Theoretically, assuming you get the supply chain optimized - this would be the biggest challenge, as US manufacturing has taken a nosedive after decades of being out-competed by lower-wage countries (and free capitalism being more than happy to save costs by moving production to said countries)
US manufacturing is bigger than ever. However it is concentrated in highly automated areas, and high value add. The share of labor in manufacturing has taken a nosedive. The manufacturing is still here though.
Eh, maybe. But even if you’re right, would anything short of an existential threat to US soil result in that capacity being re-tooled to make armaments?
I think the spectrum between where we are now and “existentially threatened wartime economy” is nonlinear: if there’s not an existential threat, but there is instead a popular foreign war (e.g. post 9/11), the fraction of defense economic capacity that gets unlocked is very small—still pretty close to what we have now. Which is a lot, but it’s far from efficient.
