Can A Do-It-All Missile Fix The US Navy's China Problem?

During the same year, Fein says the US used at least 2,800 SMs and 2,900 TLAMs, leaving roughly 11,000 SM-series and 6,000 TLAMs, totaling about 17,000 VLS missiles.

Fein cautions that these figures likely overstate usable inventories, as many missiles are reserved for training, lost to attrition, or retired, citing Wall Street Journal (WSJ) estimates suggesting the US may have had only around 4,000 TLAMs in 2020. He adds that operational constraints mean not all missiles are available in the relevant theater for resupply.

Lara Seligman and Matt Berg also mention in a December 2023 Politico article that the US Navy's 2023 engagements with Houthis in the Red Sea highlight a huge cost asymmetry, with the former using multi-million-dollar missiles to shoot down the latter's one-way attack drones costing anywhere between $2,000 to $20,000 – an unsustainable cost ratio.

Those figures sharpen concerns about how the US would sustain a conflict with China over Taiwan. Putting that into perspective, Mark Cancian and other writers mention in a January 2023 Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report that in a US-China conflict over Taiwan, US and allied missile defenses would be rapidly saturated, making interceptor-heavy defense against China impractical.

According to Cancian and others, there will be too many incoming missiles for active defense to protect airfields and surface ships adequately, pointing out that a single Chinese 12-bomber strike could launch over 200 missiles, illustrating the scale of missile exchanges and why defensive inventories would be strained.

The situation is similar for offensive strikes, as Gregory Poling notes for War on the Rocks, that the size and number of China's artificial islands in the South China Sea could mean that it may take 300 missiles to destroy major outposts in the Spratlys, such as Fiery Cross Reef, 100 for Woody Island in the Paracels, and dozens of missiles for smaller outposts.

Comparing the US cost-ratio versus the Houthis and China, Jan van Told mentions in a January 2025 article for The War Zone (TWZ) that People's Liberation Army (PLA) raid density will be far higher than the relative dribbles of Houthi attacks.

Furthermore, Mike Fredenburg mentions in an October 2025 Responsible Statecraft article that while the US could sustain a lopsided missile cost ratio against weaker adversaries such as the Houthis and Iran, the potential costs against a near-peer adversary such as China could rise to unsustainable levels.

But can a do-it-all missile solve the US's missile magazine depth and cost-exchange ratio woes?