Pentagon officials and Hill lawmakers are increasingly warning that prolonged Iran strikes could stress U.S. military stockpiles to the brink and make the country more vulnerable.
Gen. Dan Caine, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chair, has raised concerns about the military’s shortage of air defense interceptors since January, according to a person familiar with the conversations. But the fears have magnified in recent weeks as the Pentagon amassed the largest military buildup in the Middle East since the Iraq War.
They follow a huge expansion of the nation's military operations. President Donald Trump has often relied on the Pentagon to pursue his foreign policy goals — from capturing Venezuela's leader to killing alleged drug traffickers, bombing Yemen’s Houthi group and striking Iran last year to decimate its nuclear program. Many of these operations burned through significant numbers of Standard Missile-3s, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors and Patriot missiles.
The defense industry has struggled for years to produce critical air defense interceptors that protect against incoming missiles, partly because of the complexity and speed of production. Interviews with six current and former U.S. officials and members of Congress underscored widespread worries that sustained Iranian responses could deplete those waning U.S. air defenses and leave tens of thousands of American troops in the region unprotected against Tehran’s missile salvos.
“Do we have enough interceptors to sustain a retaliation?” said the person familiar with the talks. “We don’t have a discretely focused objective. Is it regime change or is it [just] ballistic missiles?”
American allies have already felt the shortage of U.S. air defense interceptors and batteries, including NATO nations trying to purchase more Patriot missile systems to send to Ukraine in its war against Russia.
“That has been a central, continuous concern,” said a defense official, who like others interviewed, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive issues. “It would also give fodder to those in the building that say we need to be more constrained with what we give Ukraine.”
The Joint Staff did not respond to a request for comment. But the Pentagon dismissed concerns about weapons stockpiles.
“The Department of War has everything it needs to execute any mission at the time and place of the President’s choosing and on any timeline,” said spokesperson Sean Parnell, using the administration’s preferred title for the Pentagon.
Some lawmakers warn that a strike, especially one that spurs a prolonged conflict, could take away from other critical needs.
“There have been urgent calls for reforms in procurement, but the net result is that we are seemingly unable to meet all of the needs for defense production — for Ukraine, for our partners in the Middle East,” said Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who argued the defense industry is not producing Lockheed Martin-built Patriot interceptors or RTX’s Tomahawk long-range missiles quickly enough.
Blumenthal and a group of other lawmakers, who have pressed to shift interceptor missiles from the Middle East to Ukraine to protect against Russian attacks, now see that as more difficult.
“It may be problematic to think about moving Patriot missile interceptor systems from the Middle East because now we’re going to have to protect our embassies, not to mention our bases,” he said, adding that U.S. defense contractors already are telling European allies they don’t have the capacity to produce more weapons to aid Ukraine.
The Defense Department doesn’t detail its weapons supplies for national security reasons, but analysts warn U.S. stockpiles already are dissipating. The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, estimated the U.S. fired up to 20 percent of the Standard Missile-3 interceptors it was expected to have on hand in 2025, and between 20 to 50 percent of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles.
Experts believe the state of Iran’s air and ballistic missile arsenal and any further American strikes could also factor into how much U.S. air defenses are stretched.
“How much of a concern it is depends upon how degraded the Iranians are, or still are after the last go round, and how coordinated and capable we're going to be in terms of getting things before they take off,” said Tom Karako, the director of the Missile Defense Project at the think tank.
The U.S. military, beyond air defense munitions, also risks overusing Tomahawk land attack missiles and other precision strike weapons, Karako said, which are likely to figure into any future fight with Beijing.
“It's a tragedy to expend a Tomahawk when a gravity bomb will do,” he said, referring to an aircraft-dropped explosive. “It’s the strike munitions that we also need to steward and husband for deterring or prosecuting a war with China.”
Not everyone involved in Washington’s drive to ramp up munitions production sees the situation as dire. Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), the House’s lead lawmaker for defense spending, downplayed the risk even while acknowledging munitions are scarce.
Congress, Calvert said, recently authorized the Pentagon to enter multiyear contracts for munitions intended to boost production and bring down costs. Assembly lines for air defenses such as Patriot interceptors and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense systems “are set up, and they just have to maximize, with double or triple shifts,” he said.
Calvert noted the scarcity was “not a secret,” but insisted the military had plenty of munitions in the short term. “I don’t want our adversaries to think for a second that we don’t have enough resources,” he said. “We do.”
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