Memorandum
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- Caroline Mercer via TIME.com
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- Politics·5 min to read
- Re
US Defense Spending Hits Ammunition Wall Despite Record Budgets
ReUS Defense Spending Hits Ammunition Wall Despite Record Budgets
The United States spends more on defense than the next seven countries combined, yet recent combat operations have exposed critical shortages of precision weapons and interceptors, raising questions about how the world's most expensive military can run low on ammunition.
The United States spends more on its military than the next seven countries combined, including China and Russia. Yet after just five months of fighting with Iran, the U.S. had used up virtually all of its long-range precision weapons, according to Reuters. More than two-thirds of its Patriot interceptor supplies were also expended, leaving Ukrainian cities dangerously vulnerable to Russian strikes as global Patriot stocks dwindled.
The Pentagon's own inspector general admitted in September that the war had revealed «strategic inventory shortfalls.» President Donald Trump has insisted the U.S. possesses «virtually unlimited amounts of Mid to High Grade Ammunition,» but warnings from senior military commanders about depleted stockpiles were reportedly a major reason he has refrained from returning to full-scale combat against Iran.
The problem is not new. On May 9, 1915, more than 11,000 British troops were killed or wounded in a single day during an assault on entrenched German positions at Aubers, France. The disaster stemmed from a shortage of artillery shells, particularly the high-explosive rounds needed for trench warfare. The resulting Shell Crisis of 1915 forced a major reorganization of Britain's defense production system, yet it still was not enough to save Prime Minister H.H. Asquith's government a year later.
«In almost every war there comes a point when it's clear that the peacetime defense industry, even if it had been ramping up, is inadequate for the demands of war,» said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The origins of America's current munitions predicament are often traced to a secret dinner at the Pentagon in 1993. Deputy Secretary of Defense William Perry invited defense industry executives to what became known as the «Last Supper,» warning that Cold War-era budgets were unsustainable and that many contractors would go out of business. He was right. Between 1988 and 1997, defense budgets fell by roughly 30%, and about a dozen major contractors consolidated into four.
Funding for new weapons was cut as the military drew down Cold War stocks. In the decade after the 9/11 attacks, defense spending more than doubled, yet even amid growing tensions with China and Russia, it remains less than half of 1980s budgets in real terms. Operations, maintenance, and personnel costs—including pay and retirement benefits—consume a significant share of the defense budget. What remains has often gone to high-profile platforms like aircraft, ships, and planes rather than munitions.
«For many years, in internal defense budget deliberations, to find savings to meet the overall target, munitions were often the 'bill payer,'» said William LaPlante, who served as Under Secretary of Defense for acquisition and sustainment in the Biden administration.
Those decisions were easier when the wars being fought against insurgent groups in Iraq and Afghanistan did not require the same volume of missiles, shells, and air defense interceptors needed for a war against a nation-state military. That changed with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which sparked artillery usage not seen in Europe since the Battle of Aubers and missile barrages on Ukrainian cities requiring massive numbers of interceptors.
After years of decline in America's defense industrial base, increasing production of artillery shells and advanced missiles has been frustratingly slow. Defense companies have been reluctant to build out capacity for wars that might end in a year or two. Some may even benefit from a high-demand, low-supply, high-margin business model.
The impact for Americans is that the cost to taxpayers remains enormous while the military finds itself short of the very munitions it needs. A CSIS report warns that in a war over Taiwan, the U.S. would likely run out of some types of long-range missiles after just one week of combat. If a few months of fighting against Iran can drain U.S. stockpiles, the prospect of a conflict with China raises even starker questions about how the world's most expensive military could find itself without enough ammunition to fight.
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