\u201cPre-Ukraine, we had munitions requirements that were in almost every important case \u2014 particularly for the Indo-Pacific \u2014 not even close to being met,\u201d a Republican congressional staffer told Defense News, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic. \u201cFor the most important [Indo-Pacific] munitions, we haven\u2019t hit the total munitions requirement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The shortages are in part symptoms of a chronic issue, said a senior defense official, granted anonymity to discuss the closely held process. The Pentagon has long used munitions as a \u201cbill payer,\u201d neglecting their purchase in favor of platforms like ships or planes in the annual budgets, the official added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over time, the low orders led to some companies exiting the market, which in turn reduces the number of businesses that will build those munitions and the speed at which they come off the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are very few places where we have what you might call surplus stockpiles,\u201d said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. \u201cIt\u2019s a question of how much risk do you want to accept in our own war plans. That has been the driver in a lot of the decisions about what to give to the Ukrainians and the Taiwanese.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, the U.S. could use Javelin anti-tank missiles<\/a> or Tomahawk cruise missiles against at least four major competitors: China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. But the military doesn\u2019t necessarily expect to fight all four adversaries at once and may calculate requirements based on fighting two enemies at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo you can choose a couple of scenarios and say, \u2018Here\u2019s two scenarios that are very stressing,\u2019 and they\u2019re going to form the basis for a number,\u201d Clark said. \u201cFor example, the number for the Javelins is probably driven by Russia and North Korea. It depends on the weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But sometimes these projections fall short. In 2016, for instance, the Air Force said it lacked enough munitions \u2014 including Hellfire missiles, Joint Direct Attack Munition kits and Small Diameter Bombs \u2014 during its campaign against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The shortages prompted the Air Force to decline some allies\u2019 requests to buy the in-demand munitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.S. often serves as a \u201cbackstop\u201d for European allies, Clark noted, pointing to NATO\u2019s heavy reliance on American munitions in its 2011 Libya campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s not so much, are we going to have enough weapons to sustain our own capacity for a ground war, because we probably do,\u201d Clark said. \u201cIt\u2019s, do we have enough to sustain our own capacity to fight and also support our European allies who may need augmentation because clearly they don\u2019t maintain the magazines to sustain themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Others interviewed about the munitions requirements process also noted it lags behind real-world events and is closely tied to the Pentagon\u2019s war plans, which usually project short conflicts instead of the reality of longer, protracted wars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the U.S. could still quickly run through certain munitions even in a short conflict with a major adversary like China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A wargame conducted by the Center for a New American Security think tank and the House Committee on the Chinese Communist Party last year found the U.S. would run out of long-range, precision-guided munitions in less than a week in a fight with China over Taiwan. Outgoing committee Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., subsequently told Defense News<\/a> that America\u2019s inventory of long-range anti-ship missiles stood at 250 last spring, noting a conflict with China would require at least 1,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, the U.S. has also used weapons that could be relevant to an Indo-Pacific battle, like the Standard Missile-6 and Tomahawks, to respond to Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes <\/a>off Yemen\u2019s coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIs it a sustainable, long-term strategy to use million-dollar munitions to shoot down drones and loitering munitions that are $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 a piece?\u201d Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., asked Gen. Michael Kurilla, the U.S. Central Command leader overseeing forces in the Middle East, during a House hearing in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kurilla stressed the need for the services to create more \u201ccost-effective\u201d counter-drone systems based on directed-energy and laser<\/a> technology to use against Houthi attacks, instead of launching costly missiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Standard Missile-6 and Tomahawk weapons cost several million dollars per unit. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro told Congress in April the service is \u201capproaching $1 billion in munitions\u201d it needs to replenish as a result of its Red Sea operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, Israel and Ukraine both need U.S.-supplied air defense systems, including the Patriot<\/a>, a system Taiwan also uses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cancian said there\u2019s \u201cmoderate\u201d overlap in the munitions each of the three security partners needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is some overlap and some risk that one or the other partners is going to have to live with, but there\u2019s also many elements that are not overlapping,\u201d he noted. \u201cConflict in the Western Pacific is going to be mostly air and naval, whereas what we see in Ukraine is mostly ground.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of the weapons the U.S. has transferred directly to Israel are tens of thousands of air-to-ground munitions to drop on Gaza<\/a> \u2014 bombs Ukraine can\u2019t use as effectively given Russian air superiority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ukraine has struggled to bolster its air defenses, partly because an additional $48 billion in security aid was stalled in Congress for more than six months after President Joe Biden submitted his foreign aid request last year. Congress ultimately passed the supplemental spending package in April<\/a>, which includes $14 billion for Israel and another $4 billion for Taiwan and Indo-Pacific allies, among other non-security initiatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel receives most of its U.S.