As of the writing of this post, we are 154 days into Operation Epic Fury, America’s war against Iran to prevent said country from gaining a nuclear weapon or to change that country’s regime or to open the Strait of Hormuz that was already open before the war.
This post isn’t a political one. No, I’m writing to discuss an issue that has been a pointed topic inside military analyst circles for several years that this war has finally pushed into the public eye: America’s most advanced long-range strike and interceptor weapons are too expensive, take too long to produce, and are too few in current inventories.
The use of these munitions has been so exhausting that Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of CENTCOM, and General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have called for a pause in strikes against Iranian targets due to 1) diminishing return in effectiveness and 2) continued depletion of otherwise hard to replace munition stockpiles. Obviously, the war is going well.
To be clear, stockpile depletion has less to do with Iran itself than it does with other potential theaters around the world. These same munitions would be central to any contingency operations towards China, North Korea, or Russia. Experts have correctly pointed out that the current situation has created a so-called “window of vulnerability” to the U.S. military over the next few years that may be exploited by adversaries.
Table 1: Status of Key Munitions
CSIS put together Table 1 to give a better idea of where the Pentagon’s stockpiles currently stand with the seven key munitions the military needs to wage a modern war. As you’ll see, in the 39 days of the air and missile campaign before the ceasefire, U.S. forces heavily used the seven munitions in Table 1. For four of them, the United States may have expended more than half of the prewar inventory. Rebuilding to prewar levels for the seven munitions will take from one to four years as missiles in the pipeline are delivered. Even before the Iran war, stockpiles were deemed insufficient for a peer competitor fight. That shortfall is now even more acute, and building stockpiles to levels adequate for a war with China will take additional time.
Notice how I said “before the ceasefire”. Table 1 is as of April 8th, the date of the initial ceasefire before negotiations really kicked off. Measuring munition stockpiles is very difficult during combat operations (which continue to be ongoing), so, in reality, Table 1 is overstating current munition inventories.
How did we get here
The Pentagon has been operating on a post-Cold War procurement model over the last 35 years. Weapons programs were slow, expensive, exquisite, and delivered in numbers just high enough to keep a single production line running. It wasn’t until recently that the United States faced an opponent that warranted the type of mass production of weapons I’ll be discussing later.
The economics side of defense procurement is an important discussion point. Raytheon can’t double production of Tomahawk cruise missiles overnight. To go further on this point, the Pentagon can’t simply pay for Raytheon to double production the following year. These manufacturing lines are working at full capacity in their current state, they’d be losing money otherwise if they weren’t. In order to 2x or 3x or 4x delivery rates, entirely new production facilities must be built. These aren’t Costco warehouses. They are state of the art assembly areas costing hundreds of millions of dollars staffed by highly skilled engineers that are typically in short supply. As you’ll see later in this post, if you want to multiply munition deliveries, these companies need multiyear contractual agreements before the effort is seen as economically viable. We’re talking, at minimum, 6 and 7-year agreements.
It’s also important to discuss the advancement of air defense systems and their proliferation around the globe. Air defense (AD) networks with modern radars and capable surface-to-air missile systems have evolved to the point of closing off access to entire areas of operation to everything except the most advanced platforms and munitions. There’s nothing impenetrable about Iranian AD, however, various Russian and Chinese supplied systems force American war planners to utilize the most capable air platforms and expensive long-range missiles in high volumes before they feel comfortable operating lower-end assets. This reality costs time and quite a bit of money to deal with. The videos of non-stealthy American tactical aircraft flying over Tehran unimpeded didn’t happen at the flip of a switch: that advantage was gained through expending nearly 1/3 of our force’s high-end munition inventory.
To put the numbers into a bit of perspective, at the end of the Cold War, the United States boasted a Tomahawk cruise missile inventory of ~1,500 missiles, a few hundred air-launched cruise missiles, and the Army’s ATACMS and Navy’s SLAM munitions were just beginning production putting the entire force’s long-range strike missile inventory at around 2,000-2,500. That amount seemed perfectly adequate to take on the Soviet Union at the time. The United States just expended more than that amount trying (failing?) to degrade Iranian forces enough to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. So it’s easy to understand the Pentagon’s new found worry regarding a potential shooting war with China that will demand orders of magnitudes more high-level targets.
The way forward and out of this predicament is twofold in my view: 1) ramp up production rates of the existing line of high-end munitions shown on Table 1 and 2) invest lower-end munitions from smaller companies to fill the gap. I’ll have a section dedicated to my second point further down in the post, and I’ll include a short paragraph about my first point for each respective munition listed in Table 1.
I also want to point out that this post will focus on the offensive side of things. I believe the air defense situation is just as dire, and, as such, deserves its own post in the future.
Tomahawk Land Attack Missile
The Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) is a long-range missile fired from sea at ground targets. Ground-launched versions exist but are not in theater. TLAMs have been in the U.S. Navy inventory since the 1980s, but earlier versions have since been retired.
The Tomahawk has been the U.S. military’s premiere option for long-range strike. The most updated version, the Block V, has an estimated range of ~1,500 nautical miles, and 1,000 lb warhead with new deep penetrating capabilities, and a new seeker for moving targets (think ships). Tomahawk’s are non-stealthy and are relatively slow moving, but they are accurate, reliable, can travel halfway across the length of the continental United States on their own, and really pack a punch
Table 2
The small number of FY 2026 deliveries reflects, in part, an upgrade and life extension program for older TLAM versions, but these are not counted as new deliveries. Raytheon recently announced an increase in annual TLAM production through 2031 not portrayed on Table 2: 557 in 2028, 551 in 2029, 526 in 2030, and 577 in 2031. The hope is to nearly double current inventory to 6,000 by 2032.
