On the menu today: Wars aren’t only fought on battlefields; they’re fought at the highest levels of national governments, over the information that is obtained about the battlefield and its conditions, and over what information about those conditions gets to policymakers and shapes their decisions. We already knew that Vice President JD Vance was a private skeptic about the costs and benefits of a U.S. war against Iran; a new report indicates that Vance isn’t sure he believes the Pentagon is telling the rest of the administration the whole story. Read on.
JD Vance vs. the Pentagon
A four-bylined-article at The Atlantic published Monday offered the deeply troubling allegation that the Pentagon is not accurately informing the commander in chief about the progress of the war against Iran, or the level of U.S. stockpiles of critical weapons. What was even more troubling was that the source of the accusation was reportedly the vice president of the United States and his staff:
In closed-door meetings, J. D. Vance has repeatedly questioned the Defense Department’s depiction of the war in Iran and whether the Pentagon has understated what appears to be the drastic depletion of U.S. missile stockpiles.
Two senior administration officials told us that the vice president has queried the accuracy of the information the Pentagon has provided about the war. He has also expressed his concerns about the availability of certain missile systems in discussions with President Trump, several people familiar with the situation told us. The consequences of a dramatic drawdown in munitions reserves are potentially dire: U.S. forces would need to draw from these same stockpiles to defend Taiwan against China, South Korea against North Korea, and Europe against Russia. . . .
Vance is trying, the advisers suggested, to avoid making this personal, or to create divisions in Trump’s war Cabinet. Some of Vance’s confidants, however, believe that Hegseth’s portrayal has been so positive as to be misleading. In a statement, Vance said that the Pentagon chief “is doing a great job,” and cited Hegseth’s work with Trump to ensure a “warrior ethos” in the military’s top ranks. A White House official told us that Vance “asks a lot of probing questions about our strategic planning, as do all of the members of the president’s national-security team.”
Accusing the Pentagon of misleading the president on matters of life and death is a big deal. As much as Vance may want to avoid “making this personal,” either scenario is deeply troubling for the country. If Secretary of Defense Hegseth and the Pentagon are deceiving the president, then the president is making decisions about the war based upon inaccurate or false information, which increases the odds of a bad outcome.
However, if the Pentagon is accurately informing the president, but Vance’s aides are leaking to The Atlantic — a publication not exactly known for its fair-minded coverage of Hegseth or the Trump administration as a whole — that they and the vice president doubt the Pentagon’s honesty and accuracy, it is hard to see this as anything other than an attempt to undermine the war effort.
On April 21, Mark F. Cancian and Chris H. Park of the Center for Strategic and International Studies published a detailed analysis of the best available information about U.S. stockpiles of Tomahawk missiles, Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM), Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM), SM-3 interceptor missiles, SM-6 interceptor missiles, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles (THAAD), and Patriot missiles.
Cancian and Park conclude, “Analysis of seven key munitions shows that the United States has enough missiles to continue fighting this war under any plausible scenario. The risk — which will persist for many years — lies in future wars.”
In the CSIS analysis, the missile stockpile that can be replenished to pre-war status the fastest is the Patriot missile, in 42 months, or three and a half years. (Note they estimate the U.S. has 900 to 1,270 Patriot missiles remaining.) Within four years, the U.S. could be back to pre-war levels of PrSMs, Tomahawks, and JASSMs. They estimate that the U.S. has roughly 2,100 Tomahawks, 3,300 JASSMs, and 20 to 50 PrSMs remaining. Also note that PrSMs are the cheapest to manufacture, at $1.6 million per unit, while SM-3s are $28.7 million per unit.
But for THAADs and SM-6s, it would take almost four and a half years to get back to the pre-war level, and getting back to the pre-war level of SM-3s will take more than five years.
During yesterday’s House Armed Services Committee hearing about the Pentagon’s $1.5 trillion budget request for next year, the chairman of the panel, GOP Representative Mike Rogers, said, “Our global munition stockpiles are low and we lack the capacity to rapidly restock magazine depth.”
One of the committee’s Democrats, Eric Sorensen of Illinois, asked Hegseth for more specifics.
“First of all, I would note that, as you know, we give weekly briefings on munitions to this committee. So, it’s not something that’s withheld from any of the members here,” Hegseth began. Sorensen said he and the panel “appreciate that.”
“But it’s also a topic that isn’t something that should be publicly discussed, as far as any shortfalls that may exist,” Hegseth continued. “But I would assure you that there are not shortfalls that exist in our ability to execute the missions around the world. And the reason we’re investing in the defense industrial base with $1.5 trillion is to make sure the greatest companies in the world, which have been falling behind for decades, are running faster than ever before to give us 2x 3x 4x of the critical munitions. Your Patriots, your THAADs, your SM3s, every other standard missile.”
