Decided to Stop or Forced to Stop?

The US pounded Iran and was on the verge of total destruction of Iran’s political and military power and then, inexplicably, stopped attacking in favor of pursuit of a peace agreement.
 
As we’ve often noted, you don’t negotiate with an enemy, you utterly destroy them and then impose whatever surrender terms you want. 
 
Since WWII, the US has failed to pursue ultimate victory in every conflict it’s been involved in and the results have always come back to bite us.
 
Keeping that in mind, let’s change gears.
 
ComNavOps has frequently offered estimates of weapon inventory levels by examining budget documents for the preceding years.  In very brief terms, our weapons have historically had inventories in the low to mid thousands with production rates in the low hundreds.  However, that balance has been upset by the recent heavy expenditures of weapons off Yemen, around Israel, and against Iran.  In other words, our inventories are being depleted far faster than production can replenish.
 
Now, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has done exactly what ComNavOps has done and has issued a report estimating weapon inventories prior to the Iran conflict, specific weapon expenditures during the conflict, and speculation about the amount of time required to rebuild the inventories.
 
As one example, here are the figures for Tomahawk missiles.  As reported by TWZ website, CSIS estimated a pre-war Tomahawk inventory of 3100 missiles and an expenditure of 1000+ missile, thus far.[1]
 
Think about that expenditure rate and note that was against a helpless, fourth rate enemy who was being pounded by other countries and other weapons.  Now, consider how that would change against China.  We’d be expending Tomahawks at a rate of a thousand per week!  But, I digress …
 
What about Tomahawk inventory replenishment ?  It’s not encouraging.
 

Tomahawk procurement “averaged 86 missiles in the past 10 fiscal years (FY 15–FY 26), with most orders coming from the Navy,”  CSIS noted. [1]
 
 … the recent annual production rate is less than 200 … [1]

It’s worse than that, though.  A significant chunk of production is slated for sales to foreign countries, as noted below.
 

Another factor to consider are foreign military sales, with nearly 800 due to Japan, Australia and the Netherlands.[1]

So, we have a very small production capacity which is further “eroded” by deliveries to other countries.  It’s going to take many years to recover our Tomahawk inventory levels.  How much worse will this be during a war with China?  But, again, I digress …
 
The same trends hold true, to varying degrees, for all other weapons in the US military.
 
With low inventories and dismal replenishment rates in mind and returning to the first sentence in this post, we can now legitimately ask whether the seemingly inexplicable pause on the verge of total victory was due to some [misguided] desire for a premature peace or due to having reached a state of weapons depletion that became unacceptable given the constant threat of war with China and the need to maintain a “sufficient “ stockpile of weapons.  In other words, did we choose to stop or were we forced to stop by low weapon inventories?  Did we hit the minimum “safe” inventory levels and had to stop?
 
There’s no way to know the answer but logic suggests that we stopped because we reached a point where we felt we couldn’t expend any more weapons without depleting our inventories to unacceptable levels.  If this is the case, then all the talk of the US being ready and willing to resume attacks is just public relations propaganda for the masses and Iran is in no real danger of further heavy, sustained attacks and that would certainly change the negotiation strategies on both sides.
 
What do you think?  Decided to stop or forced to stop?
 
 
Note:  This is not a post about the “rightness” of the Iran strikes, just the military aspects of those strikes.  Political comments will not be allowed.
 
 
 
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[1]The War Zone website, “Severity Of America’s Depleted Advanced Weapons Stockpiles Detailed In New Report”, Howard Altman, 28-May-2026,
https://www.twz.com/news-features/severity-of-americas-depleted-advanced-weapons-stockpiles-detailed-in-new-report

China Halts Rare Earths Export

As part of the ongoing trade war between the US and China, China has halted exports of rare earths, those raw materials that are such a vital component of so many US military weapons and sensors.  If the halt is protracted, this could cripple US military manufacturing.
 
I love it!
 
This is exactly what the US needs to get us off our complacent, vulnerable, regulatory-constrained asses and start producing our own rare earths.  We have them.  We’ve just bound ourselves in so much regulatory constraints that it’s not economical or feasible to produce them.  We need to unbind ourselves, reduce our regulations to a more reasonable level, and recognize that certain strategic materials need to be not only exempt from some regulations but actively supported and encouraged.  Congress should put a such a bill on the President’s desk today.
 
Yes, I know, we’ve previously begun to build a rare earth mining/refining facility but it’s nowhere near enough.
 
