Washington, DC – The Financial Times has revealed a strategic challenge facing the US Department of Defense (Pentagon) following recent military operations with Iran.
The newspaper asserted that rebuilding the US missile arsenal will take years.
Therefore, this reality places Washington under urgent pressure to find faster and less expensive production alternatives.
The dilemma of cost and slow production
The newspaper pointed out that the US military industry is currently suffering
from insufficient missile production, in addition to their exorbitant cost.
Data shows that producing a single Tomahawk missile costs $2.6 million,
with an annual production capacity of only 600 missiles.
Similarly, the Precision Strike ballistic missile costs $1.6 million, and the Jassim cruise missile costs $1.9 million.
Given these figures, replenishing the stockpile consumed during the operation
against Iran will take many years. It will not take months, as had been hoped.
In this context, Michael Horowitz, a former Pentagon official, stated:
“The US arsenal relies almost exclusively on expensive and complex systems that are difficult to manufacture,”
emphasizing that “the United States must change its approach” in light of the nature of modern warfare.
Emergency plans and a race against time
In response to these challenges, intensive projects and programs for acquiring missiles and drones have emerged.
The US Air Force has requested $12 billion to purchase 28,000 missiles over the next five years.
The Pentagon has also announced ambitious plans to purchase 10,000 ground-launched missiles over the next three years.
These moves come in light of alarming figures revealed by US Representative Pat Ryan last April.
He explained that the first four weeks of the conflict with Iran had depleted
more than 1,000 Jassim missiles and 850 Tomahawk missiles.
10 years to replenish the missile stockpile
Ryan pointed to the shocking fact that the United States would need approximately 10 years to replenish
its stockpile of Tomahawk missiles alone if production continues at the current rate.
These figures present the US administration with a real test. The arms race is shifting from possessing
the most sophisticated technology to having the industrial capacity to compensate for shortages in record time.
This may compel Washington to completely reassess its military philosophy
to meet the challenges of a new era of high-intensity warfare.
