Recent wars in Europe and the Middle East have reminded us of a hard truth: Drones may grab the headlines, but it’s artillery shells, ammunition rounds, and propellant that sustain the fight. Without the ability to feed weapon systems for weeks or months, even the most advanced unmanned systems are little more than scouts.

This is a problem shared by both the United States and India. It’s not just that current stockpiles are insufficient (though they are). It’s that both countries have offshored and outsourced the very industrial backbone needed to produce more ammo when war does arrive. And disturbingly, many of those supply chains trace back to China, the very adversary both nations may someday need those munitions to confront.

The good news? Washington and New Delhi are already security partners, with a number of defense trade agreements in place. Working together, the two democracies can strengthen each other’s supply chains and stockpiles in a way that is mutually beneficial, both militarily and economically.

The war in Ukraine has been a major wake-up call about munition requirements. In early 2022, the US was producing about 14,000 155mm artillery shells per month, while Ukraine was expending half that amount each day. In response, the United States surged funding and awarded contracts to boost production. By October 2024, output hit roughly 40,000 per month. Still well short of Ukraine’s needs, let alone replenishing US and allied stocks. Plans are now in place to reach 100,000 shells per month by mid-2026.

India has a similar problem. A 2017 Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report found that 40 percent of ammunition types in India’s inventory would not last more than 10 days of intense war. In a two-front contingency against Pakistan and China, that’s a dangerous vulnerability. That audit spurred emergency procurement measures and funding. In recent years, India has fast-tracked artillery shell imports, invested in indigenous production, opened ammunition production to the private sector, and set an ambitious goal to meet 100 percent of its ammunition needs indigenously by the end of 2025. (That goal clearly won’t be met, though progress is underway.)

The above efforts include a major industrial shift. The old state-run Ordnance Factory Board was split into new companies, with Munitions India Ltd. (MIL) focused on ammunition. Many private firms have entered the market, producing everything from small arms ammo to artillery shells. New policies have also made it easier for private players to enter the market. Indian-made rounds are also being exported.

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Expanding shell output, while necessary, addresses only half the problem. The deeper issue is what’s inside the ammunition: energetics. These include the hazardous and environmentally burdensome to produce explosives and propellants that make shells lethal.

Modern 155mm artillery rounds rely on nitrocellulose-based propellants and high explosives like TNT and RDX. And neither the United States nor India produces enough of them. The United States, astonishingly, produces no TNT at all, with almost all imported from Poland, Turkey, India, and South Korea — who themselves source precursor chemicals from global markets, including China. The only US nitrocellulose plant is at Radford Army Ammunition Plant in Virginia.

India faces similar problems: Army sustainment chief Lt. Gen. A.S. Aujla recently admitted that India’s production of propellants, explosives, and fuses falls far short of requirements. The gap stems from years of underinvestment, procurement delays, and reliance on fragmented imports.

Meanwhile, China has quietly cornered the global market. It is now the world’s largest producer of nitrocellulose, a key input in gunpowder. In 2023, it doubled exports of nitrocellulose to Russia, sustaining Moscow’s war effort. China is also the only country producing CL-20 at scale, the world’s most powerful non-nuclear explosive. Even antimony, used to harden lead in bullets, is controlled by China, which supplies nearly 32 percent of global supply (together, China and Russia control 50 percent of the global supply).

China’s leverage is no longer hypothetical. In 2024, it imposed export restrictions on antimony, European buyers hinted at curbs on nitrocellulose, and China restricted other military related materials as well. Given the fragility of global energetic supply chains, such actions could dramatically constrain US and Indian production. In many ways, Beijing’s control of explosives today is what its control of rare earths was a decade ago: A hidden chokehold on our military readiness we may only realize when it is too late.

To its credit, Washington is finally acting. Building on hard lessons from Ukraine, the Army has greenlit new TNT production at Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky, expanded explosive output at Holston in Tennessee, and boosted nitrocellulose capacity at Radford. These investments represent the largest munitions ramp-up since World War II. India is also responding, with SBL Energy opening a private TNT plant in Nagpur in 2024.

But scale is still lacking. Even with all planned expansions, current US and Indian output would not meet the sustained burn rates of a Ukraine-style conflict. This is where US–India cooperation can make a strategic difference.

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First, the two nations should jointly invest in energetic material production. India has the raw materials required like cotton linters, wood pulp, and chemical processing capacity. With capital investment from India’s burgeoning new entrants and US technical assistance, India and the United States could become key non-Chinese suppliers for nitrocellulose, TNT precursors, and more with shared governance, quality standards, and reciprocal market access.

Second, India could serve as a surge capacity hub. Given India’s favorable geography, and a growing defense industrial base, MIL’s expertise and the rise of new private players, India offers a natural backup for high-volume, resilient ammunition production.

Third, both governments must accept that redundancy is a feature, not a bug. Maintaining idle surge lines or holding costly chemical stocks may seem inefficient in peacetime, but in wartime, they are lifelines. And given the global demand for munitions, allowing exports would ensure any lines will not be idle for long.

Finally, both governments should also invest in full-spectrum supply chain mapping, to avoid being blindsided by Chinese dependencies in a crisis. The US has done this before: under President Trump’s Executive Order 13806, the Pentagon completed deep supply chain audits of critical defense programs including C-130 parts, solid rocket motors, and more. It’s time to apply that rigor to the ammunition supply chain.

Whether on the Himalayan frontier or across the Taiwan Strait, wars of the future will demand more than promises. They will demand production. Sovereignty means little if a country cannot produce the bullets it fires. Deterrence requires depth. Resilience requires planning (and stockpiling). And freedom requires independence from adversarial supply chains.

The US and India have started down the right path. Now they must go further, faster. With a shared view of the threat and complementary strengths, they can build a formidable arsenal alliance. Because when the next war comes, it won’t just be won by who has the best drones and coolest technology. It will be won by who can load the next shell and sustain fire the longest.