The U.S. military risks going into a potential major fight with China with insufficient stocks of Patriot surface-to-air interceptors and other key munitions due to obligations in the Middle East and Ukraine, the top officer in the Pacific has warned. America’s armed forces need to not only replenish that inventory, but grow it further, to be adequately prepared for a high-end scenario in the Pacific, especially a conflict over Taiwan.
U.S. Navy Adm. Samuel Paparo, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), talked bluntly about his concerns at an open event at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, D.C., hosted earlier today.
At one point in the discussion, Paparo was asked a direct question about whether ongoing fighting in Ukraine and in and around the Middle East were impacting U.S. military preparedness in his part of the world.
“Up to this year, where most of the employment of weapons were really artillery pieces and short-range weapons, I had said not at all,” he said. “But now, with some of the Patriots that have been employed, some of the air-to-air missiles that have been employed, it is now eating into [our] stocks. … and to say otherwise would be dishonest.”
Ukraine has received a number of Patriot surface-to-air missile systems and interceptors to go with them from the U.S. military and other Western partners. Patriots were also among the air and missile defense systems employed in the defense of Israel against Iranian attacks in April.
The U.S. military has supplied a variety of other air and missile defense capabilities to Ukraine since 2022. American forces have also expended significant numbers of surface-to-air and air-to-air munitions in operations to shield friendly warships and commercial shipping in and around the Red Sea from Houthi militants in Yemen, as well as while defending Israel. This includes SM-2, SM-3, and SM-6 ship-launched surface-to-air interceptors and AIM-9X and AIM-120 air-to-air missiles. Ground-based National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), examples of which have been supplied to Ukraine, can also fire AIM-9Xs and AIM-120s.
A variety of other surface and air-launched munitions have gone to Ukraine and/or have been expended in the course of operations against the Houthis and elsewhere in the Middle East, as well. One prime example of this is supplies of Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) short-range ballistic missiles to Ukrainian forces, which they have just recently gotten American approval to employ against targets inside Russian territory. In the past, Army officials have explicitly cited incoming stocks of new Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) short-range ballistic missiles as helping free up ATACMS for Ukraine.
“If there are X [munitions in the] inventory of the United States of America, which is fungible across all theaters, that can be applied equally across any contingency, … none are reserved for any particular theater,” expending them elsewhere “inherently, it imposes costs on the readiness of America to respond in the Indo-Pacific region,” Paparo explained.
“The Indo-Pacific region… is the most stressing theater for the quantity and quality of munitions, because the PRC [People’s Republic of China] is the most capable potential adversary in the world,” he continued.
“We should replenish those [munition] stocks and then some. I was already dissatisfied with the magazine depth,” America’s top officer in the Pacific, who took up the post in May, added. “I’m a little more dissatisfied with the magazine depth. You know, it’s a time for straight talk.”
Paparo is not the first to raise the alarm about what the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East are doing to U.S. munition stockpiles. Navy officials have been especially open about the worrying number of missiles and other weapons that have been expended against Houthi and Iranian threats. Concerns about the adequacy of U.S. stocks of certain munitions also predate these current crises, as the The War Zone has highlighted in the past.
There have already been growing calls from inside America’s armed forces, as well as Congress and elsewhere, to replenish those inventories and grow them beyond their previous size. There is also an emerging consensus that expanding and diversifying the U.S. industrial base available to produce key munitions, as well as developing and fielding lower-cost capabilities that are faster to produce, is increasingly critical. The Patriot interceptors and other munitions Paparo alluded to today are not bought off the shelf, are full of high-end and often unique components, and can take months or even years to procure.
As indicated by his “magazine depth” remarks, Paparo is already very outspoken on these issues, especially when it comes to preparing for a potential conflict with China over Taiwan, in the South China Sea, or elsewhere in the Pacific. Paparo has previously discussed efforts to help the Taiwanese defend themselves through the use of hordes of kamikaze drones and other uncrewed platforms in the air, on the waves, and underwater that would turn the battlespace around the island into a “hellscape” for invaders, as you can read more about here.
Speaking today, Paparo stressed his belief that the U.S. military should be working to prepare for a potential fight around Taiwan as soon as possible rather than with an eye toward being ready to do so by 2027. U.S. officials regularly cite past statements by Xi Jinping telling the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to at least be prepared by that year to successfully execute an armed intervention against the island.
“The closer we get to it [2027], the less relevant that date is, and the more we must be ready today, tomorrow, next month, next year, and onward,” Paparo said at Brookings.
With a new presidential administration on the horizon and concerns about at best flat defense budgets in the coming years, there are many new questions facing the U.S. military when it comes to things like replenishing munitions and its general global posture. Regardless, when it comes to Ukraine, specifically, “ATACMS may be the last major offensive weapons system left that the U.S. has to take off its shelf and hand to” that country, according to a separate report just today from Politico, which only underscores Paparo’s remarks.
The current head of INDOPACOM has certainly made clear that he believes that there is a worrisome shortfall of critical munitions, which would be doubly concerning should a high-end fight with China break out.
Geoff Ziezulewicz contributed to this story.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com