Especially since the war in Ukraine, the defense industry has returned to the center of security policy. European governments raised budgets and opened new production lines, and at The Hague in June 2025, NATO allies pledged to spend 5% of GDP on defense and security by 2035. Turkey, India, South Korea and Saudi Arabia had begun building their own industries well before that. Morocco started later and on a smaller scale. For decades the Royal Armed Forces bought almost all of their main equipment abroad. A licensing law adopted in 2020 opened manufacturing to private firms, and industrial zones and the first plants followed. Armored vehicles now come off a line in Berrechid, near Casablanca, and at Benslimane Lockheed Martin and its partners are building a heavy maintenance center for military aircraft. Morocco therefore has the first elements of a defense technological and industrial base (DTIB). Whether these first plants become an industry that lasts is the question this brief examines.