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The Real Reason There’s a Munitions Shortage

More important than fixing production methods is fixing our ill-advised foreign policy.

Washington has been seized with the existence and potential implications of a shortage of munitions, from artillery shells up to and including expensive missile interceptors. But contrary to the conventional wisdom, the munitions “crisis” is not due to bad planning or insufficient funding. It is due to a policy of runaway arms sales and reckless military intervention that should be reined in, not perpetuated for the next generation by expanding US capabilities to produce munitions and missiles.

The top priority should be ending America’s addiction to endless wars and runaway arms dealing, not throwing more money at the Pentagon to bulk up on the tools of war.

To be clear, there are other reasons for the so-called munitions shortage that have more to do with domestic politics than foreign policy excesses. For one, munitions have always been a stepchild in the articulation of the Pentagon’s weapons buying priorities. More profitable big-ticket items like aircraft carriers, combat aircraft (like the deeply dysfunctional F-35), intercontinental ballistic missiles, and ballistic missile and attack submarines have always been favored, both because they are more lucrative for contractors and because those systems have developed strong........

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