Assessing the allied precision munitions stockpile and building much needed capacity

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has revealed a number of startling truths, not least of which is the serious lack of broad-ranging capacity and depth across the Western world’s defence industrial base (DIB), with major challenges facing many nations as they scramble to replenish their own critical munitions stocks in the face of mounting great power competition.

The accelerating shift away from the post-Second World War order has heralded the rise of an increasingly multipolar world, driven in large part by the rise of ancient powers, namely China and India, flanked by an equally formidable array of emerging powers including Indonesia, Vietnam, Brazil, South Africa, and a myriad of others across the globe.

In particular, the rapid depletion of Western “war stocks” of critical defence materiel ranging from armoured vehicles to medical supplies, small arms, and increasingly towards complex and “high-end” weapons systems like the Javelin, HIMARS, and a range of other guided munitions which have served to provide both the West, and now Ukraine, with a tactical and strategic edge on the battlefield.

This reality is only serving to raise further concerns as the destructive conflict continues to rage and both sides continue to become more desperate to bring about a swift and decisive conclusion to the hostilities without igniting the prospects of direct confrontation between NATO and Russia.

Recognising the implications of this, US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, in a testimony before the US House armed services committee, said, “If there was a war on the Korean peninsula or great power war between the United States and Russia or the United States and China, the consumption rates would be off the charts … So I’m concerned. I know the secretary is ... we’ve got a ways to go to make sure our stockpiles are prepared for the real contingencies.”

This is further reinforced by Georgetown University’s Jennifer Kavanagh, who explained, “As the war in Ukraine continues, there is an emerging consensus across the national security community – including senior defence leaders, members of Congress, defence industry professionals, and think tankers – that the US defence industrial base (DIB) is in crisis, lacking the capacity to meet the demands of a major power war or adequately arm allies and partners for self-defence. The most widely endorsed solution to these perceived shortcomings is a rapid and significant increase in DIB capacity to recreate the ‘arsenal for democracy’ of the World War II era, but this approach would be a costly overcorrection to the underlying challenges. Instead, Washington should adopt a more narrow and sustainable strategy that includes increasing efficiency and flexibility in the US DIB and prioritising arms transfers across partners.”

Expanding on General Milley’s testimony, Kavanagh cites the rapid expenditure of “dumb munitions”, namely, small arms and artillery rounds, and increasingly “smart weapons”, namely precision-guided munitions (PGMs) including the now famed Javelin and Stinger missile systems, has resulted in major concerns about the war stocks of the US and the capacity of the US defence industrial base to meet the demand of partners and allies around the world.

VIEW ALL

“Most of what the United States has sent Ukraine to meet near-term needs has come from US stockpiles, but Washington has struggled to keep pace with Ukraine’s requirements. There are now signs that remaining reserves are reaching levels that the Pentagon is unwilling to fall below, especially for high-demand capabilities. More recent US security assistance packages to Ukraine have not included any additional Stingers or Javelins, for instance. Furthermore, military aid to Ukraine over the first four months of 2023 included a greater share of promised future production through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative than was the case over 2022,” Kavanagh explains.

Yet despite the debate and conversation around planning to rebuild the defence industrial base at home and abroad, there appears to have been little publicly available analysis, at least until now. Tyler Hacker of the US-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) has consolidated a detailed report titled, Beyond Precision: Maintaining America’s Strike Advantage in Great Power Conflict, which highlights the challenges and opportunities facing both the US and allies, especially Australia as we prepare for the unthinkable.

Current plans may not be enough to meet future operational demands

Establishing the central pillar of his thesis and reinforcing the previous statements by both Kavanagh and General Milley, Hacker states, “Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and the West’s efforts to supply weapons to Ukraine have revealed the inadequacy of Western munition stocks and the weapon industrial base for the enormous demands of contemporary conflict. The provision and consumption of vast quantities of weapons have led to questions about the sufficiency of US and allied inventories of more advanced weapons for a conflict with China.”

Despite the pressure applied as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, one of the most overlooked realities is the longstanding tension between the capacity of US defence industrial base to meet the demand of the US military and allies since the widespread inception and fielding of precision guided munitions – simply put, this isn’t a new issue, rather it is a longstanding issue we simply haven’t addressed.

“The events of the last year have focused a spotlight on a seldom prioritised and understudied topic in defence analysis: munitions, especially the precision-guided munitions (PGMs) essential to modern warfighting. Despite recent attention devoted to weapons and their industrial base, concerns about the inadequacy of US PGM stocks are nothing new. In fact, the US military has encountered difficulties meeting its PGM demands in nearly every campaign since their adoption,” Hacker explains.

Given the centrality of precision-guided munitions in the tactical and strategic warfighting plans of both the United States and allies, including Australia, this recognition is particularly concerning in light of mounting great power tensions and competition, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, and while many nations, both the US and Australia in particular, have sought to rectify these shortfalls through programs like Australia’s own, multi-billion dollar Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance Enterprise (GWEO), there remains major concerns.

Again, Hacker adds, “Facing the potential of great power conflict in the Indo-Pacific, the United States is currently procuring increasing numbers of PGMs and seeking to bolster its munitions industrial base. These efforts, however, may not be enough to satisfy the demands of future campaigns, particularly protracted conflicts against a near-peer or peer opponent. Many assumptions about munitions consumption and the United States’ ability to surge weapons production are no longer valid.”

Unpacking the industrial realities of this, Hacker reinforces concerns about the US defence industrial base, while also highlighting that there is a growing recognition that allies will become increasingly important in any potential future conflict.

