Military analysts have long warned that a conflict with China could consume U.S. stocks of key munitions within days or weeks. That timeline has shrunk even further now that the U.S. Department of War (Defence?) has burned through a shocking number of its most sophisticated missiles in the war with Iran.
Although exact numbers are classified, multiple estimates suggest the war has decimated the supply of America’s highest-end munitions. Three are of particular concern: Bloomberg Economics estimates the US has fired off a third of its global supply of Tomahawks — long-range strike missiles used heavily in the early days of the conflict, before Iranian air defences had been degraded. Even more alarmingly, the US may have used up more than half of its Patriot missiles and about 40% of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defence interceptors, which are designed to knock out high-flying ballistic missiles. Smaller stockpiles of some newer strike missiles are reportedly near depletion.
Bloomberg: America’s Munitions Shortfall Is a Crisis In the Making (Archived)
Also: The war against Iran has shown that the Pentagon’s reliance on hard-to-produce hi-tech weapons creates a vulnerability in a world in which quantity may overwhelm quality. (Council on Foreign Relations)