A war reserve stock (WRS), also known as pre-paid supplies, is a collection of warfighting material held in reserve in pre-positioned storage to be used if needed in wartime. They may be located strategically depending on where it is believed they will be needed. In addition to military equipment, a war reserve stock may include raw materials that might become scarce during wartime. According to this definition, storage such as the Strategic Petroleum Reserve may be considered a war stock.
The United States maintains war reserve stocks around the world, mainly in NATO countries and in some major non-NATO allies. The US 31st Munitions Squadron is tasked with maintaining and distributing the largest war reserve stockpiles of munitions for the United States Air Forces in Europe.
Conflicts of high intensity and lengthy duration may have to rely mostly on supplies that are produced while they are ongoing. The first and second World Wars provide examples of this. But smaller wars of shorter duration where belligerents have already stockpiled sufficiently for the outbreak of conflict are able to rely on pre-existing stock. The U.S. Invasion of Grenada (1983) or Panama in 1989, in particular, were small enough to be almost wholly reliant on existing stock.
Famous quotes containing the words war, reserve and/or stock:
“War talk by men who have been in a war is always interesting; whereas moon talk by a poet who has not been in the moon is likely to be dull.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“We must reserve a back shop all our own, entirely free, in which to establish our real liberty and our principal retreat and solitude.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“However low and poor the taking Snuff argues a Man to be in his own Stock of Thought, or Means to employ his Brains and his Fingers, yet there is a poorer Creature in the World than He, and this is a Borrower of Snuff; a Fellow that keeps no Box of his own, but is always asking others for a Pinch.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)