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In the weeks since the White House and the Pentagon briefly scuffled over sending weapons to Ukraine, a question at the core of the debate remains: Is the size of our weapons stockpile large enough to counter mounting threats against the U.S.?
The War Horse sat down with Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and current senior adviser with the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to discuss the stockpile, Ukraine, and those Patriot weapons systems we agreed to send.
First, a look back at how we got here.
- Feb. 28: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy leaves the White House without signing a minerals deal after a contentious Oval Office meeting.
- March 3: Trump pauses military aid for Ukraine. Critics argue the pause weakens national security.
- April 11: Hegseth virtually attends a Ukrainian defense coordination.
- June 4: Hegseth skips a Ukraine military aid meeting. It is the first time a U.S. defense secretary has not attended since the war began.
- June 5: Trump suggests Russia and Ukraine should “fight for a while.”
- July 1: Pentagon stops promised shipments to Ukraine. Officials said the U.S. stockpile had declined too much.
- July 8: The White House and Pentagon are at odds over sending weapons to Ukraine.
- July 9: U.S. resumes sending some weapons to Ukraine after pause.
- July 11: NATO will pay for US weapons sent to Ukraine, Trump says.
- July 13: US will send Patriot missiles to Ukraine.
Q: What do we know about the current state of the U.S. weapons stockpile?
There is no hard answer, Cancian said, because the Department of Defense does not publish numbers of the current weapons stockpiles, “so that has to be inferred.” However, it is possible to make some rough calculations. Right now, he said, “there’s no question that the stockpile of certain weapons is low.”
This could be a security risk in some scenarios, Cancian said, like if a prolonged conflict on the Korean Peninsula or with China emerged.
The Pentagon disputed a report earlier this month in The Guardian that the U.S. has about 25% of the Patriot missile interceptors it needs after tapping stockpiles for operations in the Middle East in recent months.
Cancian said the broad categories of weapons from the U.S. stockpile that are probably low now include artillery ammunition, artillery systems, rocket systems, air defense munitions, and anti-tank munitions. “Those are areas where DOD has invested money to increase the production rate. That’s an indicator that those are especially stressed.”
Q: How long has this been an issue?
The U.S. has been sending weapons to Ukraine for nearly three years, and has been sending weapons to other countries as well, including Israel.
But not all the weapons that we send to Ukraine come directly from our stockpile. Cancian said there are two mechanisms by which we send military equipment to Ukraine: drawdowns of the current stockpile and manufacturing of new equipment. The drawdown method is faster, and Ukraine can get the weapons in about six months.
Cancian says that DOD has a threshold for drawdowns, however. When that threshold is reached, the rest of the promised weapons must be manufactured first, then sent to Ukraine. This process takes much longer — up to 42 months.
Q: How did the current level of the weapons stockpile contribute to the brief pause in weapons shipments to Ukraine at the beginning of July?
Cancian said two factors caused the pause, which only lasted a few days. The first was the low level of certain items in the U.S. weapons stockpile.
The other factor was a “shift in strategy,” which he attributes to Elbridge Colby, the current Under Secretary of Defense for Policy at the Department of Defense. “He regards Ukraine as a distraction, and every weapon that you send to Ukraine is one weapon that could help us in a potential conflict with China,” Cancian said.
On July 13, the Wall Street Journal reported that a memo Colby wrote about depleted U.S. stockpiles and shared with DOD Secretary Pete Hegseth may have contributed to the pause.
However, the Associated Press reported that this strategy shift caught the President off guard, and weapons shipments to Ukraine soon resumed.
Q: How will the new weapons shipments to Ukraine impact the US weapons stockpile dilemma?
The President recently pledged multiple Patriot missile defense systems worth billions of dollars to Ukraine, with NATO countries footing the bill.
It is unclear where exactly these systems are coming from, Cancian said. Some may already exist and just need to be shipped, while others might still need to be built by the manufacturer, Raytheon Technologies.
In addition to the U.S., 18 countries currently have Patriot systems, and others are buying them, including Germany, Switzerland, Poland, and Morocco.
Q: How will the Patriot missiles help Ukraine turn the tide of the war with Russia?
Cancian said that while these surface-to-air missile interception systems are very useful, “they are just one piece of an air defense system that Ukraine needs help with.”
Patriot is a high-end system that costs about $3 million a shot and specifically shoots down ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and aircraft, Cancian said. These are extremely deadly threats, but they are only about 5% of the air defense threats that Ukraine faces, he said.
The other 95% come from low-flying Kamikaze drones, which the Patriot system can’t defend against. So are the Patriot missile systems “a game changer? No,” Cancian said. “There’s no such thing as a game changer.” The Ukrainian army still needs other supplies, including ammunition, trucks, and medical supplies to keep fighting against Russia.
This War Horse explainer was reported by Leah Rosenbaum, edited by Mike Frankel. Hrisanthi Pickett wrote the headlines.
