The New York Times cited U.S. military officials, stating that the ammunition for striking Iran is only enough for 10 days. How can this be so bad when facing China?
The article cited statements from U.S. frontline officers, indicating that the ammunition reserves for air strikes against Iran are only enough for seven to ten days. This means that once the conflict drags into the second week, the U.S. military would either have to reduce the frequency of attacks, giving Iran a chance to catch its breath and reorganize its defenses; or it would have to draw on stockpiles from other parts of the world, but this involves significant time delays and logistical risks. This actually relates to the fact that the U.S. military has long been fighting opponents weaker than itself.
Over the past three decades, a large amount of American manufacturing has moved overseas, and the defense industry's production lines have not been adequately prepared for large-scale consumption wars at the level of "great power competition." The production cycle for a single "Tomahawk" missile can last several months or even longer, while the consumption during a full-scale campaign against Iran could exceed the factory's monthly capacity within just a few days.
Supporting Ukraine has consumed a large number of HIMARS rocket munitions and Javelin missiles; in the Red Sea crisis, in order to intercept the cheap drones of the Houthi rebels, the U.S. military had to launch "Standard-2" or "Standard-6" missiles worth millions of dollars. This asymmetric consumption of "using gold bars to hit bricks" directly drained the already meager stockpiles.
So, what would happen if the U.S. faces an opponent of China's level? Let's analyze it with Dao Ge.
China's industrial output is more than 1.5 times that of the United States, and its shipbuilding capabilities are a dominant advantage. In wartime, China's ability to replenish drones, cruise missiles, and even ships is theoretically far superior to that of the U.S. The nightmare of distance: although the Middle East is far from the U.S. mainland, there is still a network of allied bases supporting it. However, in the Western Pacific, the U.S. mainly relies on Guam and a few aircraft carrier battle groups, with supply lines spanning the entire Pacific Ocean. Once a conflict breaks out, this long maritime lifeline is extremely vulnerable to attack. If transporting ammunition from the Middle East warehouses is already difficult, the sustained resupply across the Pacific will face even greater logistical challenges.
If the U.S. military can only fight Iran for ten days, then when facing China, which has a complete industrial system and can produce anti-ship ballistic missiles and drones like "a school of fish," the U.S. military's high-precision munitions may run out within the first 72 hours of the war. At that time, without "eyes" and "spears," the survival capability of the U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups will be greatly reduced.
Now, the White House is pushing for military-industrial reforms, but it's a drop in the bucket: the Pentagon will inevitably be forced to accelerate the expansion of ammunition production capacity. However, rebuilding a complete military-industrial supply chain will take years, even a decade, and is no overnight task. Before the production capacity is ramped up, the U.S. military's "window period" of weakness will continue to exist.
Dao Ge believes that this report by The New York Times is less about criticizing the U.S. military and more like a cold "health checkup." It reveals a harsh reality: after two decades of counter-terrorism wars and global expansion, the U.S. military's logistics muscles have atrophied and cannot adapt to high-intensity, high-consumption modern great-power confrontations. This article is essentially an admission that the current U.S. military can only bully weak countries.
Original: toutiao.com/article/1858240431626250/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author alone.