Analysis from West Point warns that strait of Hormuz blockade will strangle US defense industry

[usonian]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/19/west-point-analysis-iran-war-costs

Opinion:
Is THIS a big enough disaster to make you forget about Epstein?
I swear, that orange monstrosity would destroy the world to distract from his crimes.
Unconscionable acts to cover his unconscionable acts.

The closure of the strait of Hormuz is causing a “paralyzing, real-time problem” for any prospective manufacturing surge in the US defense industrial base, and even for the repair of defense equipment damaged by Iranian attacks, according to analysis published by West Point’s Modern War Institute.

In particular sulphur, a vital upstream input in the extraction of critical minerals including copper and cobalt, has seen a “near total” disruption of seaborne trade in the straits, which makes up half the world’s total shipments, and prices have spiked nearly 25% since the war began, and seen a 165% rise year on year, the report said.

According to the analysis, these minerals – used in everything from microprocessors to jet engines to drone batteries – “dictate how fast things can be built and scaled under the pressure of an ongoing war”, and the effects of a sudden supply shock on US defense readiness have never been modeled.

It may cost double or more than double to replace all these weapons because all the mineral demand is going to go way up”.
Matisek warned of another possibility: “Markets are not going to be able to provide the amount of minerals that are needed to replace all these radars that have been destroyed and all these munitions that have to be replaced. It’s a really precarious spot to be in right now.”

Report:
https://mwi.westpoint.edu/the-chokepoint-we-missed-sulfur-hormuz-and-the-threats-to-military-readiness/

The cascading effects of disrupted maritime chokepoints are no longer the subject of simulations; they are an active crisis. As the US-Israeli military operation against Iran and Tehran’s regional military response continue, missile attacks, drone swarms, airstrikes, and maritime threats complicate commercial shipping across the region. The ongoing disruption in the Strait of Hormuz affects about 20 percent of global petroleum and 20 percent of liquid natural gas transits. It is also the subject of decades of wargaming for just this occurrence. But a lesser-known chemical also is being halted: 41 percent of global sulfur is exported. While the United States produces significant sulfur domestically, the near-total disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which accounts for approximately 50 percent of global seaborne sulfur trade flows, has compounded an already tight market. US sulfur prices have increased 165 percent year-over-year to over $650 per metric ton; and now the price has surged by 25 percent just since the Iran war began. This makes domestic procurement fiercely competitive, while also threatening the import of specific ultra-high-purity grades required for advanced manufacturing. It is squeezing one of the most consequential inputs to modern industrial power.

Supply disruptions matter because the United States consumes about 90 percent of sulfur as sulfuric acid, and sulfuric acid enables production that sustains not only economic function, but also modern warfighting. This is because it is needed for everything from the copper in the American electrical grid to the semiconductors in precision-guided munitions. The effects of the current disruption at Hormuz, therefore, do not stop at the gas pump.

For military planners and strategists, the looming loss of sulfur is a prelogistical crisis. Prelogistics is a “left of boom” problem centered on the upstream material and chemical foundations that determine whether logistics can function to provide needed war matériel to sustain military readiness. In peacetime, dependencies like sulfur were easy to miss. Understanding this prelogistical dimension is essential because it forces planners to look beyond stockpiles and shipping, and instead ask a more fundamental question: Do we have the basic industrial and chemical inputs required to regenerate combat power in a protracted conflict?


Sulfuric Acid and the Hidden Material Base of Warfighting
Chemicals like sulfuric acid sit upstream of copper extraction, battery-material processing, and semiconductor fabrication, meaning they can determine whether the US military can maintain industrial base production of electrical and digital systems needed to sustain the fight as munitions are expended and combat losses mount. It is one of those unglamorous industrial inputs that operators and planners ignore until a crisis hits, prices spike, and replacement capacity becomes nonexistent.

Will Hegseth propose that equipment be transitioned from petrochemicals to Champagne?

[underpants]

1. Another example of how the Strait was part of Iran's leverage

by anyone who bothered to look at a stinking map.

Could this be part of the request for $200B more money? Dumbass Trump and Kegsbreath just jacked up the price to repair and replace by themselves ON THEMSELVES ?

Jesus. 🤦‍♂️

[David__77]

2. The good news is the Democrats can STOP that $200 billion cold.

[durablend]

4. Fetterman will offer $500B

"You need more? How much?"

[mike_c]

3. every dark cloud has a silver lining