other sectors. “Lead times from ordering a component to delivery drive production timelines,” said spokesman Jeff Jurgensen. “To offset long lead times, the Department is making sustained investments to expand production capacity and stockpile critical weapons and materials.”

The defense industry’s problems have crystallized into a matter of urgency over the last 18 months, but they date back decades.

In the wake of the Soviet Union’s fall, US politicians hoped to cash in on the “peace dividend,” the promise of economic benefits from reduced defense spending. Then-Deputy Secretary of Defense William Perry laid out what this would mean for the industry at a dinner now known as the “last supper,” in which he told executives to consolidate or face extinction.

Consolidate they did. The defense sector has moved from more than 70 aerospace and defense “prime contractors” that worked directly with the government in 1980 to just 5 by the early 2000s, the same number as today: Lockheed Martin Corp., Raytheon Technologies Corp., General Dynamics Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp., and Boeing.