On February 1, the website of the Washington Post published an article by Mia Clark, a senior researcher of the American Heritage Foundation, entitled "The US military has less ammunition than you think - this is a problem". The full text is edited as follows: Most Americans know that the US military is the most powerful in the world, and it has been so for decades. However, this fact will lead to erroneous ideas about what the US military can do today. For example, one might think that the United States has a large number of artillery shells, bombs and other ammunition, which will continue to support any war that the United States may participate in. But the Ukrainian war has proved that this is not the case. The United States began to provide military assistance to Ukraine in early February last year. By April last year, the inventory of "Javelin" anti-tank missiles and "Stinger" anti-aircraft missiles had been reduced by one third. If a regional war in just two months has consumed such a large part of the key ammunition reserves of the United States, it is easy to imagine that if the United States confronts competitors like China, the military will use up these ammunition. The Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps all have a complex planning process to determine how much ammunition should be stored in case of war. The plans of the various services are based on the Pentagon's assessment of which war is most likely to occur and with which countries. However, over the years, the ammunition budgets of the various services have been reduced in order to increase the budget for "high-priced items" such as tanks, fighter planes and ships. Their ammunition reserves are only enough to support a few months of war. However, the war is unlikely to last only a few months, especially when the military strength of the two countries is equal. Ask Vladimir Putin. He expected to occupy Ukraine in a few weeks. So why can't we make more ammunition and replenish the consumed ammunition? This is the second part of the problem. The defense industry will not be able to replenish some of the consumed inventory for many years. Take the Stinger missile as an example. Raytheon, the main contractor of the Stinger missile, stopped producing the missile before Russia sent troops to Ukraine. Greg Hayes, CEO of Raytheon, said that the company could not increase its production in at least 18 months because it had to redesign some electronic components and seeker in the missile. For many reasons, the production schedule of other munitions is similar. Increasing production requires investment in labor, facilities and capital equipment. Suppliers of parts and raw materials downstream of the supply chain must also invest in their labor and facilities. The firmness of the supply chain depends on the weakest link. The bottleneck of only one component will lead to the delay of the whole project, such as the microchip in the seeker. It is not difficult to calculate. If the military only has ammunition that can support several months of war, and the defense industry needs 18 months to supply more ammunition, then if the United States must fight a protracted war, it will be in trouble. In the recent Comprehensive Expenditure Act, Congress provided funds for the purchase of more ammunition. It also strengthened the supervision of the ammunition planning procedures of the various services and requested the Pentagon to report
Edit：qihang Responsible editor：xinglan
Source：CKXX
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