America Has a 155mm Artillery Munitions Problem

The United States is at risk of critically depleting its munitions stockpiles by simultaneously supporting Israel, Ukraine, and other international partners.

Ukrainian servicemen fire with a French self-propelled 155 mm/52-calibre Caesar gun toward Russian positions at a front line in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas on June 15, 2022. (ARIS MESSINIS/AFP via Getty Images)

The United States is at risk of depleting large amounts of its munitions stockpiles as it struggles to arm Israel, Ukraine, and other allies against increased aggression.

The United States may have some leeway in developing its defense-industrial base, however, as the military capabilities required by Israel and Ukraine don’t currently share significant overlap.

Worries over increased strain to an already thinly spread munitions supply chain began when it was revealed that the Biden administration had ordered munitions back to Israel that it had initially removed in support of Ukraine.

The United States previously stored 300,000 rounds of 155 mm artillery ammunition in Israel but moved half of that to Europe in January to support Ukraine’s defense against a Russian invasion. It has since returned the rounds to Israel, however, following the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks and Israel’s subsequent declaration of war on the terrorist organization.

“As for 155 ammunition, what had happened prior to the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack, is some had been withdrawn from the war reserve stockpile in Israel to replenish U.S. stocks in Europe,” Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters on Oct. 23.

“Much of that has been redirected and provided to the Israel Defense Forces for their use.”

Artillery shells ready for shipping are stored at the Scranton Army ammunition plant in Scranton, Pa., on April 12, 2023. (Hannah Beier/Getty Images)

Israel, Ukraine Require Different Capabilities

The back-and-forth has caused some confusion about U.S. strategic priorities, with various experts and pundits offering conflicting views as to whether Israel or Ukraine would be more negatively affected by the move.

Retired U.S. Army Reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Schaffer said that the move demonstrated that the Biden administration was unable to provide support to Israel because of its Ukraine aid.

“The United States raided its stock of weapons to support Ukraine earlier this year,” Mr. Schaffer said during an Oct. 18 interview with Epoch Times sister media outlet NTD.

“Much of the military stock that the United States would have provided to the Israelis regarding the offensive just isn’t there.”

Conversely, some media outlets have insisted that the transfer of 155 mm rounds from Ukraine to Israel will instead harm Ukraine and help Russia in its attempted conquest of the nation.

Ukrainian officials, however, say that both arguments are wrong.

The current wartime situations in Israel and Ukraine are different, and the two powers require quite different military capabilities, Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, said.

(Left) People gather for a rally in support of Ukraine in front of the parliament building in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Feb. 25, 2022. (Right) Israelis wave their national flag during a march near the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Israel, on May 13, 2018. (Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images; Daro Sulakauri/Getty Images)

“We don’t see anything that would raise concerns about it. The biggest concern is how to find additional weapons and everything else,” Ms. Markarova told reporters during an Oct. 27 meeting of the Military Reporters and Editors group.

“The delivery of the previously announced packages goes as planned. I’m not a military expert, but even from the public discussions, it looks like we need different capabilities [from what Israel needs].”

Still, Ms. Markarova acknowledged that the 155 mm rounds, in particular, are necessary for Ukraine’s ongoing defense and expressed hope that Ukraine and its international partners would be able to increase the supply.

“There is not an unlimited supply of air defense or 155 artillery munitions. ... It just means that we have to work together with our partners,” she said.

“We have to be more creative. We have to find the right mix of capabilities that we have to [create] more game-changers.”

Pentagon leadership agreed with the sentiment.

“The difference here is that Israel has a very advanced military, a very Western-style military, already,“ Gen. Ryder told reporters on Oct. 26. ”So the needs writ large are different between what Israel is asking for and what Ukraine is asking for. We are confident that we will be able to support both.”

To that end, he said, the United States is working with partners in its defense-industrial base to “ramp up production” of critical munitions such as the 155 mm rounds.

Officials at the Defense and State departments didn’t respond to requests for comment as to whether the previous removal of 155 mm rounds from Israel may have limited deterrence efforts against Hamas.

A German armaments technician labels ammunition for a 155mm self-propelled howitzer, at the Rheinmetall facility in Unterluess, Germany, on June 6, 2023. (Axel Heimken/AFP via Getty Images)

Changing Needs Will Challenge US Capacity

There’s no guarantee that Israel’s and Ukraine’s needs will remain different.

The longer that Israel’s war in Gaza continues, the more likely the nation will be to require non-precision munitions such as the 155 mm rounds.

