Public policy pays for wartime reserve capacity

Private firms usually allocate resources more quickly and efficiently for ordinary commercial demand, but have little incentive to fund capacity that sits idle until an emergency. Government responsibility begins where commercially rational investment and national resilience overlap. Shipbuilding provides the example: spare dockyard capacity must exist before an urgent expansion is ordered. For synthetic fuels and coal, the state could supply construction grants, tax incentives, or direct public investment. Peacetime exports would keep the enlarged plants economically active, while wartime domestic demand could absorb production previously sold abroad.