Assessing China’s Wartime Sustainment: A Conversation with Robert Greenway

Strategic sustainment in a potential U.S.-China conflict hinges on the ability to manage critical fuel and ammunition vulnerabilities. Robert Greenway, Director of the Allison Center for National Security, details a year-long simulation utilizing AI-enabled data processing to model consumption and attrition across 365-day scenarios. The analysis reveals that the U.S. currently lacks the distribution capacity and forward-deployed infrastructure to sustain high-intensity operations, risking strategic defeat. Conversely, China’s military remains heavily dependent on external energy sources and imported components for advanced munitions. Addressing these gaps requires immediate, targeted expansion of U.S. production, hardening of forward infrastructure, and a return to strategic targeting of an adversary's economic lifelines. Without these adjustments, the U.S. faces a rapid depletion of critical munitions, potentially incentivizing conflict and threatening global economic stability.