The GOP is preparing to tear itself apart over foreign policy heading into 2028.
Helium, gas, oil — worldwide shortages and price spikes due to the war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Now, we’re facing the weapons shortage that restrainers and prioritizers have been warning about for years.
According to The Telegraph, normally a booster of America’s adventurism, nearly one third of all THAAD interceptors, Patriot missiles, and Tomahawks have been used in this conflict, and replenishing the supplies will take four to five years at current production. This is a recipe for “restraint by default” in the next administration. We’ve been taking weapons out of the European and Asian theaters back into the Middle East. But it’s worse when you extrapolate outward:
It is not just a case of American military might leaving these regions. US allies are also fretful that their own stocks will suffer as the Pentagon runs short.
The US is quietly telling the likes of Japan, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and even Britain that they’ll fall to the back of the queue, waiting months or years for military kit they’ve already ordered.
“They may have to wait longer. And there is a risk that the US could be seen as an unreliable supplier and that allies and partners will turn elsewhere,” says Mark Cancian, a former marine colonel who works at the CSIS.
And, Trump is still occasionally talking up the threat of doing much more severe bombing.
The GOP is preparing to tear itself apart over foreign policy heading into 2028. The opponents of JD Vance are already putting in an insane amount of spade work. But just as many MAGA restrainers were surprised when Donald Trump gave them a taste of John Bolton’s foreign policy, it may be that you can elect Lindsay Graham on amphetamines in 2028 and the president will look at our empty shelves and feel the need to husband American power rather than waste it.