Mapping Critical Supply Chain Dependencies
A sector-by-sector analysis of single-source vulnerabilities in the United States and major trading partners. The root MTS framework paper.
Most critical American supply chains — pharmaceutical APIs, rare earth refining, propellant precursors, battery-grade lithium — pass through countries that are not our friends. The CONUS Industrial Capacity Program estimates a $22.4–37.1 billion ten-year capital requirement to close documented chokepoints across six pillars. Industrial Spine Research turns each chokepoint into one investment-grade business plan — single-buyer thesis, federal funding stack mapped, exit architecture structured. Policy papers identify the problem. Investment banks identify the opportunity. ISR connects both ends.
— The Firm
Industrial Spine Research publishes investment-grade dependency theses for institutional buyers — private equity firms, family offices, defense primes, and federally-aligned commercial sponsors. The firm sells research products and does not manage capital. Each thesis is sold once, to one buyer, with complete exclusive access to the underlying analysis and 30 days of direct follow-up with the analyst.
The methodology is the Mutual Threshold Saturation framework — ten peer-reviewed publications at SSRN, anchored by a policy white paper shared with the National Economic Council, Senate Armed Services Committee staff, and the Administrator of the Small Business Administration. The CONUS Industrial Capacity Program described in that white paper is the architecture from which the firm's six-pillar catalog derives.
"The dependencies are not hidden — they are mapped, scored, and documented in public source material. What we sell is the synthesis: the analytical work product that converts a known vulnerability into a commercializable thesis with a federal funding stack already mapped."
Once a thesis is sold, it leaves the catalog permanently. The buyer holds an exclusive informational advantage on the dependency. The firm retains the right to reference the existence of the thesis in subsequent commentary, but does not redistribute the work product itself.
— Where the firm looks
The United States does not have six separate supply chain problems. It has one — foreign processing monopoly — expressed simultaneously across rare earths, lithium, pharmaceutical APIs, defense electronics, energy, and water. That diagnosis is the structural premise of the CONUS Industrial Capacity Program, the policy framework published by the firm's principal in April 2026 and shared with the National Economic Council, Senate Armed Services Committee staff, and the SBA Administrator. CICP estimates a $22.4–37.1 billion ten-year capital requirement to close the processing chokepoints across the six critical pillars. The federal funding stack — DPA Title III, DOE Loan Programs, ARPA-E, CHIPS-model co-investment, BARDA BioMaP, FDA regulatory authority — already exists. The white space is what's missing.
"Most startups are looking for something sexy. We look for the white space owned by an adversarial nation, the federal funding stack already authorized to fill it, and the exit path that makes the founder whole. That is what an Industrial Spine Research thesis is for."
Industrial Spine Research theses are the commercial implementation of the CONUS Industrial Capacity Program. CICP identifies what must be rebuilt and the federal authorities already available to fund the rebuild. Each ISR thesis is one thesis-sized piece of that architecture — a specific, federally-fundable investment opportunity in a documented white space, scored on a consistent five-axis methodology, sold once to one institutional buyer who executes the build. Policy papers identify the problem. Investment banks identify the opportunity. ISR connects both ends with a specific, scored, federally-fundable business plan.
When essential medicines or national security matters most, federal capital does not just de-risk the opportunity — it underwrites it. Each thesis is also structured for the founder's exit. The firm's principal is the author of The Better Exit, the framework guiding business owners through successful transitions. The Exit Planning Institute documents the cost of skipping that preparation: 80 percent of listed businesses fail to sell, 76 percent of owners report deep regret on the outcome, and unprepared owners typically realize 30–50 percent less value than peers who plan three to five years ahead. Industrial Spine Research theses package the dependency analysis, the federal funding stack, and the exit-architecture preparation into a single investment-grade research product — built to create jobs in the local economy and remove one critical supply chain vulnerability at a time.
The catalog begins with pharmaceuticals. Of 7,940 unique active pharmaceutical ingredients in the FDA Drug Master File, 75.3 percent have a single registered source globally; China-associated facilities hold the sole filing for at least 919 of them, including heparin sodium, vancomycin, and multiple surgical anesthetics. Of the top 100 generic medicines prescribed in the United States, 83 have no domestic API source. Existing pharmaceutical companies face a strategic choice every quarter: deploy billions on new molecule discovery with single-digit success rates, or deploy millions on closing a documented white-space dependency where the demand floor is the Strategic National Stockpile and DoD direct procurement and the federal funding stack is already authorized. The regulatory pathway is now actively de-risked: under Executive Order 14293 and the resulting FDA PreCheck Pilot Program (February 2026) and ANDA Prioritization Pilot (October 2025), new U.S. facilities producing fully domestic-sourced generics receive both expedited facility-readiness review and priority application review. ISR-001 Heparin is the inaugural thesis in that pillar. ISR-002 follows.
A sector-by-sector analysis of single-source vulnerabilities in the United States and major trading partners. The root MTS framework paper.
The case for a CONUS Industrial Capacity Program. Shared with the National Economic Council, Senate Armed Services staff, and the SBA Administrator.
Key-person concentration as a compound national security vulnerability. Personnel chokepoints that parallel materiel chokepoints.
Compound warfare economics, saturation dynamics, and the structural unaffordability of great-power conflict.
Aquifer depletion, compound agricultural cascades, and the econometrics of irreversible resource loss.
A century-scale MTS critique of nominal wage growth as a welfare metric, 1925–2025.
Subscriptions for ongoing first-look access. Bespoke intake call as a low-friction entry that credits in full toward your next purchase. Exclusive thesis ownership for institutional buyers ready to commit.
Every Industrial Spine Research path leads to commercial action — annual access to the methodology, a paid intake call that credits toward your first purchase, or exclusive ownership of a published thesis.
30-day first-look on every new thesis. Firm and Enterprise tiers available.
Plans60 minutes with the analyst. Fee credits in full toward any subsequent subscription or thesis purchase.
Book callSold once to one buyer. Leaves the catalog on purchase. Permanent exclusive access.
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