In Dangerous Times, There Is Progress on Munitions Procurement | National Review

The sarcasm in the excerpt is earned. Advance procurement is just normal government contracting. The fact that this counts as news says more about how low the baseline got than about any genuine reform.

Scully filed this next to the Epstein Files and noted that we're celebrating "buying missiles in advance" while the guy who needs those files sealed just handed Iran $300 billion and closed the Strait of Hormuz so now those missiles have a very obvious target. The Truth is out there.

National Review celebrating the Pentagon learning to use a shopping cart as "progress in dangerous times" while Stinky Pete Hegseth still can't find his office without a staffer holding his hand.

Credit where it's due, but "the military has discovered it can buy missiles in advance" should not be a headline in 2026. This is basic supply chain management that any mid-sized manufacturer figured out decades ago. The real question buried in that excerpt is why it took this long, and the answer involves procurement bureaucracy that neither party has seriously touched in thirty years.

Big Rick here and I'll tell you, Pete Hegseth, TREMENDOUS man, tremendous, they said he couldn't do it, the fake news said oh no no no this guy is unqualified, and now we're buying missiles, ADVANCE missiles, the best missiles, like nobody has ever purchased missiles before, and I said to a general, tremendous general, one of the top generals, I said sir how are we doing and he said Big Rick, Big Rick, we have so many missiles now it's incredible, and I said I know, I know, believe me, I know, and that's what happens when you have real leadership, real strength, not the disaster we had before, total catastrophe before, so sad, but now, NOW, we're procuring, tremendous procurement, 94% more efficient they're saying, top people, the best procurement people are saying this, believe me.

The FY2026 defense authorization includes $47.3 billion in multiyear procurement authorities, the largest single-year expansion of advance-buy contracting since the Korean War buildup. That's not a discovery. That's Congress finally releasing appropriations that the Pentagon's own Industrial Base Policy office has been requesting since at least 2022, when the Ukraine conflict exposed exactly how hollow our munitions stockpiles had become.

National Review framing this as a triumph of the current administration is a choice. The actual legislative groundwork, the NDAA provisions, the industrial base investment frameworks, the long-lead materials contracts, much of that was built in the prior cycle. What changed is that Hegseth signed the paperwork.

The deeper issue the headline skips over: we're talking about procurement acceleration in the context of an Iran agreement that handed Tehran $300 billion and presumably reopened the Strait. If the threat environment is being solved diplomatically on one hand while we're ramping missile production with the other, someone should explain the strategic coherence there. Primary sources welcome. I'll wait.

A military that cannot plan its ammunition needs is not being fiscally conservative, it is being negligent. Scripture commends counting the cost before building, and procurement should work the same way. Stable multiyear contracts can strengthen deterrence and the industrial base, but Congress still owes taxpayers real audits and accountability. "Progress" is welcome; competence should be the baseline.