This is a losing proposition for China.  They’re depriving themselves of a market, hurting their own industries, and forcing the US to become more self-reliant.  It’s the very definition of stupidity.  This is what happens when your geopolitical goal is global conquest instead of peaceful coexistence.  Evil invariably defeats itself.  We just need to help it along when the opportunity presents itself..
 
If exploited properly, this is a winning proposition for the US.  We could develop a new industry, create jobs, keep monies ‘in-house’, weaken China, and reduce one of our major strategic vulnerabilities.  We should send China a thank-you note.  Trump should be on TV explaining this to the American people.
 
I love it!

Just Make a Decision

Naval News website reports that Japan is interested in co-producing SM-6 Standard missiles. 
 

Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani has announced that Tokyo proposed joint production of the Standard Missile 6 (SM-6) ship-to-air missile during his meeting with U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on March 30.[1]

Japan has previously agreed, to some nebulous extent, to co-produce AMRAAM and PAC-3 missiles although no action appears to have come of that, yet.
 

… the U.S. and Japan in Tokyo in July 2024, both governments had already agreed to “pursue mutually beneficial co-production opportunities to expand production capacity of AMRAAM and Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (PAC-3 MSE).
 
Nakatani’s [Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani] proposal this time will not only include joint production of AMRAAM and PAC-3 MSE missiles, which have been under consideration since the previous Joe Biden administration, but also include the long-range ship-to-air missile SM-6 … [1]

What is the US reaction/response?
 

… the U.S. side responded, by saying “We would like to continue to discuss the joint production of missiles that are mutually beneficial for both Japan and the United States, including the SM-6, as well as AMRAAM, and PAC3 that we have discussed so far, even at an administrative level. We understand the importance, so we would like to deepen the discussion at the administrative level in the future.”[1]

Good grief.  What a bunch of wishy washy nonsense.  Make a decision, already.  Endless studies and discussions benefit no one.  This is what’s wrong with modern government.  They’re incapable of acting, instead defaulting to never ending commissions, studies, reports, and discussions.  A major reason China is outproducing us their ability to make a rapid decision and then get about implementing it.  We, in the meantime, continue to study the issues to death.
 
I don’t have all the details on this particular issue but it certainly seems like a win-win proposition.  As the Ukraine war has demonstrated, we lack the weapon production capacity to meet our needs.  If Japan can help fill that need, where’s the downside?
 
Do it or don’t do it but make a damn decision!
 
 
 
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[1]Naval News website, “Japan proposes co-production of SM-6 missiles to the U.S.”, Kosuke Takahashi, 3-Apr-2025,
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/04/japan-proposes-co-production-of-sm-6-missiles-to-the-u-s/

Goes Boom!

Here’s some tidbits of good news about restoring our industrial ‘boom’ capacity.
 
How much TNT explosive does the United States produce?  None. 

TNT is used to produce an array of explosive weapons including ammunition, bombs and 155-millimeter artillery rounds, but the military has been reliant on overseas sources.[1]

In a bit of good news, the Army is going to resume TNT production by building a new facility. 

As part of the Army’s quest to boost weapons production, it is reestablishing TNT production on US soil, inking a deal to build out a new facility in Graham, Ky.
 
“For the first time in decades, America will produce TNT on its own soil, manufacturing the explosive material our military uses for everything from hand grenades to 155mm artillery,” outgoing Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a press release.[1]

Boom!

As Army acquisition head Douglas Bush notes, control over our own explosives supply chain is vital. 

“[Restoring] TNT production gives us the ability to control and secure our supply chain for this vital component, especially in an era of increasing global challenges.”[1]

How could we ever have allowed such a vital industrial capability to vanish from our shores?  The military and civilian leadership that allowed this were derelict in their duty, if not treasonous for knowingly and willfully endangering America’s national security.  The military leadership should be recalled to active duty and court-martialed.
 
Setting that aside, the good news gets better … 

By fiscal 2026, the service is aiming to have the capacity to produce 100,000 rounds each month. To get there, Bush previously said the Army plans to spend $4.2 billion to build up the industrial base across various initiatives, to include commissioning three new domestic facilities to support 155mm production and a new metal parts production facility in Canada.[1]

Admittedly, I’m praising something that should never have been necessary and that's sad.  A country/military that doesn’t have its own explosives production capability is a fool and that’s exactly what we’ve been.  Still, it’s refreshing to see us begin to restore what we lost. 
 
I love being able to present positive posts.  It’s a shame that there are so few opportunities to do so, so enjoy this one!
 
