WASHINGTON — Since the start of the war against Iran at the end of February, the United States has fired around 1,100 long-range stealth cruise missiles — designed for an eventual conflict with China —, practically the entire stock of this type of weaponry that remains in the country. The military also launched more than 1,000 Tomahawk missiles, something like ten times the volume it usually buys per year.
The Pentagon used more than 1,200 Patriot interceptor missiles, which cost more than $4 million each, in addition to more than 1,000 Precision Strike and ATACMS land-based missiles. The result is a level of arsenals considered worrying, according to internal estimates by the Department of Defense and congressional officials.
The war with Iran has significantly drained the U.S. military’s global munitions stockpile and forced the Pentagon to transfer bombs, missiles and other equipment to the Middle East from commands in Asia and Europe. This reshuffling left these regional commands less prepared to deal with potential adversaries such as Russia and China and forced Washington to look for ways to expand production to replace what was spent, according to officials from the Trump administration and Congress.
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The conflict also exposed the Pentagon’s dependence on extremely expensive missiles and ammunition, especially air defense interceptors, and reignited doubts about the arms industry’s ability to develop cheaper weapons — especially attack drones — at a much faster pace.
The Defense Department has not revealed how many munitions were used in the 38 days of war until the ceasefire two weeks ago. The Pentagon says it has hit more than 13,000 targets, but officials say that number hides the real number of bombs and missiles launched, as fighters, attack planes and artillery pieces often hit the same structures several times.
The White House refuses to estimate the cost of the conflict so far, but two independent groups calculate a hefty bill: between US$28 billion and US$35 billion — something close to US$1 billion per day.
In the first two days alone, according to figures presented by defense authorities to parliamentarians, the military consumed US$5.6 billion in ammunition.
To restore America’s global arsenal to its previous level, the United States will have to make difficult choices about where to concentrate its military strength during this period. “At current production rates, rebuilding what was spent could take years,” Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said this week.
“The United States has plenty of munitions in adequate supply, but some critical land attack and missile defense weapons were already in short supply before the war — and now they are even more so,” said Mark F. Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), who recently published a study on the status of key munitions.
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White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that “the entire premise of this report is false.” He added: “The United States of America has the most powerful Armed Forces in the world, fully supplied with more than enough weapons and ammunition, in stocks here and around the globe, to defend the national territory and carry out any military operation determined by the commander in chief.”
The Pentagon’s top spokesman, Sean Parnell, declined to comment on “specific needs of any theater of operations or detail our global resource capabilities,” citing security concerns.
Some Republicans, such as Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who chairs the subcommittee responsible for the Pentagon’s budget, have been advocating for years to increase spending on munitions production across different governments. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has made this goal one of his priorities.
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The scenario becomes even more delicate because the Department of Defense is waiting for Congress to approve extra resources to be able to pay weapons manufacturers and replenish the American stockpile. In January, the government announced seven-year contracts with large companies in the sector, such as Lockheed Martin, to expand the production capacity of systems such as missile interceptors.
Meanwhile, the military continues to burn through its stockpiles at an accelerated pace to meet the immediate demands of Central Command in the war against Iran. Some types of ammunition are running out faster than others.
The Pentagon, for example, has already committed most of its long-range stealth cruise missiles to the conflict with Iran. These weapons, known as Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER), are launched from fighters and bombers, have a range of more than 600 miles (about 965 km) and are designed to destroy fortified targets beyond the reach of enemy air defenses.
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Since the beginning of the war, the Armed Forces have spent around 1,100 JASSM-ERs, which cost around US$1.1 million per unit, leaving something like 1,500 missiles of this type in the arsenal, according to internal Pentagon estimates and reports from a military official and a Congressional official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because these were confidential assessments.
Tomahawks, which cost around US$3.6 million each, are long-range cruise missiles widely used by the US since the First Gulf War in 1991. They continue to be a key element in possible future conflicts, including in a possible war scenario in Asia.
“Although there is sufficient ammunition to fight this war, the high consumption of Tomahawks and other missiles in Operation Epic Fury creates risks for the United States in other theaters — especially in the Western Pacific,” concluded a CSIS study, which estimates the number of Tomahawks still in stock at about 3,000.
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Each Patriot interceptor missile could cost nearly $4 million. The US produced around 600 units throughout 2025. More than 1,200 have already been used in war, according to internal estimates from the Pentagon and congressional officials.
In total, the cost of the war so far is between $25 billion and $35 billion, according to a study this month by the American Enterprise Institute, prepared by Elaine McCusker, a former senior Pentagon official in the first Trump administration. CSIS’s Cancian said in an email that he and his team estimate the cost of the conflict at about $28 billion.
All regional commands of the Armed Forces feel the pinch of falling stocks.
In Europe, the war has already caused the reduction of weapons systems considered crucial to defending NATO’s eastern flank from possible Russian aggression, according to Pentagon documents analyzed by The New York Times.
One problem identified as serious is the loss of surveillance and attack drones. The demands of the conflict with Iran have also led to a reduction in exercises and training, which, according to the military, harms the ability to carry out offensive operations in Europe and weakens the power of deterrence against possible attacks from Russia.
But the biggest impact is on troops deployed in Asia.
Before the war with Iran, American commanders redirected the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group from the South China Sea to the Middle East. Since then, two Marine Expeditionary Units, each with about 2,200 personnel, have deployed to the region from the Pacific. The Pentagon has also transferred advanced air defense systems from Asia to bolster protection against Iranian drones and rockets.
Among the redirected equipment are Patriot missiles and interceptors from the THAAD system in South Korea — the only Asian ally that hosts this advanced anti-missile defense system, installed by the US to counter the growing rocket threat from North Korea. Now, for the first time, these interceptors are being removed from the country, according to American officials.
US military readiness in the Pacific has been affected before, when the Pentagon sent warships and aircraft to the Middle East following the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in October 2023, and after Houthi militants in Yemen began attacking ships in the Red Sea in support of the Palestinians, officials said.
The month-long bombing campaign against the Houthis last year — dubbed Rough Rider by the Pentagon — was far larger than the Trump administration admitted at the time. According to American authorities, in the first three weeks alone the operation consumed around US$200 million in ammunition. Adding operational and personnel costs, the bill easily exceeded US$ 1 billion.
Ships, planes and the teams that operate this equipment have been maintained at what the military calls “high operational tempo”. As a result, even basic maintenance becomes a challenge.
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