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The Biden administration has delivered more than 2 million 155 mm rounds to Ukraine, according to a September fact sheet released by the Pentagon. More of the same is going to be needed in great quantities if Ukraine seeks to push farther into occupied territory.

William LaPlante, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, said that the Pentagon would need to accept a “paradigm shift” in its way of doing business to secure U.S. stockpiles.

“Very few people anticipated the prolonged, high-volume conflict we are seeing in Ukraine or that we might see again against a strategic competitor,” Mr. LaPlante told reporters on Oct. 25.

“We are relearning just how resource-intensive this type of warfare can be and how dialing down our production numbers and the just-in-time delivery model doesn’t work in this kind of conflict. We need a paradigm shift to meet the needs of today and the future fight.”

Other U.S. leaders have expressed concern that they won’t be able to adequately respond to several possible contingencies in the Indo-Pacific, including Chinese aggression toward Taiwan or the Philippines or a North Korean attack on South Korea or Japan.

Two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters take part in a drill at the Ching Chuan Kang air force base in Taichung, Taiwan, on June 7, 2018. (Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images)

Likewise, a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank earlier this year found that the United States could exhaust key munitions in a war over Taiwan in less than a week of open war with China.

Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth has said that U.S. munitions production capacity has been pushed to the “absolute edge.”

In March, then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley said that the nation “has a long way to go” to replenish its sorely depleted stockpiles.

The Pentagon declined to provide an update to The Epoch Times on the status of its current munitions stockpiles, saying that the information could jeopardize “operational security.”

To that end, Mr. LaPlante said he hopes that increased production rates of critical munitions would prevent belligerent powers from seeking to initiate more conflicts.

“Production itself is deterrence,” he said. “It’s as simple as that. The more we work together to expand global capacity of production and sustainment and foster opportunities for even co-development, co-production, and co-sustainment, the better off we will be.”

Illegal Arms Deals Weaken US Over Time

Until the United States successfully expands its stores of munitions, its adversaries may exploit the nation’s weaknesses by encouraging regional conflicts to escalate, thereby depleting the United States’ military and economic resources.

China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia are thus coordinating mutually beneficial economic and arms deals in a manner that will press the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, thus boosting the need for U.S. arms.

North Korea and Iran are providing arms to Russia in large quantities for use in its war against Ukraine. Russia, meanwhile, is likely working to give the two authoritarian powers access to advanced fighter jets and other technologies, thereby enabling them to conduct further hostilities in their respective regions.

“As the current situation shows, unfortunately, we see the frequent visits of Hamas and Iran to Moscow and how they are coordinating and discussing their actions,” Ms. Markarova said.

Likewise, communist China is helping all three powers to skirt sanctions and pursue infrastructure development, even as they support terror groups such as Hamas.

An employee of Belgian weapon and ammunition manufacturing company Mecar assembles a 120mm shell, in Petit-Roeulx-lez-Nivelles, Belgium, on Oct. 24, 2023. (John ThysaJ/AFP via Getty Images)

Biden Seeks Massive Security Package

Further complicating the issue of U.S. munitions levels is that the United States also needs to see to its own operations.

The Biden administration is sending 900 U.S. troops to the Middle East following more than 16 attacks on U.S. and Coalition forces in October. That personnel number is in addition to an already increased U.S. military presence in the region, including two aircraft carrier strike groups, multiple squadrons of fighter jets, and Marine Corps elements.

President Joe Biden is also requesting that Congress approve a $105 billion supplementary spending package that would allocate $61 billion in aid to Ukraine and $14.3 billion to Israel.

The requested package would primarily fund air and missile defense capabilities for Israel and use presidential drawdown authorities to assist Ukraine, meaning that the weapons would be transferred directly from U.S. stockpiles to Ukraine, with the money then used to restore U.S. capabilities.

The longer such aid continues, however, the more likely the United States is to face a security crisis of its own. The war in Ukraine has gone on for less than two years, for example, and Ms. Wormuth has said that it would take about 15 years to fully modernize the U.S. munitions base.

Soldiers with the 82nd Airborne division walk across the tarmac to deploy to Poland, at Fort Bragg, N.C., on Feb. 14, 2022. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that the United States is capable of offering continued support for both Israel and Ukraine, but he didn’t say how long it could do so.

“We can and will stand by Israel, even as we stand by Ukraine,” Mr. Austin told reporters on Oct. 12.

“Our support for Israel is rock solid. We’re working urgently to get Israel what it needs to defend itself, including munitions and Iron Dome interceptors. And we will do so, even as we continue to support the people of Ukraine as they fight against Russian aggression.”