If you guessed a normal rate of consolidation like 500, you are wrong. The answer is 4,000. Government data shows the industrial base of sub-tier defense suppliers plummeted from roughly 5,000 down to around 1,000. Throwing billions at defense primes accomplishes nothing if the sole machine shop producing a hardened micro-component shutters. A cascading bottleneck. It creates an even narrower chokepoint. A rocket motor is essentially a finely tuned chemical bomb requiring incredibly specific ingredients to burn at the exact right speed.