Though the situation arising out of the conflict involving Iran, Israel and the United States in the Middle East is fast changing, and it is difficult to analyse its course and outcome with conflicting remarks coming out from the top leaderships of the three countries, one of the possible reasons behind President Donald Trump’s five-day pause is the reported depletion of America’s munitions to fight a prolonged war against Teheran without risking the safety and security of America and its allies in the far more crucial region of the Indo-Pacific.
According to Seth G. Jones, President of the Defense and Security Department at The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the author of ‘The American Edge: The Military Tech Nexus and the Sources of Great Power Dominance’, “The U.S. Ammo Shortage Is Worse Than You Think” and “The conflict with Iran is an urgent reminder that the U.S. needs a defense industrial base that can wage a high-intensity war against American adversaries—especially China”.
Of course, soon after the war (Operation Epic Fury) began on February 28, the Trump Administration, including the President himself, was bullish about U.S. military capacity.
If Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth assured that “We’ve got no shortage of munitions. Our stockpiles of defensive and offensive weapons allow us to sustain this campaign as long as we need”, General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “We have sufficient precision munitions for the task at hand, both on the offense and defense”.
And, writing on his social media platform Truth Social on March 2, President Trump said that the United States possessed a “virtually unlimited supply” of medium and upper-medium grade weapons, and it was prepared to fight “forever” and was “stocked, and ready to WIN, BIG!!!”.
He added that the U.S. “Munitions Stockpiles have, at the medium and upper medium grade, never been higher or better … At the highest end, we have a good supply but are not where we want to be. Much additional high-grade weaponry is stored for us in outlying countries.”
However, the American experts are not convinced. In fact, the seeming consensus among them is that the President is not clear on “medium and upper medium grade” munitions.
Perhaps, so the argument runs, he was not talking exactly about standoff-precision munitions but rather about common gravity bombs (JDAM/LGB class), which can only be used once air superiority is achieved.
As regards the high-end weapons, the President did, in fact, acknowledge some weaknesses when he said: “We are not where we want to be.”
And it so happens that the U.S. is using high-end weapons against Iran during the ongoing operations against Iran. Among the more than 20 weapons systems America has used across air, sea, land, and missile defence forces, prominent examples include F-35 stealth fighters, B-1 bombers, B-2 stealth bombers, F-22 Raptors, F-15s, EA-18G Growlers, C-17 transport aircraft, and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.
Apart from the Low-Cost Unmanned Combat Attack System (LUCAS) one-way drones, MQ-9 Reaper drones, M-142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), it is also using Tomahawk Cruise Missiles and air defence systems such as the Patriot, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries, and Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft.
Obviously, a prolonged campaign against Iran will deplete the inventory of such high-end weapons, even though the exact size of the inventory is classified. There are numerous reports in the American media of critical shortages of air-defense interceptors, specifically Patriot and THAAD missiles, which are essential for countering threats in the Middle East.
Reportedly, the U.S. has already spent more than a quarter of its THAD systems. There have also been reported shortages of sea-launched Tomahawk (TLAM) cruise missiles and aircraft-launched precision weapons.
Added to all this are also reports that meeting the demands from Ukraine in its war against Russia has already depleted stocks of 155mm artillery shells, Stinger missiles, and Javelin anti-tank systems.
It may be noted that US-style warfare doesn’t come cheap. Apparently, the first six days of the Iran conflict cost America more than $11 billion. It is said that Washington spent about $779m in the first 24 hours, with a further $630m for the pre-strike build-up – moving aircraft, deploying more than a dozen naval vessels, and mobilising regional assets.
According to estimates from the think tank, the Center for a New American Security, it costs approximately $6.5m per day to operate a carrier strike group such as the USS Gerald R. Ford.
Incidentally, more concerning have been the reports that each Patriot missile that the U.S. has applied against Iran costs around $3 million.
And it is here that stockpiles are fast depleting. According to Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, stocks are being used up quickly.
“At the beginning, I think there were about 1,000 Patriots, and I think we’ve chewed into that inventory quite a bit now,” he said. He estimated that 200-300 Patriot missiles have already been used.
