“Your editorial ("Is the U.S. Running Out of Ammo?" March 4) downplays concerns about dwindling munitions in the Middle East. There "are enough for the Iran fight" you write and, if there truly is an emergency, President Trump can ask Congress for a bigger defense budget.
Exactly one year earlier ("The Debate Over Elbridge Colby," March 4, 2025) you criticized now Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby on grounds that his concerns about America's multifront dilemma were a fig leaf for isolationism. In a subsequent editorial ("Trump Stiffs Ukraine on Arms," July 3, 2025), you castigated Mr. Colby for denying an arms delivery to Ukraine on the logic that with "Iran weakened militarily, there isn't a more urgent need for more Patriots anywhere else in the world than in Ukraine."
It turns out there was, in fact, a more urgent need right around the corner. Munitions used in Ukraine aren't available in the Middle East -- and those currently being used will not be available in East Asia.
In other words: Mr. Colby was right all along. For several years, he has been a persistent and often lonely voice calling for America to get serious about the simultaneity problem. He foresaw the current predicament long before most others did, and he had the courage to confront it long before it was politically convenient to do so.
It simply won't do to keep saying we have enough muscle for each new crisis, and to tar those who buck establishment wisdom with tired labels. It's also not enough to call for more defense spending. Even if we take draconian steps now (as Mr. Trump is doing), they will take time to bear fruit. And we will have to figure out how to sustain them at a moment when the U.S. debt is already at World War II levels.
In the meantime, we need realistic strategies for coping with simultaneity. That's what the 2026 National Defense Strategy, of which Mr. Colby was a principal author, provides by emphasizing allied burden shifting and national mobilization.
A. Wess Mitchell
Keswick, Va.
Mr. Mitchell served as assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia in the first Trump administration. He co-founded the Marathon Institute with Mr. Colby, a think tank dedicated to the study of great-power competition.” [1]
1. Elbridge Colby's Warnings Are Coming True. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 07 Mar 2026: A14.
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