US Banking On Cheap Missiles To Narrow China War Gap

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In contrast, Lockheed's CMMT, or“Comet,” is a modular, non-stealthy missile priced at $150,000 and optimized for global assembly and palletized mass launch from cargo aircraft. Barracuda emphasizes software-defined autonomy and flexible mission roles, while CMMT focuses on industrial-scale modularity and global assembly for cost-effective mass deployment.

As the US military turns to low-cost cruise missiles like Barracuda, CMMT and the Red and Green Wolf to achieve affordable mass, a critical question looms: can these cheaper weapons deliver sufficient firepower, scale and survivability to offset industrial shortfalls and support sustained combat in a high-intensity war with China?

According to the US DoD's 2024 China Military Power Report (CMPR) , China possesses the world's largest navy by battle force, exceeding 370 ships and submarines, including over 140 major surface combatants.

Mark Gunzinger argues in a November 2021 article for Air & Space Forces Magazine that the US suffers from a shortage of precision-guided munitions (PGMs), rooted in outdated assumptions favoring short wars, which he argues limits its ability to sustain combat against China.

Seth Jones writes in a January 2023 report for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) that the US defense industrial base remains optimized for peacetime and lacks resilient supply chains. Jones warns that this situation leaves the US unprepared for a protracted conflict, such as a Taiwan contingency against China, where early depletion of high-end munitions could prove disastrous.

He stresses that in a potential US-China war over Taiwan, the US could expend up to 5,000 high-end, multi-million-dollar long-range missiles-including the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM), Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM), Harpoon anti-ship missile and Tomahawk cruise missile-within the first three weeks of conflict.

While ramping up production of lower-end PGMs could, to some extent, alleviate shortages, Evan Montgomery and others argue in a June 2024 article for War on the Rocks that cheap, mass-produced PGMs often lack the performance-stealth, speed, range and penetrating power-needed to generate lasting strategic effects.

Drawing on recent case studies, they point out that Israel's neutralization of Iran's April 2024 drone swarm using $20,000-$50,000 Shahed loitering munitions contrasts sharply with Ukraine's selective use of advanced, multi-million-dollar munitions such as Storm Shadow and the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). They note the latter precision strikes forced costly Russian Black Sea Fleet redeployments and disrupted operations.

Montgomery and others conclude that low-cost swarms may struggle to inflict meaningful attrition, particularly if autonomy and swarming technologies remain immature or economically unscalable.

Given the capability gap between high-end PGMs like the $3.2 million per unit LRASM and more affordable systems such as the Red Wolf, Stacey Pettyjohn and others argue in a January 2025 article for the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) that the US must urgently implement a high-low PGM mix to deter China.

They argue that China's People's Liberation Army's (PLA) rapid expansion and increasingly coercive maneuvers have outpaced the US's Indo-Pacific posture, exposing a strategic mismatch in both capability and scale.

They point out that while high-end weapons are critical for penetrating advanced defenses and executing high-value missions, they are constrained by cost, availability and replenishment lag.

Conversely, they state low-cost autonomous systems can be produced more rapidly and in greater numbers to bolster mass and sustain combat effectiveness over time, though they lack the capability of high-end systems.