Recently, the United States Congress released a review report on United States military construction. Based on the premise of imagining a "Sino-US war," the report concludes that the US military cannot sustain a protracted war, and once it falls into a protracted war, the United States' weapons and ammunition stocks can only support United States for three to four weeks, that is, a maximum of 30 days. Even some important weapons of the US military in service, such as cruise missiles, may only have a few days in stock.
The report was released by an eight-member committee, including former members of the United States Congress and retired military executives. In addition, the review cited a large number of previous assessments of U.S. military weapons stockpiles by United States international security analysts.
Based on this report, the RAND think tank and United States' Business Insiders magazine commented that once the United States is caught in a war of attrition with China, the United States will not have enough weapons to confront a power like China. In addition, the current United States is not ready for a protracted conflict with China and Russia, let alone dealing with both Chinese and Russian powers at the same time.
United States Congress
In addition, the United States report argues that the military stockpiles of United States' allies are also very concerning. Taking United Kingdom as an example, the Royal Joint Institute of United Kingdom issued a report on the war in Ukraine, which believes that when Russia and Ukraine are engaged in a high-intensity battle around Donbass, the total amount of ammunition used by the Russian army in 2 days has exceeded the inventory of the entire British army. In addition, countries such as Germany and Italy have similar situations, which shows that United States and its allies are not prepared for large-scale and high-intensity wars.
As early as March this year, the United States think tank CSIS published an article warning that if a conflict breaks out between China and the United States in the Taiwan Strait, more than 5,000 long-range guided missiles in United States arsenal will not last more than three days.United States CSIS stressed that the Russian-Ukrainian war is still ongoing, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is resuming, and the geopolitical situation around the world is deteriorating, while the US military does not have any sense of urgency for war and is still in a state of "peace of mind", which will lead to United States being at a disadvantage in the military confrontation with China.
The content of the review report of the United States Congressional task force on the US military is actually very different from the CSIS review report in the first half of the year, both regard China as an "imaginary enemy of war" and both believe that the United States's military inventory is seriously insufficient.
The two reports in a row do illustrate a problem, and the US military's weapons and ammunition stocks may be somewhat stretched. Since the Gulf War, a beautiful modern war has been fought, and the US military's operational thinking and weapons and equipment have begun to become "more expensive." As a result, investment in some "cost-effective" weapons and equipment has declined, and the most direct is conventional weapons and ammunition.
This strategy of winning a high-tech war has indeed helped the US military to dominate the world and gain a leading position in military science and technology for a time. But this has also brought a series of negative effects, and United States military spending has become excessive. The most obvious is the next generation of naval destroyers in the United States, the Zumwalt-class destroyers. Originally, United States planned to build 32 to replace the Ticonderoga-class cruisers currently in service. However, due to the immaturity of the technology of this type of ship, and the cost of each ship is as high as 4.4 billion US dollars, which has caught up with the price of aircraft carriers built by other countries, coupled with the emergence of maritime competitors, the project was finally discontinued, and the US military only built three ships.
In addition, corruption incidents within the United States military are also frequent, $6 million to transport a few sheep to Afghanistan, a bag of bushings $90,000 and so on. Since 2018, United States financial audits have never passed. In other words, a considerable part of the US military's annual military expenditure of more than $800 billion has already been divided, so it is not surprising that there is an "emergency" in the stocks of weapons and ammunition.
American
However, it should be emphasized that both assessment reports refer to China as an "imaginary enemy of war". The implication of the message is that if the United States Congress does not continue to increase military spending, the United States will not be able to win the confrontation with China. This statement may seem like a precautionary measure, but from another perspective, it is also in the interests of United States arms giants.
We know that United States has always liked to use the "Chinese military threat theory" as the underlying logic of the narrative to demand an increase in military spending. But over the years, United States' military spending has risen to more than $800 billion, more than the combined military spending of the second to tenth largest countries, but this still fails to solve the substantive problem, and this just explains the problem.
The United States Congress and think tanks launch similar reports every year, in fact, paving the way for continued military spending. Because arms interests have formed a perfect closed loop among the United States elite. Arms conglomerates fund think tanks, which publish reports on the various threats that United States face, and then US lawmakers use these reports to push the United States Congress to pass the defense budget, and finally United States arms giants to get revenue through defense spending.
The fact that the US military's combat capability is still worrisome despite its high military spending is essentially a problem of institutional rigidity. In the arms industry, members of the United States Congress have formed an offensive and defensive alliance with the arms giants, and the United States political elite knows this, but they have to continue to maintain it. In a sense, United States has followed in the footsteps of the Soviet Union, and how long it can last depends on when United States' national debt, which has reached $35 trillion and is still growing rapidly, will burst.