Rockets, bombs and SUVs; one can detest Senator Mark Kelly and be okay with Hegseth, and still say that Hegseth’s being stupid here
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Commenters on Twitchy and other sites are up in arms over Mark Kelly’s supposed traitorous behavior for “leaking” a state secret about our weapon supply. That’s a silly claim. The fact that Kelly was using the issue to attack Trump (and where was Kelly during the rock puppet’s reign?) doesn’t mean that there isn’t a shortage of missiles and all armaments — it’s been known for decades.
Hegseth puts ‘blabbing’ senator on notice after TV talk on weapons stocks
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Sunday suggested Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., may have violated his oath with comments he made to a news outlet following a classified briefing.
Kelly told Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation that it is "shocking how deep we have gone into these magazines" when asked if the Pentagon has updated lawmakers on the Iran war's impact on U.S. weapons stockpiles.
The senator told Brennan the Tomahawks, Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 (SM-3), Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) rounds and Patriot rounds used to defend the U.S. have been hit hard, adding that it will take years to replenish those stockpiles, which could affect a hypothetical U.S. conflict with China.
In response, Hegseth questioned whether Kelly, a former Navy pilot, may have violated his oath and said the Pentagon's legal counsel will review his comments.
"'Captain' Mark Kelly strikes again," Hegseth wrote on X.
"Now he’s blabbing on TV (falsely & dumbly) about a *CLASSIFIED* Pentagon briefing he received," he continued. "Did he violate his oath… again? @DeptofWar legal counsel will review."
The senator clapped back, saying Hegseth had revealed similar information at a recent hearing and that it was not classified.
"We had this conversation in a public hearing a week ago and you said it would take 'years' to replenish some of these stockpiles," Kelly responded on X. "That’s not classified, it’s a quote from you. This war is coming at a serious cost and you and the president still haven’t explained to the American people what the goal is."
This comes amid a months-long dispute between Hegseth and Kelly over the senator's participation in a video with some of his Democratic colleagues in Congress urging U.S. military members to ignore "illegal" orders.
The story caught my eye this morning because I thought, huh? This has been known and talked about for years, and was a hot topic of conversation at the start of the Ukraine war, when we started shipping huge amounts of armaments to that beleagured nation. It’s neither news nor secret. Certainly, our enemies know all about our problem. Here are just three articles on the subject; there are thousands more.
A wake-up call on production issues:
U.S. officials, in the run-up to the Feb. 24 invasion, said they didn’t plan to support Ukraine with arms for a protracted period.
Before the invasion, weapons manufacturers weren’t geared up to make antitank and antiaircraft arms at a wartime pace. While the U.S. had 13,000 Stingers in its stockpile before the invasion, there were no plans to produce more en masse, U.S. officials said. Militaries in Europe that have given their Stingers and antitank missiles to Ukraine now want to refill depleted stocks, creating competition for new units rolling off the assembly line.
“Ready-made stocks are not inexhaustible,” said a defense contractor in Poland. “It isn’t the arsenal of democracy where refrigerator plants are also making airplanes. No. There is a very limited number of production facilities. You can maybe speed up some stuff, but it’s not like you can suddenly open up two or three new production lines.”
Now, as the warfare appears to emulate World War II, defense contractors are racing to ramp up the supplies of antiaircraft and antitank weaponry and ammunition.
December 3 2024: WSJ
Seth G. Jones*
This month, my colleagues and I led members of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party in a simulation of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The goal was to understand how the U.S. defense industrial base would perform in a protracted war with China and to assess the implications for deterrence. The results weren’t reassuring.
The simulation began with a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan in 2026. Both sides suffered heavy losses, but the U.S. defense industrial base was severely stressed. The U.S. military spent its entire inventory of Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles by the end of the first week and ran out of Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range missiles after a month. Taiwan used up its entire inventory of Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles after a week. It would be very difficult to sustain a fight without these weapons.
We also found that the U.S. faces significant supply-chain, workforce and contracting challenges. It has too few solid rocket motors, processor assemblies, castings, ball bearings and forgings. These shortages would drastically limit replacement of weapons systems used or destroyed in a conflict. The U.S. also relies on China for advanced battery parts and key raw materials, which could be cut off in a war.
A shortage of engineers, electricians, pipefitters, shipfitters and metalworkers at U.S. factories and shipyards would also cripple the country’s ability to win a protracted war. These challenges are already delaying the construction of frigates, submarines, destroyers and other ships.
Apr 20, 2026:
Report: Ford, GM May Delay New Car Production in Favor of Weapons For Iran War
Although discussions started before this specific conflict, talks have ramped up since and include Ford and GM.
*Seth G. Jones is an American academic, political scientist, author, and former senior official in the U.S. Department of Defense. Jones is most known for his work on defense strategy, the defense industrial base, irregular warfare, and counter-terrorism. Wikipedia