Cancian argues that high-grade weapons like this take time to build. “Lockheed Martin delivered just 620 PAC-3 interceptors in all of 2025. If you went to the company today and said, “I want to buy one more Patriot, it would take at least two years for that Patriot to show up.
No wonder; it is a significant development: the Pentagon is reportedly seeking an additional $200 billion for the Iran war. The rationale is that the extra funds will address the shortage of precision munitions and spur the defense industry to restock supplies quickly. As U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters the other day: “It takes money to kill bad guys.”
Incidentally, the $200bn request is in addition to the department’s annual budget of $838.7bn, which Congress approved in January. That was separate from the Congress approval of $188bn in funding for aid to Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022.
It is said that the Trump Administration’s war-funding request could set up a bruising legislative fight with Congress, which must approve funding less than eight months from November’s midterm congressional elections. But then that is a different story.
It is important to note that on March 6, President Trump had summoned top defense contractors to the White House to increase arms production. Apparently, Lockheed Martin made 620 PAC-3 interceptors for the Patriot air-defense system last year and plans to make 650 this year. But its stated goal of producing over 2,000 annually won’t be reached until 2030.
Of course, after the meeting with the defense companies, Trump posted on Truth Social that manufacturers had agreed to quadruple production of the highest-class weaponry.
But then, it is a fact that, apart from being unable to manufacture arms/weapons due to their high consumption amid the expansion of conflict zones in various parts of the world, the American military industries are beset by what is said to be “Structural Manufacturing Limits”.
If, on the one hand, there are supply chain bottlenecks due to shortages of specialized components like primers, propulsion systems, and critical minerals, there have been “Labor Unrests” on the other hand.
Incidentally, in 2025, nearly 1,000 Lockheed Martin employees who assemble missile components, surveillance systems, and other defense hardware walked off the job in May after failing to secure a new labor contract.
Workers rejected the company’s offer of a 3-4 percent raise, demanding double-digit pay hikes to offset inflation. The unrest aggravated when about 3,000 additional defense workers joined the strike, and another 2,500 employees building nuclear submarines came close to walking out before a last-minute deal was reached.
In fact, a recent U.S.Congressional Research Service (CRS) report has highlighted the need to modernize the Defense Industrial Base (DIB).
The contemporary DIB, which encompasses a large number of government and private organizations and facilities that support a diverse array of military requirements, sells mostly to the federal government, creating what is said to be a monopsony market.
Over the years, there have been five firms, the so-called “Big-5”, that dominate in securing the federal funds and major defense contracts. All five of these companies (or their predecessors) have been major recipients of defense contracts since at least the 1950s.
In addition to supplying the U.S. government with defense articles and services, these companies also supply foreign governments through Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and Direct Commercial Sales (DCS).
The Big-5 are Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and Boeing.
It is against this background that the CRS study has posed the following questions:
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Do suppliers have adequate capacity to meet U.S. defense needs?
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What is the appropriate degree of regulation for the commercial defense industry?
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How resilient should defense supply chains be? What role should sourcing, content, and production requirements play in government stewardship of the industrial base?
The essential point is whether the U.S. should expand and diversify its DIB. Reportedly, the Trump Administration has initiated some remedial measures, such as the Pentagon’s commitment to rebuilding what it calls the “arsenal of freedom” and placing the defense industrial base on a wartime footing.
Apparently, a Munitions Acceleration Council was established in 2025 to increase production of 12 critical weapons, including Patriot interceptors and Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles.
Besides, President Trump has pledged to increase the defense budget by $500 billion for fiscal year 2027. The U.S. defense budget for FY2026 is projected to be around $961.6 billion, representing already the world’s highest military expenditure and accounting for roughly 40% of global defense spending.
But then experts like Jones think that all this is not enough as “more needs to be done—and fast”.
- Author and veteran journalist Prakash Nanda is Chairman of the Editorial Board of the EurAsian Times and has been commenting on politics, foreign policy, and strategic affairs for nearly three decades. He is a former National Fellow of the Indian Council for Historical Research and a recipient of the Seoul Peace Prize Scholarship.
- CONTACT: prakash.nanda (at) hotmail.com
