In early August, Reuters reported that the U.S. Army had fired off virtually its entire stockpile of long-range precision missiles. The administration rejects that account. President Donald Trump said the United States has massive amounts of munitions and that defense companies are building the largest number of plants and factories in American history.

Whatever the truth may be, the dispute is a useful entry point to a much older problem, one that predates this war and seemingly will outlast it. Over the past several weeks, major defense contractors have issued a steady stream of announcements touting new production of critical munitions. But read the fine print and you see that these deals are somewhat less than meets the eye. “These are not contracts; they are agreements to agree,” Tom Karako, who directs the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told DefenseScoop. “I’m seeing a lot of cheerleading and a lot of premature celebration.”