SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth went to Capitol Hill this week with a huge request - another $67 billion, much of it to cover the cost of the Iran war.
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PETE HEGSETH: Without these funds, we face critical shortfalls that threaten our ability to also simply pay our service members, rapidly replenish equipment and munitions and sustain vital operations without disruption.
SIMON: And those resumed strikes renew concern about whether the U.S. military is running out of some key weapons. Mark Cancian is a retired U.S. Marine colonel and is now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Thanks so much for being with us.
MARK CANCIAN: Thanks for having me on the program.
SIMON: How would you describe the current state of the U.S. arsenal?
CANCIAN: Well, the U.S. arsenal is depleted. Some elements are quite depleted. We looked at seven munitions that have been heavily used in the war against Iran. Half of them, we've used a quarter to a third, and about half of them, we've used half of the available inventories, and that creates a what we call a window of vulnerability. There are alternatives, but the alternatives involve greater risk. So it will take several years - one to five - to replace these and then another several years after that to get to where the war planners want to be.
SIMON: Well, what kind of munition specifically are you concerned about?
CANCIAN: There are the air and missile defense munitions, Patriot is probably the one most people have heard about. And then there are long-range attack munitions. Tomahawk is probably the one that people have heard of.
SIMON: What's the problem with just making more?
CANCIAN: Well, we are making more. Back in the Biden administration, the department did start to increase its production. That was driven by the experience of the war in Ukraine, where we saw that protracted conflicts require many more munitions than we had been planning for. But it takes time. To increase production you have to hire more workers, you have to build plants. So it will be several years before we start seeing these additional capabilities coming online.
SIMON: The U.S., of course, is also a major seller of weapons. Does it have to rethink that business if the war with Iran continues?
CANCIAN: Well, it does. And, in fact, we're already seeing that. When you look at Patriot, for example, 18 countries use Patriot, and now there's competition for who gets the production. The Pentagon wants to keep the production for itself, but our allies and partners want Patriots also. The Gulf States, for example, they've used many of their Patriots in the current conflict. Ukraine wants Patriots because it has run out. There's a lot of diplomatic discussions about who gets the production.
SIMON: You mentioned there were other options for munitions for the war in Iran. What would they be, and what would that entail?
CANCIAN: There are short-range munitions that are precise and very effective, but you have to get close to the target. And what we've seen in Iran is that as we were able to beat down their air defenses, we could fly over Iranian territory and use these short-range missiles. They're much less expensive. We have much larger inventories, but you have to get quite close to the target. To give you sort of a sense of the difference, a Tomahawk has a range of about 1,000 miles, so you can stand far away, shoot them into an adversary's territory. It has a warhead of about 1,000 pounds and high accuracy. But it costs $2.5 million. A short-range, it's called the JDM joint direct attack munition, also has a 1,000-pound warhead, also has high accuracy, but only a 25-mile range, but it costs $100,000. So if you can get in close, you can use these much less expensive, much more plentiful systems, but you have to go in close.
SIMON: To put a fine point on it, are you concerned, Colonel, that an adversary would consider the U.S. to be more vulnerable to attack because of its reduced arsenal?
CANCIAN: It's really China that is the concern here. Other conflicts, we probably have enough, and, of course, we have allies and partners. But against China, that would demand all of the capabilities the United States has. And, you know, that would be the place where these missiles would really be needed.
SIMON: That's Mark Cancian, a retired U.S. Marine Colonel, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Thanks so much for being with us.
CANCIAN: Thanks for having me on the program. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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