Caleb Larson
A game-changing munitions cache can avoid catastrophe and protect partners across the Indo-Pacific
July 2026, Taiwan Strait — An opening Chinese bombardment of Taiwan has destroyed most of the island’s air and naval forces. Protected underneath an umbrella of long-range standoff munitions, Beijing effectively blockades the island.
One of the largest amphibious invasion forces ever assembled in the history of warfare steams across the Strait toward the smoldering Taiwanese coastline, and thousands of Chinese paratroopers land on Taiwan proper miles behind the beach. Crippled Taiwanese forces waver. Reeling like a stunned boxer, Taipei calls for aid.
And the United States answers.
Beneath the waves, U.S. Navy attack submarines make hay, picking off dozens of Chinese ships, and U.S. Navy surface ships charge into the breach. Augmented by carrier-based fighters and several dozen Air Force bombers scrambled from Japan, salvos of long-range anti-ship missiles burn at the Chinese flotilla, and hundreds of ships founder and sink.
On Taiwan’s western approaches, the disembarked Chinese invasion force carves out a lengthy but shallow toehold along the coast and rolls eastward to link up with airborne troops on the island. Like the fanatical Imperial Japanese soldier of World War II, the PLA’s resistance is stiff. But it is ultimately futile. Cut off from supplies and reinforcements, The PLA’s beachhead rapidly shrinks, and thousands are taken prisoner. Beijing’s invasion has ultimately been in vain.
Taiwan’s beaches are a circus of carnage that beggars description. American and Taiwanese forces have won the day, but the cost is colossal.
Tens of thousands of Taiwanese and American Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines are dead. Nearly two dozen U.S. Navy ships — including two aircraft carriers — are at the bottom of the Taiwan Strait, and hundreds of aircraft are damaged or destroyed.
Triumph on the battlefield is clear, but the aftermath makes the victory Pyrrhic. It is the deadliest battle in a quarter millennium of American history.
Though hypothetical, these are the results of a wargame scenario evaluated two dozen times by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Damage to the global economy would be similarly catastrophic. The Rhodium Group, a consultancy, estimated last year that over two trillion dollars would be lost in a blockade-type scenario even if “the conflict does not become kinetic.” RAND Corporation, a government think tank, estimates a year-long war over Taiwan would reduce China’s GDP by 25–35 percent and American GDP by 5–10 percent. If China invades, or even blockades Taiwan, everyone loses.
Multiple recommendations can be gleaned from the CSIS report, all of which are valid. But one of the study’s most compelling conclusions found that a successful American-Taiwanese defense hinges on the availability of long-range anti-ship munitions.
Thousands of these munitions would be needed to sink an anticipated Chinese amphibious invasion force, and the key findings paint a dire picture. Within the first few days of conflict, the United States fires its entire inventory of Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles (LRASM) “in all scenarios.”
Furthermore, the Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM, and the AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Missile will not be available in high numbers in 2026. And while the report does state that the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER) will be available in higher numbers, that munition may prove to be less effective against naval targets than against the ground targets it was originally designed for.
The consequences of severe ammunition bottlenecks of this scale need not be paper-based hypotheticals — they are already evident on the battlefields of Ukraine now.
I have spent nearly seven months reporting from Ukraine and have seen the fruit of the Ukrainian soldier’s labor first-hand. Ukraine’s success on the battlefield is due to the Ukrainian soldier’s tenacity and grit. Their effort defending Ukrainian land from the Russian war machine is nothing short of herculean.
While Ukraine’s struggle against Russia has been successful, one of the most significant factors currently hampering Kyiv is a shortage of artillery shells. Ukraine’s shell hunger is acute, and soldiers I spoke to in Donbas earlier this month attest to the deficit — and its deadly consequences.
Ukrainian artillerymen cannot respond to all fire mission requests and reserve meager ammunition stocks for critical targets that force a conservative expenditure of ammunition.Though American and European allies are amping up production of NATO-standard 155mm artillery ammunition, and the United Kingdom leads an initiative to source the types of Soviet-era ammunition Ukraine still partially relies on, the shell gap is unlikely to be closed soon.
In short: Ukrainian soldiers are dying because of an artillery shell shortage. And if the United States does not have enough long-range anti-ship missiles — weapons orders of magnitude more complex to manufacture than artillery shells — for a high-intensity conflict with China, so too will American Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines die needlessly.
This disaster can be averted.
To deter – and if necessary, fight effectively and to win — Congress should take a lesson from defense industry planning and create a substantial reserve of munitions that would be critically needed in a potential conflict with China over the invasion of Taiwan. This stockpile of critical munitions should be modeled on the Strategic and Critical Materials Stock Piling Act.
The Strategic and Critical Materials Stock Piling Act is a federally binding law enacted by the United States Congress in 1939 to ensure national defense production during times of crisis. The law mandates a reserve of minerals, primarily metals, be maintained that are essential to the United States’ military and industrial needs and that are in part or primarily sourced outside of the United States.
The United States Geological Survey reviews and updates the critical minerals list every three years. The most recent review, in 2022, expanded the list by adding thirteen minerals considered essential to clean energy technologies.
While the Critical Materials stockpile ensures American defense industrial production during crises, a hefty reserve of minerals is not enough to safeguard the United States and its allies. What is needed now — more than at any time in United States history — is a substantial reserve of munitions that would be critically needed in a potential conflict with China over the invasion of Taiwan.
In addition to a sizable American stockpile, the United States should pave the way for allies in Asia — namely Australia — to manufacture the long-range anti-ship munitions needed to defeat a Chinese invasion flotilla or prevent it from ever embarking.
The cooperative framework needed for the Australian production of munitions exists, represented by recent hints that Canberra may be cleared to produce some American-designed munitions domestically. The political climate for defense industrial cooperation is also ripe, as evidenced by the tripartite AUKUS nuclear submarine agreement between Washington, London, and Canberra.
Stockpiles of cobalt, titanium, tungsten, and other minerals ensure that American industrial output is sustained in times of crisis. So why should America take a different approach to critical munitions that would preserve the United States’ qualitative military edge should a war with China over Taiwan break out?
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