数千枚导弹消失：伊朗战争证明美军有一个我们不能再忽视的弱点

Is the United States about to run out of munitions? The answer is a bit more complicated than it sounds. A recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) offers an answer that is both a “no” and a “yes.” That’s because the concern is less whether or not the US will run out of critical munitions in its current conflict with Iran and more about how long it will take to replenish those key weapons as war with China becomes more likely with each day.

The Weakness Is Clear – A War of Depletion: Iran is Burning Through US Stockpiles

Interestingly, this CSIS report comes on the heels of similar reports from other think tanks and defense reporters, including the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), which determined that there were approximately 14 key systems that the United States military was depleting, due to a combination of the high-tempo of the Iran War as well as the strain that was already placed on those systems over the years in the Ukraine and previous rounds of Mideast warfare.

What’s more, the US defense industrial base (DIB) cannot reliably replenish these expensive, complex systems in a timely way, thereby compounding shortages–and leading many in the defense policy community to fret about what might happen if those systems are depleted fighting Iran and the DIB cannot replenish them before China opens another front.

The Defense Industrial Base Can’t Keep Up

But, it isn’t only China. Since the United States moved the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system out of South Korea last month to augment the defensive capabilities of the Middle East, North Korea began firing cruise missiles with regularity, sending Seoul’s leadership into spasms.

So, it might be China that attacks next while America’s critical stockpiles are drained. But it could also be North Korea that initiates the next geopolitical crisis to further break America’s already depleted key stockpile.

Tomahawk Box on USS Iowa. 19FortyFive.com 图片。