-provided weapons through congressionally subsidized arms sales<\/a>, which allowed the Biden administration to continue arming the nation without the supplemental spending package.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right now, Taiwan also receives most of its U.S. weapons through arms sales. But constraints on the American industrial base \u2014 such as workforce shortages and supply chains hiccups \u2014 have contributed to delivery delays for some munitions orders from the island<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Pentagon hopes the foreign aid legislation will allow it to continue large-scale arms transfers to friendly countries. And as the department replenishes systems to those three partners, it hopes the additional munitions demand will pump resources into lagging munitions production lines. A significant chunk of that will go toward increasing domestic munitions capacity in the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe further we go along in this and get additional capacity, [the more] the defense-industrial base picks up its pace, then you can actually \u2026 take a little bit more risk because you\u2019ve got a capability coming behind,\u201d Brown, the Joint Chiefs chairman, said in March. \u201cThe conversation I\u2019ve had with many of our NATO countries is they\u2019re also looking at how to increase their defense-industrial base and capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But even with the foreign aid legislation, expanding industrial base capacity is no simple task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is such a gap between where the collective West is and where it needs to be in terms of munitions stockpiles,\u201d national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters in April. \u201cThere is a need for replenishment on all of these systems that extends out years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf anything, I believe that our defense industry is still underestimating, rather than overestimating, the need regardless of the precise duration or course of the war in Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Congress in October that some contractors have required employees to work additional shifts to keep up munitions production rates<\/a>, highlighting labor shortages in the industrial base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat they\u2019ve done in a lot of cases to meet urgent needs is double and triple shifts so that they can, in some cases, crank out munitions and weapons at a much greater speed,\u201d Austin told Congress at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere are some limitations in terms of how quickly they can do certain things,\u201d he added. \u201cThere will continue to be workforce challenges. And when you expand capacity, there\u2019s this issue of the time it takes to build the capacity and make sure the lines are running smoothly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A former senior Pentagon official who now works in the defense industry, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the individual was not authorized to talk to the press, told Defense News the Pentagon is generally willing to take more risks on munitions inventory levels than in other areas, expecting that Congress will quickly fund replenishment efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe mentality in the Pentagon is if I do get in a fight, Congress is going to be real responsive to give me as much money as I need,\u201d the former senior defense official said. \u201cRight now, we\u2019re having a problem replenishing artillery for a war in Europe that we\u2019re not even in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe thing that scares the living crap out of me is right now a large number of that capacity is depending on these supplementals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only the most senior leaders in the Defense Department can adjust munitions inventory requirements, and they rarely do, according to the Republican congressional staffer. The staffer noted that lawmakers may try to address what they consider an excessive focus on short-term conflicts as they draft the annual defense policy bill in the weeks ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Pentagon in 2022 asked Congress for a critical munitions acquisition fund<\/a>, which would allow it to buy important weapons before they are transferred and maintain a continuous order of munitions, rather than backfilling them. However, congressional appropriators were cool on the idea, viewing it as a slush fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, Congress authorized multiyear contracts for critical munitions<\/a> to ensure a steady demand signal to industry \u2014 a mechanism usually reserved for big-ticket purchases like ships and aircraft. Defense appropriators funded six of the seven multiyear munitions contracts<\/a> the Pentagon sought for fiscal 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The current senior defense official said the Pentagon intends to submit a revamped proposal for a critical munitions acquisition fund in the coming weeks, calling this version a munitions readiness account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs we\u2019ve noticed with Ukraine when we go to stockpile these back into our own stocks, it is two to three years that it\u2019s going to take for us to even replenish what we have provided, even if it\u2019s an upgraded system,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The military is having difficulty maintaining adequate munitions inventory levels as wars erupt in the Middle East, Europe and possibly the Pacific.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":81103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-post-featured-layout","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":19,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[45,8,160,46,11,12,47,36,19,38],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3411,3458],"class_list":["post-67798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-congress","category-daily-news-roundup","category-europe","category-global","category-industry","category-mideast-africa","category-newsletters","category-pentagon","category-special-reports"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"HV2WKEXQYFAE5N344KBGOVUJ3I","arc_canonical_url":"\/pentagon\/2024\/04\/30\/soaring-us-munitions-demand-strains-support-for-israel-ukraine-taiwan\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"featured-layout","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-1243002778.jpg.jpg\")
\u2018Do we have enough?\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-929241512.jpg_2594d4.jpg\")
Expanding capacity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-3378191.jpg.jpg\")