The Return of the Arsenal of Democracy — and Its Allies

In early March 2026, there was a growing chorus suggesting that the United States and Israel are on the brink of “running out of munitions.” It is an arresting claim. It is also, on closer inspection, deeply misleading.

While precise stockpile figures are not publicly disclosed, the available evidence points in the opposite direction: expanding production lines, rising defence budgets, and major defence firms reporting record revenues and multi-year backlogs. This is not the profile of nations approaching exhaustion, but of systems adjusting to sustained demand. Strength lies not merely in what sits in storage, but in the capacity to regenerate.

What we are witnessing is not the exhaustion of Western arsenals, but the collision of peacetime assumptions with the realities of high-intensity warfare.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022—now in its fourth year—exposed uncomfortable truths. Western stockpiles, particularly of anti-tank guided missiles and artillery ammunition, were not configured for prolonged, high-intensity conflict. Thousands of Javelin missiles and vast quantities of artillery rounds were rapidly transferred in the early months to blunt the Russian advance and save the Ukrainian state.

For a time, inventories were drawn down at a rate that appeared difficult to sustain.

But that is only half the story.

Serious nations adapt. They mobilise. As at March 2026, within an otherwise comfortable and complacent West, the United States and Israel stand out as among the few nations meaningfully adjusting to a more dangerous era.
The United States has expanded its defence industrial base at pace. The Army is driving towards producing 100,000 155mm rounds per month by 2026. Javelin production is increasing, supply chains reconfigured, and Washington has rediscovered a familiar lesson: industrial capacity is strategic power.

This is not decline. It is reorientation.

President Donald Trump’s insistence that NATO nations lift defence spending towards 5 per cent of GDP reflects a harder truth: security cannot be outsourced indefinitely to American taxpayers. For decades, many Western nations enjoyed the dividends of peace while allowing military and industrial capacity to atrophy.

That was a choice. It is now a liability.

The United States itself faces mounting fiscal pressure. In 2024, interest payments on national debt exceeded US$1 trillion, rivalling defence spending of approximately US$850–900 billion. The equation is simple: global commitments cannot be sustained indefinitely alongside compounding debt at this scale.

At some point, the bill must be paid.

President Trump’s approach is unmistakably transactional. Contribute meaningfully to your own defence, or accept diminished American support. The United States has long underwritten Western security—not just with treasure, but with blood. That model is no longer sustainable.

As that reality asserts itself, it raises an uncomfortable question: how prepared are America’s allies to carry their share of the burden? Here, the posture of key Anglosphere nations warrants scrutiny.

Across much of the Anglosphere—under Keir Starmer, Mark Carney and Anthony Albanese—today’s leadership may, in time, be judged less favourably than Neville Chamberlain. Chamberlain, for all his errors, was shaped by the searing memory of the “War to End All Wars.” His failure was one of judgement, not complacency. Today’s risk is different, but no less serious. It is sharpened by Carney’s call for “middle powers” to loosen reliance on great powers—an idea that implies drift from the U.S.-led alliance system that has underpinned Western security for generations. At a moment when authoritarian powers are consolidating strength, such thinking risks fragmentation, not resilience. Few remarks could have brought more quiet satisfaction to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. Western nations would do well to reject this thinking and return to a clear-eyed understanding of power and alliance.

These nations remain deeply dependent on the United States—not only for military protection, but across a broader ecosystem: Five Eyes intelligence, advanced defence technologies, extended nuclear deterrence, and economic stability underpinned by the U.S. dollar. These are not peripheral dependencies. They are foundational.

Yet dependency without contribution breeds vulnerability.
For generations, the West has grown comfortable on American “carrots”—security guarantees, open markets, technological leadership. But carrots alone do not sustain discipline. There is an older logic reasserting itself: incentives balanced by consequences.

Pay the piper.

Or accept that the music may stop.

Israel has drawn a parallel lesson—perhaps more acutely than any other nation. While closely aligned with the United States, it has been reminded that no country can afford to leave critical warfighting capability entirely subject to external political dynamics.

Sovereign resilience requires sovereign capacity.

Israel is not a passive recipient of aid. It is one of the world’s leading defence innovators and exporters. The imperative is clear: deepen domestic production of key munitions and ensure freedom of action in crisis.
This is not a rejection of alliance. It is strategic insurance.

China has spent decades building industrial depth at scale, prioritising resilience while Western nations pursued efficiency and just-in-time supply chains. At the same time, China has supported adversarial ecosystems through dual-use inputs critical to munitions production.

Authoritarian powers prepare for long wars before democracies fully accept the need.

The West is rediscovering that truth.

The idea that the United States and Israel will simply “run out” of munitions misunderstands modern war. Stockpiles matter—but they are only one part of a larger system. What decides outcomes is not what can be spent, but what can be sustained.

Factories matter.

Industrial depth matters.

The capacity to regenerate matters.

This transition will require investment, discipline and political will.

But it is underway.

And it reflects a return to first principles.

Nations, like individuals, are defined by their choices.

They can choose comfort and dependency.

Or responsibility and strength.

As John F. Kennedy observed: “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.”

That time has passed.

The storm is here.

The arsenal is returning.

The only question that remains is whether its allies will return with it.

Colonel Michael Scott CSC retired from the Australian Army in 2026 after more than three decades of service. His career included operational deployments to East Timor, Bougainville, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a 27-month posting in Jerusalem as Head of Military for the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation, operating in Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt.

He is the founder of The 2023 Foundation, a non-Jewish-led initiative dedicated to combating antisemitism through education and lived experience. Michael is the author of A Light Still Burns: Israel and the Values Worth Defending, with his second book, When Our Light Is Tested: The Bondi Massacre and the Choices Ahead, to be released in April 2026.