When defense analyst Loren Thompson recently visited the factory in Marietta, Ga., where defense giant Lockheed-Martin builds the Air Force's F-22 fighter plane, he was introduced to the just-hired executive overseeing the plant's manufacturing processes.

The exec's previous employer: General Motors Corp. It's an example, Thompson says, of the close ties between the defense industry and the auto companies -- and, he says, of the need to save the car companies and the rest of the U.S. manufacturing base.

While politicians from Gov. Jennifer Granholm to former presidential candidate John McCain paint images of the "arsenal of democracy" and World War II bombers rolling off converted auto assembly lines, the real links between Detroit's Big Three automakers and national security are more subtle, and more debatable. Analysts such as Thompson point to the economic damage from a Big Three bankruptcy, and the need to maintain a strong manufacturing base capable of making planes, tanks and sophisticated electronics.

"We can't let this industry disappear. It would be insane," said Thompson, an analyst with the Lexington Institute, a Washington-area think tank. "Much of what we use to fight and win wars requires assembly lines and skills found only in the automotive and aerospace industries."

"If those things slip away, we could lose a future war."

Other defense analysts are deeply skeptical, questioning whether building cars has all that much in common with building jets, and dismissing the possibility of a World War II-style mobilization of manufacturing.

"It may be that they're deserving of a bailout," said Christopher Hellman, a defense budget expert with the Center for Arms Control & Nonproliferation.

"But I don't see that the national security card plays in that discussion."

Carmakers, Army linked

It's no coincidence that the Army's top research center on ground vehicles and the command that buys its tanks and other vehicles are in Macomb County, close to the research and engineering hubs of the domestic carmakers.

In fact, the Big Three do relatively little business with the Pentagon. Major vehicle contracts are held by companies such as OshKosh Defense (heavy trucks) and American General (the iconic humvee).

But Detroit automakers and several parts suppliers have relationships with the Army's Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center. Automakers have partnered with the Pentagon for research on alternative fuels and electric vehicles, among other projects. One example: the Fuel Efficient Ground Vehicle Demonstrator project, which is tapping auto-industry expertise to develop a humvee-like vehicle with far greater fuel mileage.

Next year's National Defense Authorization Act, for example, includes more than $40 million in funding for Michigan vehicle research programs, many tied to auto firms.

Many of those projects have been championed by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who says such "dual-use" projects with military and civilian applications are threatened by the auto industry's troubles.

While the Big Three do relatively little defense work, several auto suppliers do -- companies that almost certainly would suffer, if not go under, if one or more automakers doesn't make it. Levin argues that the demise of the domestic auto industry would also endanger parts makers the Pentagon depends on, such as engine maker Detroit Diesel and ArvinMeritor, which makes transmissions and other parts for military vehicles.

But the serious hardware -- fighter planes, armored vehicles, ships and missiles -- is made by companies with few, if any, direct links to the auto industry. GM has done defense business in the past, but it sold Hughes Aircraft, a defense contractor, in the late 1990s, and Hughes' commercial satellite business in 2001.

Even on military vehicles, "the names you see are not names you see on the bumper of any cars you're driving," Hellman said.

'Arsenal of democracy'

Hellman finds the "arsenal of democracy" argument unconvincing as well. Politicians such as McCain, whose campaign stops in Michigan regularly featured that phrase, evoke images such as Willow Run. There, in the 1940s, a plant built by Ford Motor Co. eventually cranked out a B-24 bomber once an hour.

Such arguments "ignore the reality of war fighting in the 21st century," Hellman said.

Few foresee a war on the horizon that would require such an all-out mobilization. The United States has conducted two wars of substantial size, in Iraq and Afghanistan, with little disruption of the economy.

Even when the Pentagon rushed to build armored humvees and mine-protected vehicles for Iraqi battlefields, Hellman pointed out, smaller manufacturers handled the work and there was no need to call on the auto industry.

The industry's supporters don't deny that such a war is unlikely -- though Thompson and others argue "unlikely" is not the same as "impossible."

The greater fear for those analysts is a decline of manufacturing that would endanger the United States' technological and industrial edge. Thompson points to defense-related industries such as steel, electronics, chemicals and commercial shipbuilding, all of which have declined steeply in the United States.

"I don't think people really understand the degree to which our superpower status is tied to having the biggest economy in the world, and we can't have that without a robust manufacturing sector," Thompson said. "We have to stop that decline."

You can reach Gordon Trowbridge at (202) 662-8738 or gtrowbridge@detnews.com.

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