Sorensen’s district in Illinois includes the Rock Island Arsenal, the largest government-owned weapons manufacturing arsenal in the United States, on Arsenal Island in the Mississippi River between Davenport, Iowa, and Rock Island, Ill.:
Sorensen: Could you tell me why we’re firing the people at Joint Munitions Command for no cause, other than just telling them they’re overhired or they’re a surplus employee?
Hegseth: I would have to look into the particular circumstances of that, but there have been places where we haven’t been moving fast enough with munitions. And when people don’t move fast enough in the Department of War, we find someone else that will run fast. . . . Munitions are not built by commands. We are very good at building commands and bureaucracies and slapping three- and four-star generals in charge of things that don’t move things any faster.
But there are discussions of potential layoffs in the Army Sustainment Command and Joint Munitions Command:
More than 100 employees in the Army Sustainment Command and Joint Munitions Command units received emails March 23 they were considered “surplus” employees and could be reassigned, according to American Federation of Government Employees Local 15, which represents some of the workers in those units.
There are really two separate arguments coming from the Vance camp. The first is on the U.S. military’s performance in the war, whether the Pentagon is accurately assessing it, and the state of the Iranian opposition. Yesterday’s newsletter laid out the compelling evidence of the catastrophic state of the Iranian economy; if the Iranian mullahs do hang on to power in the aftermath of this war, they will stand atop the remains of a thoroughly demolished country facing the prospect of food riots.
The second argument is about our remaining missile stockpiles and the time that will be needed to restock them and have that deterrent effect against adversaries elsewhere in the globe. Looking at the CSIS analysis, it’s hard to dispute that this is a legitimate concern.
But it is also worth keeping in mind that the U.S. stockpiles are apparently not so low that they have triggered a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a North Korean invasion of South Korea, or additional Russian aggression against our allies in Eastern Europe. (At least, not yet.) No doubt, a lower supply of missile stockpiles lessens the deterrent effect of the U.S. military’s presence around the world. But seeing the U.S. military in action, learning that the CIA knew exactly when and where Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be, watching the U.S. execute a large-scale clandestine rescue mission deep in Iranian territory without any casualties, and watching Chinese-manufactured Temu-brand air defense systems fail against U.S. and Israeli jets, probably increases the deterrent effect of the U.S. military. Watching the U.S. military’s pounding of the Iranian regime and concluding, “Oh yeah, we can take these guys,” is the sort of thinking you see from the henchmen in Reacher.
There’s no getting around the fact that Hegseth, who spent ten years as a Fox News Channel host, has a bombastic and pugnacious personality and is prone to incendiary comments that are probably not helpful in the long run. The Secretary of Defense began yesterday’s hearing with an opening statement that claimed, “The biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans.” Many of us would have figured that the biggest adversary the U.S. faces at this point in the war against Iran would be . . . you know, the Iranians. No one in Congress used Russian intelligence to destroy a U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry aircraft at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, at a cost of $700 million to replace.
Speaking of Russia . . .
ADDENDUM: I was as ready as anyone to tear into President Trump’s seeming declaration yesterday, “I think Ukraine, militarily they’re defeated.” But if you look at the president’s remarks in context, I think the president was referring to Iran:
Q: On your call with President Putin today, do you think the war in Iran ends first, or the war in Ukraine?
Trump: Well, we talked about — more about the war in Ukraine, but he would like to be of help. And I said before you help me, I want to end your war. So, we had a good talk. I’ve known him a long time. I think he was ready to make a deal a while ago. I think some people made it difficult for him to make a deal, but we talked more about Ukraine.
Q: But which war do you think ends first?
Trump: That’s an interesting question. Coming from you, that’s very interesting. Which war would end first? I don’t know; maybe they’re on a similar timetable. I think Ukraine, militarily they’re defeated, okay? You wouldn’t know that by reading the fake news. But militarily, look, their Navy — so, they had 159 ships. Every ship is right now underwater. Typically, that’s pretty good.
As usual, Trump’s off-the-cuff stream-of-consciousness commentary is not always as clear as it ought to be, but the “159 ships. Every ship is right now underwater” is clearly a reference to Iran. (Ukraine started the war with only one major ship and scuttled it when the war began. Since then, “Ukraine has been able to destroy one-third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, has pushed the Russian Navy out of the Sea of Azov, and is even forcing Russia to abandon its port at Sevastopol in annexed Crimea,” almost entirely with drones.)