Squaring the Circle

Forging America's 21st Century Defense Industrial Base with COL Eric McCoy, AMC

Feb 12, 2026
COL Eric McCoy, U.S. Army logistics officer and former Anniston Army Depot commander, discusses revitalizing America’s defense industrial base. He explores industrial mobilization, aligning capacity to strategy, balancing mass production with high-tech systems, workforce mobilization and smoother foreign military sales. He also compares today’s posture to pre-WWII and argues for predictable multi-year workloads to enable readiness.
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ADVICE

Match Strategy With Resourcing

  • Align strategy with resources and define what force the industrial base must support before budgeting.
  • Assess raw-material vulnerabilities and supplier alliances to shape production priorities.
ANECDOTE

Depot Command: Garrison And Nation-Scale Production

  • At Anniston Army Depot McCoy led remanufacture and saw shifts from layoffs to surge production supporting allies.
  • He describes depot command as mixing garrison leadership with national-scale production management.
ANECDOTE

Remanufacturing M1A1s For Poland

  • McCoy recounts restoring 116 M1A1 seed-fleet tanks for Poland using mothballed Marine Corps hulls.
  • He describes real-time quarterly prioritization to manage parts, labor, and customer expectations.
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