Operation Epic Fury and US Unreadiness for War

Weapons, Magazines, and Depot Failures

F-35 Maintenance Challenges Negatively Affecting Aircraft Readiness. Image source: Source: GAO analysis of Department of Defense information; U.S. Air Force/R. Nial Bradshaw. | GAO-23-105341

The bellicose may find wars attractive and cleansing, but those responsible for such dry matters as inventory, material and how prepared the armed forces of a country are will stalk them with unpleasant truths. The addiction of the US imperium to waging wars, one that President Donald Trump promised, and failed, to treat, has gotten the wags in the military worried. The depleting nature of Operation Epic Fury has been particularly telling in this regard, revealing the US war machine to be unprepared for conflict.

Rather than referring to preparedness, the preferred choice in US Army circles is “unreadiness” or a lack of readiness. Army Undersecretary Michael Obadal, in his address at the annual McAleese Defense Programs Conference, was startlingly candid in this regard. “To say we’re satisfied with our readiness rates, I think, would be disingenuous. We have real problems with our major weapons systems, both aircraft and ground, and we have to address those things, and we’re doing so in a number of ways.” (The major weapons systems were left unnamed.)

One of his suggestions involves placing greater focus on “Public-private partnerships in an organic industrial base (OIB) [as] one of the most fundamentally different approaches that we can take.” The organic industrial base takes in some 23 depots, arsenals and ammunition plants responsible for manufacturing and resetting army equipment while fostering readiness and operational capability. “The OIB,” according to the US Army, “must be able to support current unit readiness, maintain the ability to surge, and modernize and retool to sustain the next generation of equipment.” Much has been made in the vanilla propaganda of the army of its “Modernization Implementation Plan” (MIP), which officially commenced in October 2024.

Establishing what readiness means in all of this is a thorny issue. Obadal lets the cat out of the bag in stating that “everyone will have different metrics”, a suitably unsatisfactory state of affairs. His own criteria are threefold: How the Army can respond tonight with what is available; what it can do in the next month to deal with the contingency; and what it can do to sustain the effort for the next year of combat.

Applying his own threefold metrics to the Army, Obadal identified problems with major weapons systems and, critically, problems with magazine depth. While not expressly referring to Operation Epic Fury and the war against Iran, the undersecretary did state that the “current situation” had “absolutely” aggravated matters. To address such problems, notably with weapons systems, manufacturers could work alongside soldiers and engineers in the theatre to fix vehicles and aircraft more expeditiously.

Legislation regarding “right to repair” provisions that would enable soldiers to tend to equipment problems without having to send them back to the manufacturer was also on the cards, though yet to pass. Obadal hoped that these would find their way into the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act. “We have to be very narrow on what we’re asking for. So how many repetitions, how many units, how many years before we have IP [intellectual property], and there’s some IP that we don’t want commercial software and other things.” Companies could “keep that because we want them to be responsible for the updates, the security patches and all that, but we want to be able to change things out as the environment demands”.

The Army was also on the lookout for industry partners well advanced in their “TLR” [technology readiness level] when seeking contracts with the Pentagon. In addressing the problem of magazine depth, Obadal referenced the new modernising drive inviting private industry to co-invest in OIB installations. “If we ask industry to change, we have to address the long-term viability of our own organic industrial base. So a new environment requires new approaches.”

Other sources add more troubling details about the problems Obadal was good enough to underline. A Government Accountability Office report finalised just prior to the pre-emptive attack on Iran on 28 February and published on 4 March tut tutted the Pentagon for not fully implementing over 150 recommendations from earlier reviews with the express purpose of improving the availability of equipment, the bulking of personnel resources and supporting better decision-making on readiness. Shortages in trained maintenance personnel have caused problems across all branches of the armed services. This has hampered, for instance, “meeting mission capable rate goals for their aircraft that support combat-related missions.”

In a separate summary of issues afflicting US forces, the GAO notes with cold certainty that almost two decades of war “has degraded US military readiness. To adapt to growing threats posed by major powers (such as China and Russia) and other adversaries, the Department of Defense (DOD) and the individual military services must make some urgent changes.”

The GAO was also reproachful of the failure of both the Air Force and Navy for not completing “sustainment reviews” for their aircraft, an indispensable measure for maintaining readiness for the life cycle of relevant machinery. Both branches of the armed forces, despite the annual expenditure of billions of dollars annually, had “struggled for years to maintain their aircraft due to the age of their fleets, a lack of parts, maintenance delays, and other problems.”

On specific weapons platforms, the Pentagon faces challenges in, for instance, maintaining the staggeringly gluttonous F-35 fleet. These include “delays setting up military service depots—facilities to complete the most complex repairs—and inadequate equipment to keep aircraft operational.” While the department intended to move more maintenance responsibilities from external contractors to the government, no plan to do so had been made.

Repair depots are also taken to task for their shabbiness. “Depot infrastructure generally remains in fair to poor condition, and most depot equipment is past its service life.” The DOD persistently failed to report what was needed to arrest further deterioration.

With such a body of reservations, reproachful critique and recommendations unimplemented, the unreadiness of the US armed forces puts paid to the narrative, all too regularly touted by Trump and his unhinged Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, of boundless resources and peerless invincibility. The Iran War is all but confirming that; the unready have been found wanting.