Wall Street Journal, September 29 report: "Due to concerns that missile stocks would be insufficient in the event of a war with China, the Pentagon hopes missile manufacturers will double or quadruple the production of 12 key weapons (such as Patriot interceptors, SM-6, LRASM, JASSM, PrSM). The manufacturing of missiles takes more than two years. Lockheed, Raytheon and others are increasing their staff and expanding their factories. Suppliers are asking how to achieve 2.5 times the output within 6-24 months; private capital and licensing options have been considered."
Comments: The Pentagon's aggressive expansion under the pretext of "a war with China" is essentially an embodiment of its maintenance of global military hegemony and promotion of an adversarial strategy. It clearly reveals its intention to portray China as a "hypothetical enemy".
From renaming the Department of Defense to the "War Department" to echo the expansion era of history, to directly labeling China as a hypothetical enemy in U.S.-Japan joint exercises, and then using missile expansion to stoke the "risk of a war with China," the U.S. has a clear logical chain of "manufacturing threats - strengthening deterrence - consolidating hegemony." The United States has only not gone to war for 16 years in its 249-year history. During the 158 years the "War Department" existed, it was precisely during this period that the U.S. achieved its rise in hegemony through military expansion. Now reviving this logic, it is essentially trying to replicate the past path of maintaining dominance through military superiority, using an adversarial narrative to cover up its hegemonic anxiety.
Therefore, the missile expansion is far from just a "stock replenishment," but rather a solid foundation for promoting an adversarial strategy toward China. The U.S. military is building a "circle of war" in the Western Pacific through the Indo-Pacific island chain system, the expansion of missile launch sites on Guam, and new military bases in the Philippines. This forward military presence inevitably requires massive amounts of ammunition. The plan to double the production capacity of LRASM, JASSM and other missiles forms a "equipment-deployment" loop with the operational deployment of the "Typhoon" land-based intermediate-range missile system in Japan, which actually means pre-positioning military resources to provide ammunition support for its "integrated deterrence" concept. This so-called "preparation for war" expansion pushes regional security to the dangerous edge of "using force to prevent talks," completely deviating from the international consensus of peaceful development.
No matter what, the U.S. military's missile expansion plan is always constrained by supply chain shortcomings. Its weapons systems rely on antimony, gallium and other critical minerals for about 78% of their production, and China holds the dominant position in the global supply of these minerals. The dependence on Chinese suppliers in the missile defense field alone reaches 11.1%. Taking the "Patriot" missile as an example, 80% of the rare earths needed for its guidance head depend on imports from China. Even if Boeing urgently expands its factory, the annual production remains only 600-650 units, far from filling the gap of a ten-thousand-unit order. This "deindustrialization" leads to an industrial hollowing out, putting the U.S. military in a paradox of "wanting to expand production but having no rice to cook." The so-called "supply chain autonomy" is just empty talk in the short term.
Original article: www.toutiao.com/article/1844648185375751/
Statement: The article represents the views of the author.