“Procuring greater quantities of PGMs and fortifying their industrial base is critical in the long-run, but realistic fiscal, industrial, and political constraints might prevent the United States from producing or purchasing weapons at a rate that meets the staggering requirements of a near-term conflict. Ultimately, these demands should force the US military to think innovatively about precision-strike and seek improved ways of designing, producing, and employing the next generation of precision-guided munitions,” Hacker states, highlighting the need for greater allied cooperation in this space.

This echoes similar sentiments identified by Kavanagh who explains the growing need for US policymakers to accept that the United States isn’t going to be able to do this all on their own and that allies will play an increasingly central part in countering potential great power conflict in the Indo-Pacific, stating, “Washington should develop mechanisms that prioritise existing DIB bandwidth based on national security goals. This will mean making trade-offs between potential buyers based on need, for example, between Taiwan and Middle Eastern partners. Relying on arms exporting partners like South Korea, India, and France to meet some global demand could be helpful. The United States should also encourage greater DIB investment from Europe, for its own defence and to increase contributions to Ukraine."

Buy the licence, build local, sell global

Yet despite the growing broad-based recognition that allies will play an increasingly central and pivotal role in any potential great power conflict, coupled with the potential of frameworks like the AUKUS trilateral agreement, we seem to be missing a quick win, particularly for Australia.

In particular, working with the United States under the auspice of AUKUS presents an avenue for Australia to commercialise the local manufacture of critical precision-guided munitions under licence from the US parent companies of our central strategic partners identified as part of the GWEO Head Agreement and Strategic Partnering framework, while also providing an economic incentive for these companies at the US-corporate level to expand investment in Australia’s defence industrial capacity as a supplement to the US industrial base.

Such a licensing/franchised approach equally provides the opportunity for both the Australian and US industrial base to stand up capacity that can meet the demand of both parties and the broader alliance framework that depend heavily on critical US-designed and built precision-guided munitions with a reliable, sustainable, and competitive network of diverse manufacturing, sustainment, and maintenance hubs close to the epicentre of Indo-Pacific great power competition.

Another potential avenue to trial such a model is by expanding the scope of collaboration and work with Norwegian company Kongsberg, which is slated to deliver the Naval Strike Missile and Joint Strike Missile for Australia, the United States, Japan, India, and a host of other nations across the Indo-Pacific and more broadly in the global context to build critical economies of scale to support an Australian manufacturing, sustainment, and maintenance-focused export hub for these new-generation precision-guided munitions.

With this renewed emphasis on modernising and expanding the US defence industrial base and the Western defence industrial base, more broadly, is it time for Australia to take real, measurable steps to embrace the opportunities presented by agreements like AUKUS and to take the initiative to build a viable, competitive, and sustainable defence and advanced manufacturing industrial base?

Supporting the next stage of industry development requires a unique policy approach as well as combining the existing elements of Australia’s existing innovation and science agenda with a suite of grant allocation and targeted, contractual tax incentives (signed between the Commonwealth and the company as a memorandum of understanding) linked to a combination of long-term, local job creation, foreign contract success, local industry content, and research and development programs – in specialised export-orientated industry clusters.

Developing centres of excellence supporting export growth, in partnership with Australian and international primes, can leverage the policy levers used to develop other national facilities and integration within global supply chain and programs to support the development and rehabilitation of local naval shipbuilding capabilities with a focus on capitalising on the growing demand for warships in the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East in particular.

Furthermore, it serves to make Australia more resilient to man-made and natural shocks, resistant to coercion, economically competitive and robust at a time when the Australian public are calling for leadership, forward planning, and vision.

Final thoughts

Australia’s overwhelming dependence on other major powers for critical supplies ranging from raw industrial inputs and liquid energy, through to highly specialised military munitions, has increasingly drawn attention from policymakers and strategic planners, yet despite the rhetoric of successive governments, we seem to be going around in circles and reinventing the wheel.

However, with renewed emphasis on modernising and expanding the US defence industrial base and the Western defence industrial base, more broadly, is it time for Australia to take real, measurable steps to embrace the opportunities presented by agreements like AUKUS and to take the initiative to build a viable, competitive, and sustainable defence and advanced manufacturing industrial base?

Meanwhile, the rapid devolution of our strategic environment, coupled with the advent of grey zone warfare and hybrid conflict being levelled against us require a dramatic reimagination of our concept of national security and sovereignty. This shift is perhaps best explained by US academic Charles Maier, who unpacks the concept of national security as: “National security ... is best described as a capacity to control those domestic and foreign conditions that the public opinion of a given community believes necessary to enjoy its own self-determination or autonomy, prosperity and well-being.”

Central to this, the Australian public needs to be educated on the challenges we face in our region, and more broadly, the post-Second World War order upon which our wealth and stability is built, because without it, many Australians will blindly simply go with the flow and watch as we fade into the pages of history.

Enhancing Australia’s capacity to act as an independent power, incorporating great power-style strategic economic, diplomatic, and military capability serves as a powerful symbol of Australia’s sovereignty and evolving responsibilities in supporting and enhancing the security and prosperity of Indo-Pacific Asia.

Get involved with the discussion and let us know your thoughts on Australia’s future role and position in the Indo-Pacific region and what you would like to see from Australia’s political leaders in terms of partisan and bipartisan agenda setting in the comments section below, or get in touch This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Stephen Kuper

Steve has an extensive career across government, defence industry and advocacy, having previously worked for cabinet ministers at both Federal and State levels.

Send me a message