AGM-158 JASSM
The Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff missile (JASSM) is a stealthy, air-launched, long-range missile with a 1,000-pound payload. The current Extended Range (JASSM-ER) version has a longer range (575 miles) than the baseline version (275 miles). An even longer-range (probably ~1,000 miles) version—Extreme Range (JASSM-XR)—is in development, but none have been delivered yet. An earlier version, the baseline JASSM, is available in the inventory as shelf life is typically 20 years.
Table 3
Lockheed Martin and the Air Force are currently in agreement to expand weapons production even further than TLAM. As it stands now, JASSM procurement is set to exceed 8,000 missiles by 2031 with the following annual production rates: 389 in 2026, 821 in 2027, 896 in 2028, and 860 in 2029, 2030, and 2031.
Precision Strike Missile
The Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) is ground-launched by field artillery units—Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) or High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). It succeeds the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) with a longer range (>300 miles vs. 200 miles). The need to have access to friendly territory within range of targets limits their use. In the current conflict, these missiles have struck a wide variety of targets including a submarine, reportedly.
Table 4
PrSM inventory is limited as it is a relatively new system with deliveries beginning in 2023. Some of the shorter-range ATACMSs, perhaps as many as 800, are still available. Lockheed Martin has been scaling up PrSM production, setting an annual target of 400 units last year and announcing further increases under the framework agreement with the current administration. Sidenote, the chart above claims FY 2027 deliveries in excess of 1,100 missiles. However, I believe they are combining FY 2027 and 2028 with reported expected deliveries of 680 and 418 missiles, respectively. In all, PrSM inventory is expected to exceed 3,000 munitions by 2032.
Family of Affordable Mass Missiles (FAMM)
Let’s get to the real reason why I’m writing this post. Maybe the most important trend occurring in the Pentagon these days is the inclusion of several small, up-and-coming companies in competitions typically reserved for the Primes (for the record, I consider the Primes as Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, and Northrop). Taking a trend from the previous administration, the Pentagon is running with the idea that the defense industry doesn’t need to be dominated by a small amount of conglomerates. Indeed, a large number of small, even venture capital-esque companies have answered the Pentagon’s call by providing low-cost but capable alternatives to everything I’ve described above.
Many of these companies are taking already existing commercial processes and off-the-shelf designs to create cheap yet quite capable platforms that fill the gap created by the most exquisite designs. For the longest time, Washington demanded that every munition be the most survivable, have the longest range, host the largest warhead, and be the most versatile at the expense of the American taxpayer. The wars in Ukraine and Iran have proven out the theory that wars of attrition never truly left us, and having a handful of the most advanced pieces of firepower ever created won’t be enough.
I’ve listed several potential candidates below for this new set of programs:
Signed Agreements
- Anduril: Barracuda 100/250/500 series
- CoAspire: RAACM-ER
- Zone 5: Rusty Dagger
In Negotiations
- Lockheed Martin: CMMT
- L3 Harris: Red Wolf
- Leidos: Black Arrow
- Castelion: Blackbeard
In reality, the program will consist of several companies as each offers a munition with varying capabilities compared to the rest. But, most importantly, all programs will have the same characteristics: cheap, off-the-shelf technologies that require little R&D, ability to be massed produced quickly. These missile won’t have long ranges, will have small warheads, and utilize existing targeting and rocket motor technologies. The idea is to leverage off-the shelf electronics and commercial mass production methods to get lots of missiles quickly and to build up and upkeep an industrial ecosystem with multiple vendors using multiple supply chains at multiple locations which could then, in the event of a war, could easily ramp up missile production.
As of the writing of this post, the majority of these low-cost missiles have been at least initially tested by the Air Force. At an average cost of $450,000 (dirt cheap by Pentagon standards) and a procurement period of less than 3 years, this is a revolutionary type of program to refill inventories.
If all goes according to plan, we’re looking at procurement numbers exceeding 25,000 missiles by 2032. If taken with the exquisite weapons discussed earlier in this post, as well as future hypersonic acquisitions (see my first post), the Pentagon’s stockpile of long-range, precision munitions grows from an inventory of ~8,000 today to roughly 57,000 by 2032 of varying capabilities.
China’s rise has forced the Pentagon to concede that the old thinking of a small amount of stealthy, high-end munitions is no longer enough. The new doctrine is simple: volume. The goal is no longer strictly about technology, it is about continuous saturation, turning a high tech war into one of attrition. The official defense industry term for this is “Attritable Mass”.
As recent wars have shown, you can never have enough long-range missiles. Also, this post doesn’t even discuss long-range drones, of which are being procured at the same rapid pace (see the LUCAS drone).
Do I believe the future will only consist of these types of smaller companies? No, of course not. At some point, a weapons program becomes too large and too complex for a small cap firm to take on by itself. Only a company like Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman can handle the F-35 or B-21, respectively. However, only engaging in low level conflicts since the end of the Cold War has afforded the United States to believe that enemies can be defeated through the use of a large number of exquisite weapons in a short amount of time. Attrition nearly left the Pentagon’s vocabulary, and it’s important to ensure that lesson isn’t re-learned through thousands of caskets draped in American flags.