The war with Iran is stalemated, in part due to a shortage of munitions available to the U.S. military. If this situation is not a full-blown crisis, it is certainly a scandal, and many observers have drawn the conclusion that these shortages would make deterring a potential Chinese effort to take control of Taiwan more difficult.
The deeper reality is even worse: The munitions shortfalls reveal that the United States was not prepared to deter China—let alone fight a war with it—even before the Iran war. If American stockpiles of defensive munitions, like Terminal High Altitude Area Defenses (THAAD) and Patriot interceptors, and offensive weapons, like Tomahawk cruise missiles and the Army’s ballistic missiles, are running low after only five months of intermittent warfare of varying intensity with a middle power like Iran, what would happen in a broader and more intense campaign against the People’s Liberation Army?
If nothing else, the war against Iran reminds us that presumptively short wars have a tendency to run inconveniently long. Either our old war plans with China involved some magical thinking, or we simply were never serious about matching our resources to our strategic needs.
The United States is not the first nation, or even the first great power, to confront a munitions crisis. The history of modern warfare is replete with them. In recent years, Ukraine, Israel, and Russia have all faced critical shortfalls and addressed them through foreign suppliers (primarily the U.S. for Ukraine and Israel, and North Korea playing a key role for Russia) while ramping up domestic production. Israel was helped by the United States in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War in yet another such crisis.
