The Radford Ammunition Plant in Maryland remains the heart of the U.S. ammunition supply chain. And an increased supply of ammunition has also been essential to the global war on terror that the U.S. armed forces have been required to wage over the past seven and a half years following the mega terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000 Americans.

The importance of an adequate supply of ammunition to the success and well-being of the war fighter was underscored by the experiences of operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

Early in both campaigns, U.S. forces went into combat with an inadequate supply of small- and medium-caliber ammunition. Erroneous expectations regarding the duration, severity and basic character of the conflicts caused military planners in the Bush administration to underestimate the amount of small- and medium-caliber ammunition U.S. forces would require. U.S. military leaders had forgotten the lessons of unconventional warfare in which close combat required the expenditure of prodigious amounts of ammunition.

By some estimates, U.S. forces expended nearly 250,000 bullets for every Iraqi insurgent that they killed. As Andrew Buncombe reported in The Independent, a London newspaper, on Sept. 25, 2005, the United States was even forced to import bullets from Israel to meet the increasing demand.

Prior to the events of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. Army's annual demand for small-caliber ammunition was approximately 300 million rounds a year. Moreover, since the end of the Cold War, the Army's ammunition stockpiles had been depleted, and what remained was often not suitable for combat use.

Within a short period of time, it became evident that this was not sufficient to meet both the demand from the field and from the training base. The demand for 5.56mm, 7.62mm and .50 caliber rounds was especially great; these categories represented more than 95 percent of ammunition spending, as Katherine Peters reported in her article, "Biting the Bullet," published in Government Executive magazine on July 15, 2004.

The Army's demand for small-caliber ammunition soared from 426 million rounds in 2001 to 1.5 billion rounds in 2006, generating a yearlong backlog in demand, the Houston Chronicle reported on May 21, 2007.

In addition, the U.S. military quickly realized that in order to meet the challenge of the global war on terror, it was necessary that every American soldier and Marine be proficient with his or her individual weapon.

Military Transformation Via More Firepower Boosts Ammo Demands
The U.S. military quickly realized that in order to meet the challenge of the global war on terror, it was necessary that every American soldier and Marine be proficient with his or her individual weapon. This meant expending large amounts of ammunition on training. As a result, the demand for ammunition exploded.

The Department of Defense's increased requirements for small- and medium-caliber ammunition have largely been driven by increased weapons-training requirements, dictated by the U.S. Army's transformation to a more self-sustaining and lethal force -- which was accelerated after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- and by the deployment of forces to conduct recent U.S. military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. The U.S. Government Accountability Office documented this evolution in the increasing demands for ammunition in a July 2005 study titled "DOD Meeting Small- and Medium-Caliber Ammunition Needs, but Additional Actions Are Necessary."

Demand for small-caliber ammunition escalated dramatically because of requirements from the field and from the training base.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, the demand for medium-caliber ammunition also more than doubled. Additional production lines were established to meet the increased production requirements.

The problem was not simply one of firing up a robust ammunition industrial base. Without the steady demand from the military, the Cold War-era ammunition industrial base -- much of which actually dated back to World War II -- was allowed to atrophy.

The ammunition industrial base responded extremely well to the rising demand occasioned by the war on terror. The U.S. military was extremely fortunate that it had a viable, if aged, ammunition industrial base on which to rely. It was also fortunate to have a set of private contractors operating most of its facilities -- contractors who were committed to meeting the new demands and willing to invest their own resources.

There is a lesson in this for the future. Much of the ammunition industrial base is antiquated; only limited modernization has occurred. Next time, we might not be so lucky. As the United States under the new leadership of President Barack Obama plans for a reduced tempo of operations in the global war on terror consistent with a phased withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps' demand for ammunition is expected to decline. Unless measures are taken now to maintain an adequate, modernized ammunition industrial base, the next time a crisis occurs and the demand for ammunition spikes, that industrial base may not be able to respond.

Part 5: How shortages of ammunition at critical times can prove catastrophic to combat missions

(Daniel Goure is vice president of the Lexington Institute, an independent think tank in Arlington, Va.)

(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)

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