Bombing low-tech terrorists should barely dent U.S. munitions—or so one would think.

But in just nine months, a single aircraft carrier strike group launched over 770 munitions at the Houthis, including over 155 SM-series missiles—almost as many as the U.S. produces in a year.

This example serves a broader point: today, U.S. defense production capacity is woefully inadequate.

This becomes even more painfully evident when considered from a historical perspective. From 1942 to 1945, during the height of World War II, the U.S. produced a stunning 300,000 planes. Today, our defense industrial base (DIB) could produce a maximum of about 150 F-35s a year—and that number shows no signs of increasing any time soon.

In part, one can attribute this to increased complexity in military technology. After all, F-35s employ far more advanced components than did the P-38s of World War II.

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But that isn’t the whole story. Rather, the DIB’s failings are, in large part, attributable to poor policies and processes that overregulate, create unnecessary complexities, and, as a whole, discourage long-term investment and innovation.

Consider the current contracting structure used with DIB manufacturers. Currently, most operate on a cost-plus system, in which the government both reimburses the contractor for all expenses incurred and pays an additional set amount. Under this system, contractors lack incentive to innovate or improve efficiency in production; after all, the government (and, by extension, the taxpayer) will cover their costs.

Consider also the complex processes involved in acquiring, navigating, and fulfilling a government contract.

Today, because of bureaucratic barriers and compliance costs, the DIB has been whittled down to just eight major defense producers, and new producers struggle to enter the market. To gain a government contract, prospective manufacturers must navigate through permitting processes involving more than a dozen federal agencies—to say nothing of the state agencies involved.

Even after a manufacturer has undergone the years-long process of contracting with the Department of Defense (DOD), the bureaucratic headache isn’t anywhere close to over. Instead, contractors must next meet the challenge of dealing with “requirement overload”: the proliferation of constantly changing government specifications that descend to the level of micromanagement.

Designs take months or years to get approval but are then often changed at a moment’s notice, even after production has begun. And many of these requirements concern not just overall capability but also how exactly that capability is achieved from a technical perspective.

This rigid process is costly, time-consuming, and counter-productive—and it limits the extent of manufacturers’ technological innovation.

Given all this, it’s no wonder that the DIB is failing to produce at anything close to the appropriate rate. All these are just a few examples of the structural inefficiencies and over-regulations deeply entrenched throughout the system.

This isn’t a minor problem. Today, the U.S. faces the greatest threat environment it’s seen since World War II—and if it hopes to rise to the challenge, it must improve industrial base production capacity.

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Fortunately, as my Heritage Foundation colleagues detailed in a report released earlier this week, there are several ways to revitalize the DIB—even if one seeks to avoid increases in spending.

For one thing, the DOD can switch from cost-plus contracting to fixed-price contracting, a system in which manufacturers are (quite literally) paid a fixed price for a product. This incentivizes them to keep production costs as low as possible, which in turn incentivizes efficiency, speed, and innovation.

The government could also adopt a sort of shepherding system in which one agency “adopts” a manufacturer and helps guide them through the complexities of the permitting process. Ideally, this system would also involve presumptive approval, in which contractors’ applications would be considered approved if not rejected after a given timeframe.

Third, the DOD should strive to only impose requirements that pertain to capabilities—not requirements that pertain to how exactly those capabilities are achieved. And it should, as much as possible, avoid altering requirements or specifications late in the process.

There’s much more work to be done to bring our defense industrial base up to par. But these—and the other steps discussed in my colleagues’ report—provide an idea of how to accomplish this change. If the Trump administration is serious about protecting Americans’ safety, then this is the perfect place to start.