 
 
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[1]Breaking Defense, “Army inks $435 million deal for new TNT production facility”, Ashley Roque, 11-Nov-2024,
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/11/army-inks-435-million-deal-for-new-tnt-production-facility/

How the F-35 Software Should Have Been Done

As we’ve seen and discussed, software has become the major obstacle to successful programs and the F-35 is probably the poster child for this.  The F-35 logistics and maintenance program, ALIS, was supposed to have been a miraculous piece of software that would do … well … everything plus several things we haven’t even thought of yet.  As it turned out, it couldn’t run a toaster correctly and may be the biggest military software flop in history.  In addition, the vaunted Block 4 software that enables full combat capability from the aircraft is years overdue with no implementation date in sight and many of the features have been permanently deferred to a non-existent ‘future’ date or deferred to the next aircraft program.  Those features will never be part of the F-35.  Even worse, because of the hugely delayed software and the resulting concurrency, we’ve produced hundreds of orphan F-35s that are so out of date that they will never be upgraded.  They’re essentially garbage throwaways at $100M each. 
 
Could all this have been avoided?  I don’t see how.  After all, this is how aircraft development and acquisition programs go, right?  I mean, everyone knows that, right? 
 
Well, let’s now take a look at how the software should have been handled and how all of this could have been avoided.  Wait … is that really possible?  Could all of this have been avoided?  Yes, it could, quite simply, as a matter of fact, and now we’ll see how.
 
 
Requirements – To begin, the software was insanely over spec’ed.  Only a lunatic – or the US military – would have attempted to cram so many features into the software.  We’ve talked about this at length.  The software had far too many requirements that had nothing to do with combat (looking at you ALIS) and nothing to do with realistic combat (looking at remote guidance handoffs and similar technology for the sake of technology features).  The military is obsessed with technology for its own sake.  Our guiding principle should be K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid).  One could also refer to this as K.I.S.A. (Keep It Simple, Admiral) since ‘admiral’ is a synonym for ‘stupid’.  The two words are interchangeable. 
 
By reducing the software requirements to just direct and realistic combat features we could have cut the scope, cost, and time to produce the software in half, or whatever actual large proportion.  So, half our job is done before we even begin!
 
Think of this as the Boyd approach to software:  not a single line of code that doesn’t directly enable realistic combat.  Programmer Boyd would be proud of us!
 
Of course, even with drastically pared down requirements, some significant amount of software is still required and here’s how it should have been handled.
 
We start by recognizing three absolutely critical and obvious conditions:
 
1. Software is platform agnostic. 
 
2. Software must be its own, stand-alone program, separate from the hardware program.
 
3.  Hardware development cannot proceed until the software is finalized.
 
 
Platform Agnostic Software - This is the key to software development. We didn’t need to have an actual F-35 aircraft in order to develop the software.  The software can be developed in laboratory simulations or on surrogate aircraft if an actual aircraft is needed for some reason that I can’t fathom.  We could have loaded the software on a Piper Cub, if necessary.  This would have allowed us to completely develop the software without every spending a penny on the physical aircraft.  The physical aircraft is the last thing we need.  It’s the final piece of the puzzle not the first.  The F-35 attempted to do the reverse.  They built the aircraft first and then remembered they had to add some software.  Utterly predictably, that approach failed miserably.
 
Stand-Alone Program Management – Software comes before hardware and must be its own, stand-alone project from a program management perspective.  Software cannot be an afterthought, add-on to the hardware as it was with the F-35.  The only way to effectively manage the software and avoid having it become an afterthought is to make it its own program with its own, clearly and rigidly defined requirements, schedule, and milestones.  If the software fails to meet its milestones, you don’t screw around or extend the program;  you kill it, learn lessons, fire and court-martial the managers, and move on.  Failure, then, becomes a positive in the sense that it serves as a warning – a severe warning – to the next project and manager to maintain tight control on the project and to be realistic regarding capabilities.  No more promising the moon and delivering nothing.  Fire and court-martial a few people and the next ones fall in line.
 
