Failure of the entire system is almost always is always at critical bottlenecks. Avoiding these bottlenecks is a key component of military and economic competency.

The U.S. military and economy has been declining for decades. Why? Consolidation of companies into mega-corporations. Less competition = more cost for less results. Less players also means more potential bottlenecks in the system.

It's been being held together by a shoestring for decades now. It's getting more and more unstable as time goes by. This is where gross incompetence at the leadership level can sink not just an industry but an entire nation.