Closing the missile gap in munitions manufacturing

Guest:	Mark Cancian
Title:	Senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies
Summary:	Even with increased funding and production, rebuilding key missile stockpiles could take years, creating a gap between current demand and available supply.

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Interview transcript

Terry Gerton We have been covering the strain in the missile industrial base for a while here, some with CSIS’ own analysis, some talking to the primes themselves, but your latest analysis puts a timeline on rebuilding specific inventories. As you did this research, what was the most surprising or concerning thing you found in those timelines?

Mark Cancian The timelines stretch from one to four or five years, and they vary depending on the munition. There are some that will be replenished relatively quickly like JASSM because we’ve been buying some steadily for the last number of years, but some will take four or 5 years like Tomahawk and Patriot because we have not been buying large numbers and there’s a lot of competition for the output.

Terry Gerton Your paper makes the point that this really isn’t a money problem, that there is plenty of money between the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the 2026 Defense Appropriations, what’s planned for 2027. There’s plenty of money, but it really is a construction and capacity constraint. What is it about some of these more in-demand missiles that is going to require so much time.

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Mark Cancian The problem is that in the past, missiles, munitions had a hard time competing. After the Cold War, we expected to fight regional conflicts that would be short, so we didn’t see a need for large inventories. We structured the Defense Industrial Base for efficient production at peacetime production levels. And then munitions never competed very effectively because the services would rather build platforms which were going to be visible for 30 years rather than munitions that would go into a storage bunker. So coming into the current period, we did not have large stockpiles. That thinking began to change with the war in Ukraine where we saw that many inventories were exhausted supporting Ukraine. And then we’ve seen it again here with Iran. Now we’re putting the money against those capabilities. But it just takes time to increase production capacity and for these missiles to be produced.

Terry Gerton Some of that capacity constraint comes from the supply chains. I mean, some of these missiles remind me of the old jokes about F-35s, that they had suppliers in all 50 states. And some of those missiles are the same. How do you expand such a complicated supply chain so quickly?

Mark Cancian Well, the short answer is you can’t. It takes time. It takes years. The primes want commitment from the Department of Defense. Show me the money. They don’t want to build facilities that aren’t going to be used. And getting that whole process going from appropriation to the contract, then starting to build the capacity, that just takes time. Now we’ve seen increases in production capability. Looking at Patriot, for example, we’ve gone from about 150 a year to 300 to 600, of which the U.S. Gets about half. So there has been progress, but it takes time, years.

Terry Gerton Is this just a matter of going from an eight-hour production day to 24-7 production and trying to hire enough people to man the facility?

Mark Cancian Some of it is expanding with existing facilities, but some of it requires building new facilities. We’re seeing that. Also, to get up to the really high production levels, you have to add facilities. And again, that takes time.

Terry Gerton When you look at the variability across weapons systems, the recovery timelines are very different, as you said at the beginning, some within 12 months, some four or five years. How does that uneven recovery then shape military planning for future operations?

Mark Cancian Well, it puts pressure on planning in the Indo-Pacific. We have enough munitions to continue any conflict in the Middle East if, for example, fighting were to start again against Iran, although we’ve used maybe half of the inventory of four of the seven munitions we looked at, we still have half of it left. The problem is that every missile you use is one less that’s available both for allies and partners, and for a conflict in the Western Pacific. Most analysts thought that we did not have enough munitions even going into this conflict, and now we have half of those inventories left. So we have this gap, this window of vulnerability in the Western Pacific.

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Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Mark Cancian, retired Marine Colonel and senior advisor with CSIS International Security Program. Mark, let’s pull on the Indo-Pacific piece a little bit longer because there has been conversation about does this mean that China sees a window of opportunity here to pursue some of perhaps their geopolitical goals. What’s your sense?

Mark Cancian Well, there’s no question that from a war fighting perspective, the U.S. Is in this window of vulnerability where we don’t have as many of the preferred munitions. We’re not going to run out of munitions, but when we run out the long range munitions then we have to use medium or short range munition that increases platform vulnerability. We have much more losses and therefore much more risk. But we also have to consider two other things that are coming out of this war that affect the Indo-Pacific. One of them is the demonstrated skill of U.S. military forces. Putting aside the political aspects of the conflict, it’s no question that the U.S. Has been able to exert air superiority over Iran, do that relatively quickly and easily. Our missile defense capabilities have been pretty good. And we’ve demonstrated these capabilities also against Venezuela and against the Houthis. So the Chinese are looking at this and wondering whether the U.S. might be a more formidable adversary than they had thought. They’re very aware that their last combat experience was in 1979 against Vietnam, and they did very poorly. The other thing is that the Iranians have been able to do in the strait what the Ukrainians have done in the Black Sea and that is, without a conventional Navy exert presence and exert control. And the Chinese must be looking at the Strait of Taiwan and wondering whether Taiwanese might be able to do that, particularly with the ramp up of procurement that they have begun.

Terry Gerton So that brings us back to stockpiles and capacity, I think. And you talked about how much of the current production goes to domestic use versus going to allied sales. When you think forward, do you continue to see that as a 50-50 split? What does this mean for what our allies can expect?

Mark Cancian Well, it’s going to be a matter of contention with allies for the next several years. Looking at Patriot, for example, about half the production has been going to allies and partners, but there’ll be a lot of pressure to put the United States at the front of the line. But that means that other countries, like the Gulf states, who have exhausted their inventories, like the Ukrainians who desperately need Patriots, will not be getting theirs. There were 18 countries that used Patriot, and there’ll be competition among them to get the output. We’re seeing the same thing with Tomahawk, for example. The Japanese have ordered 400. They’ve been told that they may have to wait on that. But they see this as a key capability for their abilities to deter China and to exert more control over their territory. So we’re going to see continuing tension.

Terry Gerton Now put yourself in the seat of one of the prime contractors for these missile systems. You’ve got international demand that continues to grow, you’ve got at least temporary increased in US demand. What do you need to see as a global supplier to make you think that it’s worth making your own capacity investments for the long term?

Mark Cancian I’ll want to see long-term financial commitments from the department, and we’ve seen some with multi-year procurements. But I would want to seeing more of that, and I would encourage Congress to support these multi-years because the problem for the defense industry is quite understandable. They don’t want to build facilities and then find out two years from now that the contracts dry up because the conflicts have ended, and that now they’re seen as being wasteful when they were trying to meet the demand. So it’s a case of, show me the money.

Terry Gerton Is it also reflective of a fundamental change in our military philosophy? You kind of mentioned 20 years ago, we decided we weren’t gonna fight these kinds of wars anymore. Does it seem like the tables have turned a bit?

Mark Cancian Absolutely. There’s much more sensitivity, much more awareness of what a protracted conflict might need as opposed to a short-term regional conflict. We saw that with Ukraine, mostly with ground forces, and now we’re seeing it with Iran, more with air and naval forces.

Terry Gerton And as we think more about autonomous systems, the drone wars in Ukraine and other places, do you think that those will replace missile systems or will the missile systems always now have a key role in future US military operations?

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Mark Cancian This is a rapidly evolving part of warfare. So far what we’re seeing is both high and low end missile systems. If you look at what the Russians have done and what the U.S. has done, there are high-end ballistic missiles that are much more likely to get to their targets. Then there are the Shahed kind of drones that are fired in vast numbers, most of which get shot down, a few of which get through. And I think we’re going to see that kind of dynamic in the future. But that’s very different for the United States, which has typically had a all high-end approach.

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