The CSIS assessment of Operation Epic Fury reveals a deeper structural weakness: after expending over 1,000 Tomahawks and nearly 300 THAAD interceptors in 38 days, U.S. inventories face a 2029-2031 restoration timeline that directly overlaps with peak PLA modernization windows. This is not merely a replenishment lag but a strategic opening that prior reporting on the Iran campaign underplays. Drawing from CSIS's May 2026 analysis, a 2024 RAND study on munitions sustainment in high-intensity conflict, and IISS Military Balance 2025 data on U.S. theater stockpiles, the depletion exposes how limited-duration operations against a mid-tier adversary have compressed readiness margins for peer war. Ukraine's artillery consumption patterns demonstrated similar industrial bottlenecks years earlier, yet procurement reforms have not closed the gap between annual output (86 TLAMs) and wartime surge needs. The White House emphasis on contractor meetings and quadrupling 'Exquisite Class' production masks the physical reality of production-line lead times for precision seekers and rocket motors. China, observing both the 38-day expenditure rate and U.S. experience deficit noted in the CSIS report, gains calibrated insight into American staying power short of nuclear thresholds. Policy coverage rarely connects these dots to extended deterrence erosion in the first island chain.