"One Chinese shipyard can produce more shipyards in a year than all of our shipyards combined," Clingan told a conference at the Atlantic Council.
The unexpected, protracted nature of the Ukraine war over the past year had revealed key weaknesses in the US military industrial complex, whose base and production capacity needed to be significantly expanded, Clingan said.
In identifying future zones of conflict around the world, it was important to preposition as much equipment as possible well in advance in allied nations as the ability to resupply US and allied forward units once hostilities began could not be assured and there would be "a fight to get to the fight," Clingan added.