US Army is facing perhaps the biggest logistical problem since wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – is consuming sophisticated munitions and missiles far faster than the military industry can replace them. After a two-month campaign against Iran, in Washington there is growing talk of "alarmingly depleted stocks", while some US senators warn that the US would enter a new major conflict completely unprepared.
Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly told CBS News that the state of the U.S. military stockpile is "shocking," especially when it comes to Tomahawk cruise missiles, Patriot systems, SM-3 missiles and ATACMS missiles. According to him, Pentagon officials told senators at closed briefings that the restoration of certain arsenals "will take years."
Kelly directly accused President Donald Trump's administration of dragging the U.S. into war with Iran "without a clear plan, strategy, and timeline," leading to a massive waste of ammunition. He claims that America would be in an incomparably better security position today if that conflict had not occurred.
High-intensity wars "swallow" ammunition
Analysts have been warning for months that modern wars are consuming precision-guided weapons at an unprecedented rate. According to analyzes by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), US forces fired more than 850 Tomahawk missiles and more than 1.000 JASSM missiles during the campaign against Iran, while "more than half" of the US's pre-war stockpile of Patriot interceptors was consumed. By way of comparison, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense stated recently that "in just three days of conflict in the Middle East" about 800 missiles of the Patriot air defense system were used up, while Ukraine received about 600 such interceptors during the four years of war with Russia.
It is also estimated that in the campaign against Iran, the United States used between 130 and 250 SM-3 interceptor missiles, "which are among the most expensive in the American arsenal", with a price of about 28,7 million dollars per piece.
The Gulf Research Center states that the Islamic Republic of Iran's military, during the conflict with the US and Israel, "launched over 8.695 missiles and drones at eight countries across the region." This strategy was based on mass rather than precision, with large numbers of drones fired simultaneously to overwhelm enemy air defense systems.
Compared to the overpriced American missiles, Iranian drones are relatively cheap to manufacture. According to expert estimates, one "Shahed" drone costs between 20.000 and 50.000 dollars.
Photo: Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Angel Campbell/US Navy via APAircraft carrier "Abraham Lincoln"
"Math problem"
An additional problem for the Americans is that their sophisticated weapons and anti-missile defense systems cannot be produced overnight. For some missiles, the production cycle lasts up to several years, since it depends on complex supply chains, specialized production facilities and limited production capacities.
US military experts warn that the Pentagon is already facing a "mathematical problem": if a serious conflict with China over Taiwan or a new crisis in the Pacific were to break out at the same time, the US would have to carefully distribute ammunition between several fronts.
According to the US Department of Defense, the war with Iran cost the United States approximately $25 billion as of April. It is an estimate of the total costs since the beginning of the US attacks on Iran at the end of February, with the largest part of the expenditure falling on the consumption of ammunition and missile systems.
The Pentagon is asking for a huge budget
While senators and military experts warn of depleted stocks, US Secretary of War Pete Hegsett maintains that the US still has enough ammunition to continue operations. He has repeatedly stated that America "has no shortage of missiles" and that it can wage war "as long as necessary."
However, the Pentagon is now asking for a drastic increase in the military budget. The administration's proposal for fiscal year 2027 calls for nearly $1,5 trillion in defense spending -- which would be a historic record for the U.S. military.
Critics see this as evidence that the Pentagon actually acknowledges the problem. If supplies are stable, Congress is asking, why is so much money needed to urgently expand the production of missiles and munitions?
US military industry under pressure
An additional problem is the American dedicated military industry itself. Although companies such as Lockheed Martin and RTX Corporation have increased production and revenues, experts argue that the US industrial base is no longer adapted to prolonged, high-intensity wars.
Over the past decades, America has built a military focused on short, technologically dominant campaigns, rather than grueling conflicts against states that can manufacture and fire drones, missiles and artillery for months at a time.
How much the system is under pressure is also shown by the recent investigation in the ammunition factory in Tennessee, where after the deadly explosion "more than 100 serious safety violations were discovered", the local media write.
Photo: Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Angel Campbell/US Navy via APUS fighter jets
Fear of the "Pacific Scenario"
However, the biggest fear in Washington is not Iran, but China. US military planners have warned for years that a possible war over Taiwan would require massive amounts of precision missiles, anti-missile systems and naval munitions.
That is precisely why the numerous warning statements of Senator Mark Kelly - who also estimated that the defense budget of the Donald Trump administration is "almost equal to the total defense spending of the rest of the world" - caused so much attention. They suggest that the ongoing conflict with Iran could significantly weaken the US's ability to deal with potentially much more serious crises in the Pacific.
Paradoxically, while the White House claims that America has "almost unlimited stockpiles", the Pentagon is simultaneously considering extraordinary measures to speed up weapons production through special state authorizations and emergency contracts with the military industry. All this shows that the issue of ammunition has become one of the key strategic issues of modern geopolitics. In the wars of the 21st century, it is no longer crucial only who has the most modern weapons, but also who has the capacity to produce them faster, longer and in larger quantities. Modern conflicts have shown that victory is determined not only by technology and precision, but also by the endurance of the military-industrial complex, stable supply chains, and the ability of the economy to withstand prolonged wartime production.
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