It’s
not at all clear that US arms makers can produce a sufficient
quantity of bombs the Pentagon intends to use, let alone enough to
keep up the pace at which it’s already using them.
Massive air wars in Iraq, Syria,
and Afghanistan are just the beginning of the story for the United
States military, with regular strikes in places like Somalia and
Yemen, and constant risks of the US launching a massive war on North
Korea at any moment.
That’s a lot of bombs being
dropped, and mostly in open-ended conflicts.
A year ago, the Pentagon was
warning that it was forced to raid its worldwide stockpiles of bombs
because they were using so many. Now, they’re running through those
too, and are using smart-bombs faster than they can buy them from
massive US arms makers.
That’s a big problem for the
Pentagon, because as already the biggest consumer of bombs on the
planet by far, there isn’t exactly a ton of leftover capacity for
them to draw on. That makes the US air wars literally unsustainable
at current levels because there just aren’t enough bombs on the
planet to supply them all.
Pacific Commander Admiral Harry
Harris told Congress that the bombs are absolutely critical, citing
the wars in the Middle East, and also for use “against North
Korea.”
While this will probably mean more
funding for bombs, it’s not at all clear that even those huge US
arms makers can produce all the bombs that the Pentagon intends to
use, let alone enough to keep up the pace at which it’s already
using.
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