Start Point - Software is the hardware enabler.  Without the software, the hardware is just a very expensive paperweight.  In other words, there is no point even buying the first hardware rivet until the software is complete.  Thus, the completion of the software is what controls and triggers the start of hardware development.  This doesn’t mean partial completion with some nebulous phased delivery in the ephemeral future;  it means just what it says:  complete.  Finished.  Nothing left to do.  The contract is fully satisfied.  ‘I’s’ are dotted and ‘T’s’ are crossed.  Last line of code is written.  Had we followed this with the F-35, we would not yet have spent a single penny on the F-35 aircraft, itself.  What a savings!  We would not now have hundreds of orphans and wasted billions of dollars and have an entire fleet of only partially combat capable aircraft.  We might have even recognized, decades ago, that the software was not viable and halted the program while we could have still easily gotten out from under it.  We could have learned lessons and moved on to a second, wiser attempt (who am I kidding?  we don’t learn lessons  …  but, I digress).
 
 
Conclusion
 
Nothing that I’ve described is anything other than common sense and none of it requires any act of Congress.  It could be implemented tomorrow by nothing more than a command from the Chief of Naval Operations or Secretary of the Navy.  Some of you will protest some aspect or another but that’s just you being trapped in your paradigm and unable to see outside it.
 
Had we done this with the F-35, do you see the very early off-ramp that would have presented itself when it quickly became obvious that the software would not, and could not, be delivered in any useful time frame?  For just a hundred million dollars or so of initial programming, it would have become clear that we did not have a viable software and the program would have terminated with the hardware portion never having begun.  How many billions of dollars would we have saved? 

Precision Guided Stupidity

ComNavOps has long decried the US (and, to be fair, the Western World) emphasis on precision guided munitions (PGM), believing that dependence on such weapons is a fool’s path (see, “Saturation Firepower”).  Why?  Because another word for precision guidance is expensive.  Because another word for precision guidance is scarce.  Because another word for precision guidance is unreliable.
 
ComNavOps, of course, is wise and knows all but how can the rest of the world be assured that ComNavOps is right?  The answer is by looking at the Ukraine-Russia war. 
 
Both sides have used precision guided weapons and what has it achieved?  Nothing. 
 
What has the US policy of supplying precision weapons to Ukraine demonstrated?  That in a real war we’ll run out of PGMs in short order and we lack the industrial capacity to replace them in any useful time frame.
 
The main weapon on both sides is dumb artillery with both sides expending tens of thousands of rounds per day, if reports can be believed.  That should be telling us something.
 
 
Conclusion
 
The conclusion is stunningly obvious:  we cannot wage a major war with PGMs as our main weapon.  If supplying Ukraine has depleted our PGM inventories and strained our industrial capacity beyond the ability to resupply in a useful time frame, how much worse will it be when we engage China?  We’ll expend ten thousand PGMs in the first week and then … we’ll be out of PGMs and China will be 99% unaffected.  What do we do then?
 
Our current production capacity for PGMs is something on the order of a hundred weapons per year per weapon type.  In a war, our expenditure rate will be something on the order of a hundred (or thousands or tens of thousands) weapons per day.  Do you see the gaping mismatch between expenditure and production?
 
We need weapons that can be produced at a rate of thousands per day (or more!) at an affordable cost.  You wage war with industrial capacity not a handful of PGMs.
 

Fool's Weapons

We need to end this worship of PGMs which are a weapon suited for the luxury of peacetime usage and production rates.  They are not a major war weapon.  Sure, I’ll gladly take any that are available but not at the expense of production rates and unaffordable costs.
 
ComNavOps is always cautioning about drawing lessons from Ukraine-Russia but this lesson is crystal clear.

We’re Going To Fight With What We Have

One of the characteristics of WWII, which made the defeat of Germany and Japan a foregone conclusion, was the vast industrial capacity of the US and the ability to convert that capacity to wartime production needs.  In contrast, today we lack the sheer foundation of industry and, for a host of reasons, the ability to convert what we do have to wartime needs and to scale up the capacity that we do have.
 
Why, you ask, can’t we scale up and convert the industry that we do have to wartime needs?  As an illustrative example, recall that in WWII, auto manufacturers were able to convert from cars to tanks, aircraft, and other equipment.  Ford Motor Company, for example, produced B-24 bombers and M-4 tanks, among other items.  Conversion to wartime production was possible, in large part, due to the fact that civilian automobiles and military vehicles and aircraft used, basically, the same equipment.  An M-4 tank wasn’t that different from an automobile.  Bombers and tanks used radial engines which were, themselves, just automobile engines in a different shape than an in-line car engine.  And so on.
 
