Iran war shows how munitions depletion and public opposition can curb conflict escalation, offering a diplomatic path for Asean.
AMONG key stake players with a financial or related self-interest in the prolongation of the Iran war are defence contractors, arms manufacturers and their lobby groups in politics, economy, think-tanks and the media.
Already highly successful, as seen in the impact on record earnings and elevated stock market values of companies such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, L3Harris Technology and Raytheon, they have been encouraged by news of the rundown in American munitions supply as a result of which President Donald Trump and his Pentagon officials have recently been having meetings with US companies to urge them to speed up production.
According to the US Defence Department and congressional officials estimates, the US burned through around 1,100 long-range stealth cruise missiles. These apparently were initially built for a war with China, leaving close to the same number remaining in the US stockpile.
Other estimates indicate that the military has fired more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles or roughly 10 times the number it buys each year. More than 1,200 Patriot interceptor missiles and 1,000 Precision Strike and Army Tactical Missile System round-based missiles were also used, leaving “inventories worrisomely low”.
Currently under consideration in Congress is a request by the Trump administration for an additional US$70 billion (RM284 billion) to pay for the war and to rebuild the munitions supply.
Peace advocates in the US can counter this and hurt the renewal of war effort by denying the budgetary support enabling wars to be begun, fought and prolonged.
The lesson they and others can learn from the current war and from previous wars fought by the US in Vietnam, Afghanistan and elsewhere is that external military exhaustion and political resistance to military procurement can act not only as stabilising mechanisms. They can be among the critical counter- intuitive factors to bring about a less war-prone world system.
While conventional wisdom may view this drop in inventory as a dangerous window of vulnerability that an adversary could exploit, a counter-intuitive analysis suggests it can act as a structural brake on conflict escalation.
Supply chain bottlenecks and chokes brought about by public opposition ensure not only a diminished appetite for multi-front war. Washington’s strategic planners are acutely aware that as defence manufacturing capacity cannot quickly double or triple, the threshold for entering or escalating another major military engagement elsewhere rises significantly.
If specialised naval and air defence inventory is tied down or waiting for multi-year production runs, major powers are forced to rely on diplomatic management rather than immediate military posturing and action to handle regional disputes.
This lesson from the Iran war can be applied to the Asia Pacific by peace advocates and their allies from the region.
How this affects Asean and the Pacific regions
In Southeast Asia and the Pacific regions, challenges to peace have emerged from two mini-lateral security arrangements – Aukus (the Australia-UK-US pact) and the Quad (US, Japan, India and Australia).
While Western observers often frame these pacts as vital “baskets of deterrence”, many Southeast Asian nations view them as destabilising catalysts that force a false binary choice on the region.
The total official estimated cost of the Aukus security partnership for Australia is between A$268 billion (RM748 billion) and A$368 billion over a 30-year period ending in 2054 to 2055.
Independent watchdogs, defence experts and politicians have noted that the real final figure could easily surpass A$368 billion.
While the Quad has no central fund, members have collectively pledged billions of dollars to the Asia-Pacific region through specific joint efforts.
For now, an estimated US$50 billion (from 2022 to 2027) has been pledged for infrastructure projects across the Indo-Pacific region, with member countries having their own budgets for regional projects, including on security concerns.
Together the two budgets if reallocated to non-military ends can be positive game changers for the peaceful development of the region.
Asean countries have consistently prioritised a “zone of peace, freedom and neutrality”. By refusing to explicitly join anti-China containment architecture, states like Malaysia and Indonesia have been able to keep regional and international communication lines open, denying external powers the united regional front required to sustain a containment strategy.
They have also kept their defence budgets low instead of joining the arms race that the US is heavily investing in and which Trump has been successful in persuading European Union member states to increase the defence and military procurement shares of their national budgets considerably over the next five years.
Asean’s procurement priorities now and for the future should focus on meeting the basic needs of their citizenry rather than on security threats identified by external powers.
Responding to US war secretary
In Asia and the Pacific, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has demanded that Asia-Pacific allies increase their military budgets to 3.5% of their GDP.
Speaking at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore held recently, he stated that the US will no longer tolerate partners relying entirely on American taxpayers for their regional security.
Hegseth summarised the new strategy as “less conferences, more ships, more subs”. He omitted to mention that the US is the world’s largest arms exporter.
In 2021 to 2025, it accounted for roughly 42% of all international arms sales, exporting advanced weapons like fighter jets and missile defence systems to more than 100 countries globally.
The top five global arms suppliers and their recent market shares during that period are: United States – 42%, France – 10%, Russia – 7%, Germany – 6%, China – 6%, Italy – 5%, Israel – 4%, South Korea – 3%, United Kingdom – 3% and rest of the world – 14%.
Governments and critics of war promoters and salesmen in Asia Pacific, especially those capitalising on external pressure for increasing military procurement, should remain committed to the strategy that has served the cause of peace better: “more honest and straightforward diplomacy (unlike the unprecedented and unprovoked US and Israeli attack on Iran during negotiations that breached modern diplomatic norms) and less procurement of ships, subs, armaments and military munitions.”
Lim Teck Ghee’s Another Take is aimed at demystifying social orthodoxy. Comments: [email protected]
