In a war with China, the United States would expend its stock of advanced missiles and bombs in less than a month—and run out of some critical weapons in a matter of days, according to a wargames simulation conducted by the House Select Committee on China.
America’s cache of long-range antiship missiles, critical to defending Taiwan in a sea battle in the case of a Chinese invasion, will run dry within three to seven days, according to the committee’s findings. Within a month, meanwhile, the United States would run out of long-range cruise missiles. Taiwan’s own supply of mid-range antiship missiles would also be expended within a week of battle.
The findings are raising alarm bells among lawmakers, who worry America’s defense industrial base is woefully unprepared to deliver the arms needed once China makes good on its repeated threats to invade Taiwan. With China’s military rapidly growing, U.S. supply lines remain strained amid conflicts in the Middle East and other geopolitical hotspots.
"What we learned is that in a protracted war, our defense industrial base does not have the resources it needs to win that war," Rep. John Moolenaar (R., Mich.), the China committee’s chairman, said in a statement. "It's stretched thin with different regional conflicts around the world. We need to make sure we shore up our defense industrial base so that we can win a war if it were ever necessary."
The wargames session, hosted at the end of November, showed the "U.S. military and defense industrial base are being stressed" by global conflicts, including the tumult in the Middle East and Russia’s war on Ukraine.
The simulation was run more than 25 times to ensure the accuracy of the results, which repeatedly showed the United States had "insufficient stockpiles of critical munitions for protracted war." This includes the missiles that would be key to defeating China in any land and sea battle.
In the current defense landscape, it would take the United States "roughly two years to produce key munitions" needed for a conflict with China, including Tomahawk missiles, cruise missiles, and surface-to-air munitions.
It would take the United States decades longer to rebuild ships and aircraft carriers destroyed in a standoff with Beijing. America’s aircraft carrier replacements would take an estimated 40 years to resupply, while new attack submarines would take around eight years, according to a summary of the wargames published by the China committee.
These findings are particularly important given that any war with China over Taiwan would likely drag on for years.
The ground campaign in such a war "unfolds at the speed of a man crawling in the mud," according to a summary of the wargames. It would also be nearly impossible to reinforce Taiwan in advance of a Chinese attack.
It would take American warships around a month to begin engaging Chinese military positions. During this time, there would be "aircraft losses on the ground" and a need for antiship missiles that the United States can’t supply.
Notably, by week four of battle, "anti-ship missiles are needed, but we have mostly land attack" capabilities.
Amid these challenges, China has prioritized spending on the very arms America would need during a time of war. It has invested heavily in all facets of naval, land, air, and space warfare.
China has worked to surpass the United States in sophisticated arms for some time. U.S. Strategic Command warned last year that Beijing had outpaced America in its supply of land-based intercontinental ballistic missile launchers.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan acknowledged these concerns during an event with the Center for Strategic and International Studies held last week.
"God forbid we end up in a full-scale war with the PRC," Sullivan said during the event. "But any war with a country like the PRC, a military like the PRC, is going to involve the exhaustion of munition stockpiles very rapidly."