Defense Department analysts worry that the ability of the United States

Question

Defense Department analysts worry that the ability of the United States to wage a prolonged war would be seriously endangered if the machine-tool manufacturing base shrinks further. Before the Defense Department publicly connected this security issue with the import quota issue, however, the machine-tool industry raised the national security issue in its petition for import quotas.

Which of the following, if true, contributes most to an explanation of the machine-tool industry’s raising the issue above regarding national security?

(Because of copyrights, the complete official question is not copied here. You can access the question here: GMAT Club)

Difficulty: Medium

Accuracy: 74%

Based on: 4969 sessions

Solution

The Story

Worried about what?

They worry that if the machine-tool manufacturing base shrinks further, America’s ability to wage a prolonged war would be seriously endangered.

If condition: “if the machine-tool manufacturing base shrinks further”.
So, the base has already shrunk. The analysts are worried about what would happen if the base shrinks further.

Consequence: It would become very difficult for America to wage an extended war.

Before the Defense Department publicly connected this security issue with the import quota issue, however, the machine-tool industry raised the national security issue in its petition for import quotas.

“this security issue”: I gather that if a country’s ability to wage a prolonged war is endangered, its security is weakened. So, if the machine-tool manufacturing base shrinks further, that would be a security threat.

Alright, I get the security issue.

“import quota issue”: (Why are they suddenly discussing import quotas? I’ll need to read the complete statement to understand this.)

After reading the statement, I understand that we’re given two pieces of information here:

The Defense Department publicly connected this manufacturing-base shrinkage issue with import quotas.

(How would the department have connected these two issues?
I needed to relate this statement to the previous one to understand that. Probably the size of the machine-tool manufacturing base is linked to import quotas.
How would those be linked?
The more relaxed import quotas are, the further the manufacturing base would shrink.
That’s how the Defense Department would have been able to connect the security issue with import quotas.)

Even before the Defense Department declared this connection,
- The machine-tool industry had filed a petition for import quotas
- And, in its petition, it had raised the national security issue

(Why would the machine-tool industry have filed a petition for import quotas? To reduce their competition, I would imagine.
Why would the machine-tool industry have raised the national security issue? Probably to somehow support their petition.)

There is a ‘however’ in the statement. This statement contrasts with the previous one. The DD analysts worry about something. But they are not the only ones to worry about it.

The story might have been something like this:
August 2022: The Defense Department releases a statement saying that relaxed import quotas are negatively impacting the country’s ability to wage a prolonged war.

January 2022: The machine-tool industry had filed a petition to implement stricter import quotas. In that petition, they had mentioned that the relaxed import quotas are also a security threat to the country.

Gist:

I imagine this is what would have transpired:

Machine-tool industry’s petition:

Dear government people,

Please make import quotas more stringent.
If you don’t make import quotas more stringent, our manufacturing base will shrink further.
If our manufacturing base shrinks further, America’s ability to wage a prolonged war will be seriously impacted. After all, during a war you’d not be able to import as easily, and you’d need to rely on us.
So, you see, making import quotas is in both our interests.

Yours sincerely,
Machine-tool industry people
Date: Jan, 2022

Question Stem

Which of the following, if true, contributes most to an explanation of the machine-tool industry’s raising the issue above regarding national security?

Framework: The machine-tool industry was able to include the import-quota issue in their petition even before the connection between import quotas and national security was revealed to the public by the Defense Department. We need to look for an answer choice that will help us understand how this could happen.

A few of things to note:

“if true”: Our job is not to evaluate the option’s validity. We have to accept the answer choices as true and then check whether they contribute to an explanation.
“contributes”: The correct answer need not completely explain the industry’s raising the issue. We’re looking for an answer choice that contributes to an explanation.
“contributes most”: The term ‘most’ implies that multiple answer choices would contribute, but we have to choose one that contributes the most. In my experience, typically in such questions, four answer choices do not help at all, and only one (the correct answer) does. That’s what I recommend as a strategy for such questions as well:
- Evaluate each answer choice independently to check whether it contributes at all.
- If, by chance, multiple choices do, then check which one helps more. (Based on my experience, you’d rarely need to perform this second check.)

Answer choice analysis

Answer Choice: A

Incorrect

Selected by: 1%

So what? I do not see any relation between the aircraft industries providing large amount of work for tool builders and the issue at hand. Irrelevant.

Answer Choice: B

Incorrect

Selected by: 13%

‘foreign competition’ – that relates to imports and import quotas.

Whom would the machine-tool industry people have petitioned to?
Would they have petitioned the Defense Department?
Unlikely.
The machine-tool industry’s petition for import quotas would have probably gone to the Department of Commerce, Department of Imports quotas, or something like that. The Defense Department’s job is to defend the country. Probably they won’t handle petitions for quotas on imports.

To understand where I’m going with this, here is a variation of this option:

(B’) The Department of Import quotas is only marginally concerned with the effects of foreign competition on the machine-tool industry.

This variation mildly contributes to an explanation of the machine-tool industry’s raising the national security issue.

The relevant department did not really care about the effects of import quotas on the machine-tool industry. So, pleas such as:

“If you don’t implement import quotas, we will have to fire 50% of the workforce”
“If you don’t implement import quotas, our industry will not be able to survive for much longer”
would have fallen on deaf ears.

Had the industry people claimed:

“If you don’t implement import quotas, our nation’s security will be threatened.”
maybe the department would have listened.

So maybe this lack of concern of the department led the industry people to raise an issue about national security.

Back to the original answer choice now.

The Defense Department’s job would be to handle national security. So anyway we wouldn’t expect them to be concerned with the impact of foreign quotas on the machine-tool industry. The machine-tool industry would care what the Department of Import quotas is concerned with, not what the Defense Department is concerned with.

Answer Choice: C

Correct

Selected by: 74%

Based on this answer choice, the machine-tool industry people probably had the following discussion (in December 2021):

Guys, we have tried everything.
We have been giving various reasons to obtain governmental protection against imports.
None of them has worked.
All grounds except for defense haven’t worked.
Maybe defense will work.
Let’s try that.
Let’s add a national defense angle in our next plea.

This answer choice helps explain how come the machine-tool industry brought in the national security angle in their import quotas petition even before the Defense Department had publicly linked the two things.

Now, this answer choice does not give a rock-solid explanation for the mention of national security in the petition. It does, however, contribute to such an explanation. As I have explained above, that’s all we’re looking for.

Answer Choice: D

Incorrect

Selected by: 4%

Some important weapons don’t require extensive tooling. In that case, perhaps the Defense Department analysts need not be that worried about the shrinkage of the machine-tool manufacturing base. If the shrinking of the machine-tool industry is not that big a deal for defense, why would the industry people bring in the national security angle in their petition? This answer choice goes in the opposite direction of what we are looking for.

Answer Choice: E

Incorrect

Selected by: 8%

It seems that the government is already helping the machine-tool industry against imports. Then why would the industry bring in national security in their petition for import quotas? I don’t see how that would help their petition.

If you have any doubts regarding any part of this solution, please feel free to ask in the comments section.

Anish Passi

GMAT Coach

With over a decade of GMAT training experience, top 1 percentile scores on the CAT and GMAT, and a passion for teaching, I’d like to believe I am quite qualified to be a GMAT coach. GMAT is learnable, and I help students master the GMAT through a process-oriented approach based on logic and common sense. I offer private tutoring and live-online classroom courses. My sessions are often sprinkled with real-world examples, references to movies, and jokes that only I find funny. You’ve been warned 🙂