2 Is the US ready for conflict with China How the Iran war is depleting US weapons systems

Is the U.S. at risk of running out of critical weapons? A new analysis shows the U.S. war in Iran has depleted weapons that could leave it vulnerable in a possible future conflict with China. For Insight, we are speaking with Colonel Mark Kansian. He is a senior advisor with the CSIS Defense and Security Department. Thanks for joining us. What weapons specifically have been depleted and how long is it going to take to replenish those stockpiles? We looked at seven munitions missiles that were used heavily against Iran and would also be used heavily in a conflict in the Western Pacific against China. Two examples that many people have heard of are Tomahawk and Patriot. For four of those, we've used about half the inventory, sometimes a little more, and for the others, about a third of the inventory. Replacement times will take from one to five years, so an average of about three years, and that creates a window of vulnerability in the Western Pacific until the U.S. can get its inventories back to where they were before the war in Iran and then to a higher level because most analysts and war planners believe that those levels were inadequate for a conflict against China. I think many experts would think that some kind of a conflict involving China could center around Taiwan and a possible invasion by China of the island. Considering that and what you just said about the state of the weapon stockpiles, what would the risks be if some sort of a conflict begins in that region? Yeah, we have this window when U.S. stocks are low, and that will be building them over time. It's not that the United States has no munitions because there are alternatives. The alternatives tend to be shorter range or less effective. Shorter range means that the U.S. forces have to get in closer. That creates vulnerability. It means the losses will be higher. To give you an example, there's a long-range munition called JASM that has a range of about 600 miles. When those run out, the United States has alternatives like what's called Naval Strike Missile that has a range of 120 miles. An aircraft has to get in much closer, and therefore losses will be greater. The Trump administration put forward a budget request of $1.5 trillion, a pretty big increase in defense spending. Is that an effort to address this shortage? Absolutely, it is. The problem is that it takes time to turn budget proposals into missiles in the field. Now, the United States has been building its industrial base, rebuilding it, since about 2022. It began during the Biden administration when it became clear that an extended conflict, for example, what we were seeing then in Ukraine, required a lot more munitions than we had planned on. The Biden administration started increasing the buys of munitions, increasing capacity. That accelerated under the Trump administration. The reconciliation bill, the one big beautiful bill, had a lot of money in it for missiles and munitions, and then the 2027 budget has even more. The problem is that it takes about five years to turn a proposal, like a budget proposal, into a missile on the ground when you consider all the steps, getting an appropriation, getting a contract, getting all the pieces together, and then doing the actual manufacture. When you assess the current state of the U.S. military's weapons stockpiles, how much of that is as a result of the U.S. military campaign in Iran versus helping Ukraine defend itself from the Russian invasion? Ukraine is a minor diversion of munitions that would be needed in the western Pacific. Now, Ukraine has received a lot of munitions that are relevant to a ground campaign. Lots of anti-tank missiles, lots of vehicles, tanks, armored vehicles, artillery ammunition, but those aren't needed in the western Pacific. The main munition that is useful in both is Patriot. We've given, I think, about 650 Patriots to Ukraine. Those would be needed in the western Pacific. But in general, it's not Ukraine. It's the war in Iran and also the fact that munitions did not get very high priority for many, many years after the Cold War. The thinking had been that we would be involved in short wars where we didn't need great depth of munitions. Munitions tend to compete very poorly in the Pentagon budget process. When services have the choice of buying a tank or an airplane or a ship that they can drive around, sail around for 30 years, or a missile that then goes into a bunker and stays there for the next 20 or 30 years, they almost always went for the platforms. And as a result, the munitions inventories have always been on the low side. Given the increasing role that drones are playing in modern conflicts, how does that change the calculation? Will these innovations on the battlefield impact how the U.S. will choose to develop and invest in military hardware moving forward? It does change what the U.S. invests in. It really expands the scope of munitions that we're expanding. And to give you one example, we have started building a munition, it's called Lucas, a low cost combat air system. It's a copy of the Iranian Shahed drone. And there's some irony here because the Russians have also copied the Iranian missile, Iranian drone. And that would complement the long range, more expensive, but more survivable munitions like Tomahawk. So in the future, you can expect to see a mix of high end, expensive, but more likely to penetrate and hit their targets. And large numbers of these inexpensive drones, which are extremely vulnerable, easy to shoot down, that have fired in very large numbers, some of them will get through. Your analysis is framed with a conflict against China in mind. Given all that we know, is the U.S. prepared to take on a near peer adversary here in the next decade? Well, I would say yes. But there are many places where the U.S. has gaps. Of course, that is one of the main reasons for this $1.5 trillion defense budget. The Navy is too small. Our depth of aircraft is too small also. And the munitions are limited even before the war against Iran. So there are many areas where the United States needs to build its capabilities in order to be able to more effectively deter the Chinese, and if necessary, fight a conflict in the West Pacific. But we did a lot of war gaming on this, a U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan. And on the whole, the U.S. and the coalition did well. They were able to sustain an autonomous and democratic Taiwan, although it came at great cost to the Taiwanese economy and to U.S. and coalition forces. All right, we will leave it at that. Colonel Mark Hansen, thank you so much for your insight. Thanks for having me on the program.