Book Review: Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II
by Arthur Herman
Reviewed by LTC Ben Sloot, Army War College, Seminar 13
New York: Random House, 2012
416 pp
$15.65 paperback, $12.99 digital, $19.74 audiobook, and as always $0.00 at your local library 

Arthur Herman’s Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II provides a vital historical examination of industrial mobilization, tracing how the United States converted its civilian manufacturing base into the edge the Allies needed to outlast and defeat the enemy. Herman’s central thesis argues victory in total war depends less on military readiness and more on industrial capacity, mass-production ingenuity, and the agility of public-private partnerships driven by industrial leaders. For senior defense leaders navigating modern Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO) and contested supply chains, this history serves as both a warning and a guidepost. The book provides an excellent overview of the complexities of wartime industry, and any Officer reading Herman’s account will naturally compare it to our prospects in a near-future armed conflict.

The book relies heavily on biographical accounts complemented by archival records and corporate histories of America’s wartime manufacturing leaders. Herman argues that visionary executives, most notably automotive executive William Knudsen and construction contractor-turned-shipbuilder Henry Kaiser, overcame bureaucratic inertia to out-produce Axis evils in World War II. Knudsen pioneered flexible mass-production principles from automotive production to a defense industrial base. Herman describes how Henry Kaiser chased government contracts and revolutionized maritime prefabrication and assembly-line techniques to construct ships in a fraction of traditional build times. The author uses these two cases to show that industrial supremacy relies on decentralized commercial enterprise rather than rigid government control.

Freedom’s Forge contributes to the practical military history and defense acquisition by challenging the illusion of “M-Day”, a dangerous assumption that a modern economy can mobilize overnight simply by flipping a fiscal switch. Herman illustrates the friction-laden reality of planners scrambling to capture requirements while balancing strategic demands from allies like Winston Churchill without starving the domestic economy. The author makes a case for the essential role of individuals with deep production knowledge, developed through decades in business, who are willing to develop and implement defense-centric processes while maintaining the foresight to pursue rapid innovation.

Despite its operational insights, the book exhibits a few analytical blind spots. Herman adopts an unabashed pro-business narrative. He frames labor unions and strikes as obstructionist obstacles rather than complex socio-economic reactions during a period of massive industrial upheaval. Readers of this book will not accuse the author of sympathizing with collective bargaining agencies. The text does briefly discuss the human cost and manpower needed for total defense industrial mobilization, noting staggering industrial injury rates and the critical role of workforce migration in fueling wartime production lines. Finally, Arthur Herman clearly believes in the “great man theory.” Still, he spends a significant number of words portraying one of the greatest men of all time, FDR, as an indecisive New Dealer who changed course at inopportune times and with a poor understanding of the complex trade-offs between wartime production and the future economy.

The book succeeds in stimulating strategic thought. Without any background, Arthur Herman elucidated the complexity required to solve the enterprise management problem, prompting me to recognize uncomfortable questions for modern defense professionals.

·      Unlike 1940, the United States today will not have the luxury of a multi-year lead time to mobilize and retool civilian manufacturing to support our military objectives. How should the United States be incentivizing the defense industrial system and the manufacturing industry to build and retain the skilled labor that would contribute to wartime production?
·      Modern weapons put globalized supply chains at greater risk, and targeted logistics lines of communication drastically complicate plans to resource needed raw materials. How can the United States project power with increasingly contested environments from home to front lines?
·      Military equipment relies on increasingly complex technology produced with an over-reliance on companies (read TMSC in Thailand) outside the direct control and security of the United States. How can the United States mitigate or prevent enemy supply chain attacks or implants?
Admittedly, Dr. Herman covers a six-part plan for how the United States might overcome these complexities in his National Review article “How We Built the Arsenal of Democracy).”

The book is exceptionally relevant to senior members of the defense community, acquisition professionals, and strategists. It forces an uncomfortable contemporary question: if faced with a peer adversary today, can the Department of Defense rely on a hollowed-out industrial base without the benefit of geographic isolation and time? Freedom’s Forge is essential reading for leaders grappling with enterprise management, mobilization velocity, and the enduring friction between military requirements and industrial reality.