Video: Opinion | Is the U.S. Prepared for a Major War?

America’s munitions stockpiles are insufficient for major war readiness. Tomahawk missiles can be used in large quantities, but they take a long time to build and require long replacement timelines after firing. Public reporting indicates that operations in Iran used roughly eight years’ worth of Tomahawk production, showing how quickly inventories can be depleted. The shortfall stems from assumptions about warfare over recent decades, including expectations of short conflicts and initial battlefield dominance with advanced capabilities. High-end systems such as F-35s, aircraft carriers, and submarines remain important, but the focus on exquisite platforms has not been matched with deep inventories of munitions for extended fighting.

"If you look at it narrowly in the question of munitions stockpiles, which is a pretty important indicator of military preparedness, I would say no. And I think this has been known to us for a very long time. And I think the deeper question is why is that, and how do we fix it? So I think in the opening days and weeks of Operation Epic Fury in Iran, what I've read publicly is we fired something like eight years' worth of Tomahawk missile production."

"Now, that's an exquisite weapon. It does remarkable things. The problem is that it takes a very long time to build. And once you shoot it, it takes a long time to replace. And we don't have an infinite supply of them. So I think if you look at the question of, why are we not ready for this, it goes back to the assumptions that we've made about warfare."

"Our assumptions are that we would not have to fight protracted conflicts. We have assumed that we would get into a war. We would enter the battlefield with dominance, with all of this exquisite military capability, and the war would be over very quickly. So the fact that we don't have deep inventories of munitions, for example, is not something that we'd have to worry about."

"over the past 30 or 40 years, we have had a predominantly high-end military, a very exquisite military, and its systems that we all are very familiar with. It's all of these weapons that we talk about. It's F-35s, it's aircraft carriers, submarines. And we need that. I'm not here suggesting that we can just do away with all of that."

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