U.S. Allies ‘Borrowing’ Munitions To Drop On ISIS As U.S. Stockpiles Are Also In Question

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Because of the glacial pace of the White House’s anti-ISIS strategy, even though the Pentagon thinks it has killed 20,000 ISIS fighters, the group’s total size remains largely the same as it was many months ago. In other words, they are requiting fast enough to largely replace lost fighters, and/or the Pentagon’s estimates are way over-blown. Either way, it’s not good news.

Last December the Pentagon’s dwindling weapons stocks was already becoming a big issue, with Air Force Secretary Deborah James stating:

“We’re in the business of killing terrorists and business is good. We need to replenish our munitions stock. Weapons take years to produce from the day the contract is assigned until they roll off the production line.”

This replenishment, at least a partial one, is happening through a $1.8 billion weapons buy that will order 45,000 new bombs and missiles as part of a larger $7.5 billion budget to fight ISIS. Yet, is this enough? You can have the best fighter aircraft in the world, but if you do not have precision-guided munitions to use with them, their effectiveness drops drastically. In many cases, they become largely useless.

What if a larger conflict erupted versus a near peer-state opponent? One where the target list has tens of thousands of coordinates on it? If bombing ISIS wipes out our allies weapons stocks and puts big pressure on the Pentagon’s, then there is a huge hole in the west’s ability to fight a major protracted conflict against a serious foe. The idea that an $100 million-plus F-35 could fly deep into enemy territory just to sling a dumb bomb at a target would be laughable if it weren’t so concerning.

Making the problem much more serious is that it takes long periods of time to build a single smart weapon, with long-lead items needed to be ordered well in advance of assembly in order to keep production humming along. In other words, the production of smart weapons is fairly inelastic. The more complex the weapon, like cruise missiles, the longer the production lead time required.

With all this in mind, it seems like it is high time that America’s smart weapons stockpiling and production strategy need to be deeply reevaluated. It seems as if this essential military capability is grossly underfunded, especially when all our aircraft and tactics are dependent on smart weapons capabilities. It also seems like the platforms versus munitions is out of scale, with more focus on developing and building an inventory of very high-end delivery systems instead of the the munitions themselves.

Drastically increasing the par numbers for basic guided air-to-ground conventional weapons, such as Hellfire anti-tank missiles, 500, 1,000 and 2,000lb GPS guided Joint Direct Attack Munitions and Paveway laser-guided bomb kits, seems like an essential requirement. These weapons offer basic precision air-to-ground capability, have long shelf lives and are carried by a many platforms. Just these three types of air to ground weapons cover a huge group of potential target sets. Other more specialized munitions could be bought in a more sporadic manner.

As for our allies—well, at least when it comes to NATO—an initiative to keep a much larger stockpile of air-to-ground munitions on hand is absolutely needed. Pooling inventory among NATO nations may make some sense as well, but a much greater investment needs to be made regardless of the distribution concept. The U.S. should demand that the issue be addressed as it is just one more major indicator of how some of America’s allies really need to be investing more heavily in their own defense.