비어버린 미군의 탄약고와 확장억제의 신화 [세상읽기]

The United States military arsenal is dwindling, not simply due to the fallout from recent geopolitical tensions. This is the result of a structural crisis that has been looming for years, marking the onset of a strategic fatigue period for the dominant superpower that has governed the post-Cold War world. The U.S. military now appears as a decrepit giant, struggling to withstand long-term conflicts.

The backdrop of Russia-Ukraine war warnings, as President Trump's administration denounced them as "unnecessary giveaways," reveals the stark reality that America's war reserve savings are finite. Even before the Iran conflict, defense leaders, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. David Petraeus, have repeatedly cautioned that prolonged warfare could severely deplete the U.S. military's combat capability and core nuclear stockpile.

With uncertain ally support in the Middle East and reliance on a single front, the depletion of ammunition threatens to fundamentally undermine America's global deterrence. This concern has turned into a grim reality. According to major security research institutions like the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the U.S. military's core precision-guided munitions have dwindled from 1/3 of pre-war inventories to over half in some key systems, such as the Tomahawk missile.

Replenishing these stocks to pre-war levels could take anywhere from three years to the early 2030s, depending on the system. More critically, even pre-war inventories were insufficient to withstand a large-scale confrontation between the U.S. and China. Post-Cold War, the U.S. defense industry focused on efficiency and cost-cutting through "just-in-time" production, which worked well for routine budget adjustments but proved fatally inadequate in multi-layered long-term conflicts.

Bottlenecks in solid rocket motors, advanced navigation systems, specialized casting materials, and skilled labor make quick fixes impossible. Additionally, the U.S. now relies entirely on foreign supply chains for semiconductors and rare earth elements critical to advanced weaponry. The U.S. has become an "arsenal-consuming nation," where ammunition production outpaces production.

Building and operating new factories can take 18-24 months, and rebuilding domestic supply chains and skilled labor could take decades. The CSIS' Tom Karako, a leading researcher, calls this "generation-spanning obsolescence of deterrence." The stark reality of "military fatigue and shortage" was first grasped by America's adversaries.

Iran, upon witnessing the depletion of U.S. airstrikes, responded with a bold "six-point" demand, including the complete lifting of sanctions, return of frozen assets, war reparations, cessation of airstrikes on Iranian forces, and withdrawal of U.S. and allied military forces. This puts the Middle East in a precarious state. For Russia, Putin's forces are fully exploiting the U.S. military's depletion, targeting key infrastructure with ballistic and hypersonic missiles in Ukraine.

The destruction of Patriot and Salmad (SM3/6) missiles in the Gulf underscores the severity of this situation. The U.S. military's depletion has also exposed the vulnerability of Eastern European NATO allies, as Ukraine's Patriot anti-missile systems are now critically low. This has severe implications for the U.S.'s Indo-Pacific strategy, which has shifted from simultaneous deterrence to a more limited, focused approach due to realistic supply constraints.

The U.S. may no longer be able to simultaneously deploy overwhelming conventional forces across all fronts, such as Taiwan Strait, Korean Peninsula, Middle East, and Europe. This raises a critical question: for how long will we unquestioningly accept the premise that America's nuclear umbrella will fully secure our security?