Now, consider a modern Abrams tank or a B-2/B-21 bomber as compared to a typical automobile.  There’s no comparison and little similarity!  Turbine engines have little in common with car engines.  Advanced armors have little in common with automobile sheet metal.  Exotic materials like titanium, composites, etc. have little in common with sheet metal and run of the mill steel and aluminum.  Forming, welding, and manipulating exotic materials requires exotic skills.  Stealth coatings have nothing in common with automobile paint.  Micron tolerances have nothing in common with automobile level tolerances.  And so on.
 
Yes, given years of time to retrain workers, revamp factories, master advanced production techniques, and so forth, we could convert but we aren’t going to have years of time in a war.  If we can’t convert quickly, we aren’t going to convert at all.
 
Let’s consider some other factors that impair our ability to convert industry to wartime needs.
 
Exotic Components – Much of military production incorporates and depends on exotic components such as computer chips.  There is almost nothing the military uses that does not use computer chips.  Unfortunately, our chip production capacity is maxed out, right now, as evidenced by the recent, severe chip shortage.  Even now, in peacetime, we desperately need additional computer chip capacity but a new chip factory takes a minimum of $10 billion and five years to build, according to the research firm, International Data Corporation (IDC).[1]  We have no hope of commissioning new chip production facilities in a useful time frame when war comes.
 
Exotic Materials – Many of our most advanced military components require exotic rare earths, metals, alloys, and composites that we have insufficient supplies of or lack entirely.  The bulk of our rare earth supply comes from China!  I think it’s safe to say China won’t be supplying us with rare earths during a war.
 
Factories – Over the last several decades, we’ve allowed (forced, through unwise legislation and tax regulations) much of our manufacturing to move overseas.  Even if we could convert existing factories, we simply don’t have enough factories remaining to meet wartime demands.  We’re currently trying to increase weapons production and failing badly and that’s just while trying to satisfy the needs of a minor, regional war between Ukraine and Russia.  How much worse will the weapon production deficiency be in a war with China?
 
Work Force – We currently have a severe shortage of skilled labor.  Our shortsighted attempt to force every high school student to go to college or be branded a failure has depleted our supply of skilled trades workers.  Once upon a time, we could train new people fairly quickly on basic welding, pipefitting, and electrical skills but the advanced nature of our technology now requires advanced capabilities.  Now, it would take years of training to produce a worker capable of producing our advanced technology.
 
 
Conclusion
 
The conclusion is short, simple, and painfully obvious.  We have little industrial capacity for war, at the moment, and even less potential to convert and scale up our industry for war.  The implication of this is that we’re going to have to fight a war with, essentially, what we have going into it.  We won’t be quickly converting and gearing up production capabilities and capacities.
 
This means that we need to rethink the type of weapons and inventories we’re maintaining and developing.  Complex weapon systems are the enemy of rapid production and, in war, rapid production is one of the most important keys to victory.  We need to ask ourselves whether somewhat simpler systems that can be rapidly produced is a better way to go than bleeding edge technologies that require decades to develop and produce?  Are hundreds of thousands of dumb bombs better than multi-million dollar precision guided missiles the inventory of which will be depleted inside a month of war?  Remember, the enemy will be facing the same problem although China seems to have a better industrial base to start with (courtesy, in large measure, of us!).
 
 
Solutions
 
What can we do to put ourselves in a better industrial position?
 
Simplify.  We need to simplify our overly complex technology.  Every weapon system we develop needs to pass through the filter of rapid production.  It doesn’t matter how good a weapon is if we can’t produce useful quantities in short time frames.  Ask the Germans how the Tiger tank, Me-262, and other wonder weapons worked out for them.
 
Reclaim Production.  We need to bring production back to America by modifying our laws, regulations, tariffs, and trade relations so as to make it more profitable to produce at home than abroad.  If we do that, industry will return of its own accord.
 
Skilled Trades.  We need to vastly increase our reservoir of skilled trades workers.  We need to end the college push and, instead, push skilled trades as an honorable, rewarding, and lucrative career at the high school level and re-establish high school vocational education training.  Not everyone should go to college.
 
Foreign Dependency.  We need to eliminate our foreign dependency on raw materials.  For example, we have abundant rare earths but our regulations discourage the mining and refining of them.  We need to treat defense-critical raw materials as a national imperative and establish a special category of regulations that allow their production without undue concern about environmental issues.  Note that ‘undue’ does not mean ‘no’ concern.  We just can’t regulate critical raw materials out of existence, as we’ve done.
 
 
 
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[1]https://www.marketplace.org/2022/08/23/what-does-it-take-for-chip-manufacturers-to-get-a-new-plant-up-and-running/