Magazine Depth and Shields, by William Schryer

If the U.S. and its allies decide to initiate World War III, they’d better hope it’s short. From William Schryer at imetatronink.substack.com:

Iranian Shahed Drones – Three Variants

In addition to the already-in-progress wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and the Red Sea, we are now staring down the barrel of yet another — rumored to be imminent in southern Lebanon.

There is no doubt Israel (just like its great benefactor, the United States) is, in the context of a “big war”, capable of executing several damaging strikes against a potential peer or near-peer adversary.

Israeli Ballistic and Cruise Missiles and Ranges

But, throughout the imperial domain, there are fatal weaknesses that exist right now, and which cannot be turned into strengths at any point in the near- or medium-term.

The first is what military types call “magazine depth”: munitions stockpiles sufficient to offensively overwhelm, defensively defeat, and strategically outlast the enemy.

Neither the United States, nor any of its largely impotent client nations, possess “magazine depth” sufficient to prosecute anything more than a relatively brief campaign against their potential peer adversaries: Russia, China, Iran — and all or any of their lesser-power partners.

The second problem is a corollary of the first. It is what I will term “shields”: the capacity to defeat a decisive proportion of the strikes one’s enemy can launch against you.

Neither the United States, nor any of its largely impotent client nations — by their own admission — possess anything even approximating comprehensive and effective “shields” against the quantity and quality of the types of strike weapons its potential adversaries can launch against them.

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