U.S. Is Low on Cruise Missiles

The U.S. military, strained by continuing operations against Iraq as well as NATO’s bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, is running low on some of the very weapons it needs to fight the wars of its choice.

The nation’s stockpile of cruise missiles--the most versatile of the current generation of “smart” weapons--is being depleted by the unexpectedly large number of attacks--and at a time when there are no production lines in operation.

Low supplies of the missiles are unlikely to hurt the Balkan campaign, but key members of Congress and a wide spectrum of defense analysts say the shortages could limit, perhaps severely, the ability of the U.S. to respond to future provocations. Shortages also could make it more dangerous for the military to fulfill its key post-Cold War goal of being able to fight two major conflicts nearly simultaneously in different parts of the world.

“We don’t know how long this current bombing campaign will continue,” said Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, a high-ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Obviously, if it goes on for some time, we could have a problem.”

Only days after the air war against Yugoslavia began March 24, Defense Department officials acknowledged that the Air Force was running short of conventional air-launched cruise missiles, the stubby, small-winged weapons that allow the nation’s aging B-52 bombers to strike targets from great distances without substantial risk to themselves.

More recently, Navy officials have said they are replenishing supplies of a sea-launched version of the cruise missile--called the Tomahawk--by, among other things, refurbishing some 200 older missiles now in storage.

“We need more than we have in order to be comfortable,” said John Douglass, assistant Navy secretary for research and acquisitions until he became president of the Aerospace Industries Assn. in September. “It’s gradually dawning on all of us that the mean time between crises where we might want to use them is much shorter than anybody thought a few years ago.”

Analysts and key lawmakers say the missile shortfall illustrates some of the conflicting pressures on U.S. armed forces in an era of changing goals and declining budgets. And it offers a case study in the mismatch between public expectations, which were sent sky high by the performance of missiles and other smart weapons during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and military capacities, which lag behind.

“We were spoiled by Desert Storm,” said Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a member of the Armed Services Committee and a Republican presidential aspirant. “The lesson [from Yugoslavia] is that if you are going to bomb with these kinds of expensive weapons for a long time, you’re going to have shortages.” As long as the U.S. strategy is to strike from long distances to avoid casualties, he said, “you’re never going to have enough.”

Exactly how much of a threat the missile shortfall poses is difficult to judge. At least in part, analysts say, this is because the military measures readiness against its two-conflict yardstick at a time when the typical conflict consists of the quick, punitive strikes that the United States, often with a coalition of allies, has conducted in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

“Basically, we have a defense strategy that measures what we are least likely to do and a defense practice for which we have done very little planning,” said Daniel Goure, a former Bush administration Pentagon official and now an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

The shortage of air-launched missiles is startling. Although the Air Force will not release exact figures, most observers estimate that stocks have fallen from a high of about 300 to fewer than 100. At that level, many analysts say, military leaders may soon have to slow or even stop their use of the easily detectable B-52s, which make up one-third of the nation’s long-range bomber force.

The ship-launched Tomahawks are more plentiful, with 2,000 missiles in stock out of an original supply of about 2,700. In addition, Navy officials acknowledge that only about half the 2,000 are immediately available for firing, with the rest in storage or under repair. The Navy has fired more than 400 Tomahawks during a December attack on Iraq and the current conflict against Yugoslavia.

The Clinton administration has asked for $6 billion to pay for the current campaign, almost 10% of it for missiles. “We’re short across the board in munitions, and this is the time to do something about it,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter, (R-El Cajon), chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on procurement.

But Pentagon officials and defense analysts say missile supplies are unlikely to be replenished quickly. There are no cruise missile production lines in operation, and it takes months and, in some cases, more than a year to restart them.

Boeing Co., which built today’s air-launched cruise missiles, initially told the Pentagon that it would take until July of next year to deliver the first of 95 missiles on order, a date it has pushed up to November. However, company officials said it would take several years to supply the more than 230 additional missiles sought by the Defense Department in its $6-billion spending request. Boeing stopped production of a nuclear-tipped version of the cruise missile in 1986 and finished its last conversion of a nuclear missile into a conventional one in 1997.

Raytheon Co., which built the Tomahawk, has said it will take 18 months to deliver the first of what is expected to be a Pentagon order for upgrading 624 older Tomahawks with new satellite guidance systems and better warheads. Raytheon completed its last Tomahawk order in January but said it cannot move faster on the new order because it dismantled its network of suppliers several years ago when it appeared the Navy was not going to buy more missiles.

While military leaders await arrival of the new missile supplies, officials say they are making do with other weapons. These include the Joint Direct Attack Munition, which has a guidance system as sophisticated as that of the missiles but which, analysts say, requires the warplanes delivering them to venture closer to their targets.

Cruise missiles are “the weapons of choice for the kind of conflicts we’ve become involved in in recent years,” said John Pike, a defense analyst with the Federation of American Scientists. “Nothing else fills the bill as well.”

How the military found itself short of missiles is a mix of bad luck, poor planning and, most important, the sea change in the kinds of conflicts the public expects and accepts, analysts and officials said.

Although smart weapons were less than 10% of the total fired during the Gulf War, video footage of missiles slipping down the chimneys of Iraqi bunkers and obliterating them convinced many people that future conflicts could be fought at great distances with virtually no American casualties.

“If there is anything we have learned in the last decade, it is that we cannot bomb indiscriminately because of the public backlash,” said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute, a Washington think tank.

Most analysts estimate that 90% of the weapons used so far in the Yugoslav conflict have been precision-guided. “All of a sudden, the Air Force has got a new role,” said Frank Robbins, director of precision strike systems at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

Those who saw a need to boost missile supplies starting in the early 1990s lost a series of budget skirmishes. And a key missile system, the Tri Service Standoff Attack Missile, was canceled in 1994 after running over budget and failing to meet a series of tests.

The result: “If we had to fight major conflicts, we could, but it would take us longer to prevail at greater losses,” said David Ochmanek, a senior analyst with the Rand Corp. “Right now, we can’t fight the wars we want to.”