Senator Shares Thoughts About U.S. Readiness

Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, who serves on the Appropriations Committee and Armed Services Committee, spoke with the media Tuesday during a Defense Writers Group meeting to discuss the $1.5 trillion defense budget request for fiscal year 2027 and the war with Iran.

The Defense Writers Group, based at George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs, invited Reed as a guest speaker to the routine meeting with defense journalists.

According to a press release from the Pentagon, the proposed fiscal year 2027 defense budget is a 42% increase from the previous budget, and about 52% of the total budget request is aimed at buying munitions, planes, tanks and ships.

While Reed acknowledged the need for a strong defense industrial base, he said Congress is still looking for more detailed information about the budget for authorization and appropriations.

“There's a consciousness on all sides that we have to increase our spending. We have to improve our industrial base. We have to show strong demand signals so that we get product on time and at a reasonable cost,” Reed said. “But we can't just throw money at the problems.”

Regarding the conflict with Iran, Reed said he’s concerned with the “excess” use of U.S. munitions and that the war with Iran has resulted in the absence of missiles and forward-deployed units in the Indo-Pacific.

“The U.S. military has more than enough munitions, ammo and weapons stockpiles to achieve the goals of Operation Epic Fury laid out by President Trump—and beyond," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to Reuters in March.

On March 4, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine held a press briefing four days into Operation Epic Fury, assuring that the department had stockpiles of “exquisite standoff munitions.”

“We have sufficient precision munitions for the task at hand, both on the offense and defense,” Hegseth said. “But I want to tell you, teammates, as a matter of practice, I don't want to be talking about quantities. And I know there's been a great debate about that, and I appreciate the interest, but just know that we consider that an operational security matter.”

Based on an April 21 report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the United States has fired about 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles during the first few weeks of the conflict, which is approximately one-third of the country’s inventory. The report notes that it takes 47 months to deliver a Tomahawk, each costing $2.6 million.

“In the first few days of the war, we were using our most precise and scarcest munitions,” Reed said.

Now, Reed noted the United States is shifting to more plentiful and less sophisticated munitions, like joint direct attack munitions and low-cost unmanned combat attack system drones.

“CENTCOM [U.S. Central Command] is now shifting in day four already from large deliberate strike packages using stand-off munitions at range outside an enemy's ability to shoot at us now into stand-in precision strikes overhead Iran,” Caine said March 4. “As the secretary said, this is a point of munitions transition, from stand-off munitions to stand-in munitions like joint direct attack munitions, which are GPS-aided free-fall weapons, and other things like Hellfires, etc.”

Due to the 24/7 nature of Operation Epic Fury for two months, Reed said he thinks U.S. readiness has been impaired, from the depletion of munitions and destruction of military equipment to the effect it has had on sailors and troops along the border.

In another press briefing on May 5, Hegseth and Caine addressed Operation Project Freedom and what would happen if the two nations did not agree on a peace proposal.

“The president retains the opportunity and the capabilities—more capabilities than we had at the start of this—to restart major combat operations if necessary,” Hegseth said. “If Iran is not willing to follow through on its side of the bargain or make a deal, then the War Department is postured, locked, loaded and ready to go.”

For Reed, the biggest technological investment should be in the implementation of artificial intelligence in defense systems—a top priority for the Defense Department. Reed said the United States should take notes from Ukraine’s use of autonomous drones, which many military leaders are doing.

“Going forward, we have to build every system with the capacity and capability of being autonomous or virtually autonomous,” Reed stressed. “If we don't do that, then we're never going to make the shift from manned systems to fully autonomous systems, and that is the direction of warfare.”