Report: Biden Defense Department’s Weapon Supply Is Unprepared for a Conflict With China

The armaments industry that provides the Department of Defense’s weapon supply is “not adequately prepared” for any major regional conflicts, including a war with China in the Taiwan Strait, according to a study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The Washington, D.C.-based think tank found through a series of war games that the United States would quickly run out of munitions, particularly long-range, precision-guided munitions, if it ever faced a Taiwan Strait conflict. Outdated military contracting procedures and a sluggish bureaucracy are among the weaknesses that make it “extremely difficult for the United States to sustain a protracted conflict.”

The report took aim at the Foreign Military Sales program under President Joe Biden for failing to adapt to the current security environment and remaining “risk-averse, inefficient, and sluggish.” CSIS senior vice president Seth Jones, who wrote the report, is concerned that the problems with the industrial base are hurting the country’s ability to deter conflict in the Indo-Pacific region.

“How do you effectively deter if you don’t have sufficient stockpiles of the kinds of munitions you’re going to need for a China-Taiwan Strait kind of scenario?” Jones told the Wall Street Journal. “The bottom line is the defense industrial base, in my judgment, is not prepared for the security environment that now exists.”- READ MORE