We Don't Have the Missiles to Stop China. Time For Drone Swarms
Despite all the calls to boost production, the U.S. military will be short of key missiles for at least two years. It needs ways to win with what it has now.
BRYAN CLARK | FEBRUARY 1, 2023 01:22 PM ET
The war in Ukraine made plain several well-known challenges with precision weapons: they are expensive, rely on complicated supply chains, and take time to build. With Russia’s invasion stretching into its second year and military leaders warning of a looming war with China, analysts, Congress, and defense officials are all arguing for dramatically increased spending on the sophisticated long-range missiles needed for war in the Indo-Pacific.
This is a failure of both analysis and imagination by the world’s largest and most expensive defense establishment.
Decades of funding and policy decisions have led to a “right-sized” defense industry that can produce precision-guided missiles only at a peacetime replacement rate. Efforts to accumulate more PGMs could draw on the excellent recommendations made by recent studies: multi-year purchases, better management of existing stocks, and, yes, increased spending. Yet the fundamental limits remain: rocket fuel, explosives, microelectronics, and skilled technicians are all in short supply. Ramping up production of key missiles, therefore, will take two years or more.
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2023/02/we-dont-have-missiles-stop-china-time-drone-swarms/382423/
