During the 39-day war with Iran, the U.S. used so many key offensive and defensive weapons that it will take three or more years to rebuild some of these stocks to pre-war levels, according to a new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The report, compiled by Mark F. Cancian and Chris H. Park, highlights concerns we raised long before and during Operation Epic Fury about the rapid expenditure of critical munitions and how that could affect a potential future fight against China. U.S. military leaders have suggested that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could be in a position where it would feel confident in launching an invasion of Taiwan by 2027.
The warning light on America’s magazine depth was blinking red long before Epic Fury. The stockpiles, especially of Standard Missile-3s (SM-3) and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors, were degraded by more than a year of combat in the Red Sea region with the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and several efforts to defend Israel. U.S. support for Ukraine, meanwhile, drained off supplies of Patriot air defense interceptors. We will address these issues in more detail later in this story. The weapon expenditure figures in the CSIS report only address Epic Fury, not previous U.S. engagements in the Middle East.
The most drastic setback to U.S. inventories involved the use of Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise Missiles (TLAMs) and THAAD and Patriot interceptors, according to CSIS. The think tank derived its expenditure figures from an internal analysis, which TWZ cannot independently verify.
Hellbound and Down 