American defense contractors will take upwards of three years to replace the primary munitions the U.S. military used during its 39-day bombing campaign against Iran, according to a new estimate from a D.C.-based think tank, emphasizing the concern from experts that the Iran war could impact a possible future conflict with China.Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has said it could take “months and years … depending on the weapon system,” to refill U.S. stockpiles, though the department is trying to scale up the defense industrial base’s capacity to manufacture these munitions to exceed where they were at the start of the war.“The United States has enough munitions for any plausible scenario in the Iran war, but the depleted inventories have created a window of vulnerability for a potential Western Pacific conflict,” the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ (CSIS) new report, released on Wednesday, said.
The administration has prioritized the effort to expand the defense industrial base’s production capacity, which is a contributing factor to the historic $1.5 trillion defense budget request. The Pentagon has recognized the department’s own culpability in creating the shortfall. Officials have often pointed to how the department would give out short-term contracts, which created difficult decisions due to the uncertainty that it may not carry over into future years.
