The Patriot Post® · Is the Munitions Shortage Real?
Handwringing about American munition shortages has the feel of deliberate misinformation to keep Iran guessing. Yet there’s also some truth to it. The trick is separating the wheat from the chaff.
Rumors accelerated this week when unnamed sources cited Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine as warning President Donald Trump about critically low stockpiles of key munitions. The Center for Strategic & International Studies also issued a new report on the subject on Monday, saying, for example, that the U.S. has used up two-thirds of its cache of Patriot missile interceptors against Iran.
Manhattan Institute fellow Park MacDougald rounds up some of the coverage from The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Axios, and CNN:
“Any major operation against Iran will face challenges because the U.S. munitions stockpile has been significantly depleted by Washington’s ongoing defense of Israel and support for Ukraine,” the Post reported Caine as telling the president. “Intensifying the war could dangerously drain the Pentagon’s already diminished stockpile of Patriot antimissile interceptors and other air defense munitions in the Middle East,” was the Times’ gloss on the same meeting. CNN and the Journal corroborated the claims about Caine, with CNN adding that Vice President J.D. Vance also warned Trump against resumption of the war. In an “analysis” article posted on Monday, CNN’s senior political reporter, Aaron Blake, argued that the question of “munitions stockpiles” had become “pivotal” to U.S. planning. Blake linked to an April analysis from CNN, which argued that there was now a “near-term risk” of the United States “running out of ammunition” in a conflict with a near-peer adversary such as China.
While it’s true that the U.S. military is depleting some particular types of weaponry, there’s more spin than fact in Leftmedia reporting. Shocking, I know.
MacDougald considers the estimated numbers of Patriot interceptors, THAAD missiles, JASSM, Tomahawks, PrSM, and other weapons, as well as the specific use of each one. The military doesn’t quit fighting just because it runs low on one kind of missile. U.S. forces — or any other military force, for that matter — use stockpiles for certain objectives, switching tactics as necessary. For example, he writes, “The purpose of air defenses is to protect U.S. and allied forces long enough to suppress and destroy the enemy’s launch capability.”
MacDougald reaches a simple conclusion: “None of these shortages precludes further operations against Iran.” In fact, he quotes The Wall Street Journal’s paraphrase of Central Command Chief Admiral Brad Cooper: He “believes the U.S. can cope with the limited stocks of Patriot and other air defense interceptors because stepped-up U.S. strikes, if they are approved by Trump, would blunt Iran’s ability to launch large numbers of missiles.”
In other words, if the U.S. continues pounding Iran hard as General B.B. Bell (USA Ret.) recently argued on our pages, the munitions shortage won’t actually matter in Iran. Especially not with new weaponry like the Hammer of the Gods currently being tested.
Still, President Trump, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and Congress must take action to fund and produce more munitions to replenish stockpiles. Why? Because other threats loom — namely, China. The Chinese Communists have been saber-rattling about Taiwan for some time now, and deterrence is critical for U.S. national security. That said, if the stuff hits the fan with China, it will require World War II-level ramping up of U.S. industrial capabilities. We might be decently positioned to deter, but we’re a long way from being capable of waging real war with China.
Fortunately, those are two different things.
Also fortunately, several American companies are gearing up to help. The Washington Post reports that Hegseth recently met with “more than a dozen of the nation’s top defense technology firms.” Relying on the usual anonymous sources, the Post says Hegseth asked for help “to rapidly replenish America’s weapons arsenal.” The Post notes, “In many ways, this is the moment Silicon Valley’s defense entrepreneurs have said they were made for — to be cheaper, quicker and more nimble to the needs of the U.S. fighting force than legacy multibillion-dollar defense contractors.” Moreover:
Acting Pentagon press secretary Joel Valdez said in a statement to The Washington Post that the Defense Department is “transforming how the Department fights, buys, and builds” its weapons “to ensure we rapidly deliver critical technology to the warfighter at scale.”
You may recall that, during World War II, all sorts of companies switched their manufacturing to build weaponry for the U.S. That list included Singer Sewing Machine Company and the Big Three U.S. automakers, GM, Ford, and Chrysler. It was all hands on deck, and it could be again if America’s need were as dire. That doesn’t mean there won’t be serious challenges to ramping up and changing production, but last I checked, this is still the United States of America, the greatest country on earth.