Just when you thought it might have been over, the Iran War enters a new phase of escalation at a time when the U.S. military is running low on critical offensive and defensive missiles.
Washington and Tehran intensified their attacks on Wednesday and Thursday, further unraveling the preliminary peace agreement reached less than a month earlier, Reuters reported, citing U.S. military statements, Iranian state media and sources in Iran. Wednesday’s attacks targeted Iranian command centers, air defense sites, missile and drone capabilities and coastal surveillance facilities near Bandar Abbas, U.S. Central Command said in a press release.
“The combination of weapons depletion and the looming shortage of diesel and aviation fuel, which will create significant domestic economic and political turmoil, will force [President Donald Trump] to curtail what he is currently doing,” former CIA analyst Larry Johnson told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The U.S. government has been pillaging U.S. military stockpiles for years, first for the Russo-Ukrainian War, and now for the Iran War. Currently, the U.S. military is burning through munitions faster than manufacturers can replenish them, multiple analysts told the DCNF.
“It will vary by munition, but timeframes will be in the years, at least 5 if not up to 10,” Jennifer Kavanagh, senior fellow & director of Military Analysis at Defense Priorities, told the DCNF.
“In most cases, contracts on the books will only replace what has been expended, not move toward the higher levels current war plans might require based on updated assessments of adversary capabilities,” Kavanagh said. “Also important is that there is no guarantee current targets will be met. Production might fall short and it is not uncommon for the Pentagon to strip money out of munitions projects to pay for other things.”
The Department of War, the Under Secretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment, the Assistant Secretary of War for Industrial Base Policy, the Army Portfolio Acquisition Executive Fires and Missile Defense Agency Public Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.
‘Many Bottlenecks Exist’
Trump has pushed private companies to increase their production of these missiles, but is it too little, too late?
“We have the best quality in the world, but we need a little more speed,” Trump said at Pennsylvania Senator Dave McCormick’s Defense and Innovation Summit on Wednesday, Reuters reported.
Patriots currently have an average delivery time of 42 months, according to a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report. Trump acknowledged the fact that it takes a long time to produce Patriot missiles during his July 8 meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the NATO summit in Turkey, but said that the manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, is building new factories to expedite this process.
“The company that makes them, which is building now four plants. You know all of our companies will be able to do this in two to three months. If you order a Patriot, now you have to wait a long time for them,” Trump said during his meeting with Zelenskyy.
Lockheed Martin did sign a deal with the Department of War to increase “annual capacity from approximately 600 to 2,000 in a seven-year agreement,” according to a press release from the company on Jan. 6.
“We have been below the desirable levels since the Obama Admin. Trump 45 made some progress in fixing it, but it was lost during the Biden term,” Heritage Foundation Visiting Fellow and former Pentagon official Steven Bucci told the DCNF in an email. “The military always wants as much on hand as possible. All I can say is we need more than we have, and we need them faster than we’ll get them.”
Throwing money at the problem won’t always fix everything, experts warned.
“Many bottlenecks exist, including shortages of key critical minerals, motors, and advanced electronics,” Kavanagh said. “Money is not a quick fix — it can only work over long periods of time and if other related issues can be addressed like labor shortages … The only way to address U.S. resource constraints is to address strategic insolvency and permanently shed commitments.“
“We broke ground on a Munitions Acceleration Center in Camden, AR,” Lockheed Martin said in an X post on Feb. 2. “The new hub will prepare the workforce of the future using advanced manufacturing, robotics and digital technologies.”
Since the Iran war began, the U.S. military has used somewhere between 45% and 61% of its Patriot missiles, according to the CSIS report. Between 1,060 and 1,430 of the 2,330 Patriot missiles in the stockpile have been expended.
However, these numbers were reported by CSIS on April 21, 2026, so the current stockpiles have likely depleted even further. The Department of War has not confirmed the estimates of depleted missiles.
Other key systems that the U.S. military is lacking are the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors.
Between 52% and 80% of the THAAD munitions stockpiles have already been expended in the Iran war, according to the CSIS report, which states that between 190 and 290 of the 360 THAAD munitions in the stockpile have been depleted so far, citing data from the 2027 defense budget.
Lockheed Martin showcased its new Munitions Production Center to increase THAAD production in an X post on May 22.
The investment in the new Munitions Production Center is part of a $9 billion investment across Lockheed Martin’s facilities and programs, according to the X post.
Lockheed Martin, RTX Raytheon and Northrop Grumman did not respond to a request for comment.
“The 2026 budget and the proposed FY2027 budget contain large amounts of money for munitions. The constraint now is capacity, not money. To fully replace expenditures, however, the commitment to funding munitions needs to continue beyond FY 2027,” Cancian told the DCNF. “President Trump has invoked the Defense Production Act, which can clear some regulatory obstacles and give defense production priority in companies. For the most part, however, money and regulations are not the issue. The issue is time.”
One good example of how throwing money at the U.S. military does not solve everything can be seen in the production of 155 millimeter artillery shells, which were severely depleted during the Russo-Ukrainian War.
“The DoW increased its capability and capacity to produce 155‑mm artillery ammunition but did not reach the 2025 National Defense Industrialization Strategy Implementation Plan goal of 100,000 rounds per month by October 2025,” according to a DOW Inspector General report from July 9. “As of March 2026, the Army had increased its monthly production from 14,000 to 36,000 rounds.”
As the U.S. is running low on these critical munitions, it still has commitments to allies to provide them with the same weapons. The U.S. will likely have to cancel these commitments given the timeline estimate of 5 to 10 years provided by experts to the DCNF.
“This will be a difficult diplomatic trade-off because many other countries use these munitions. For example, 18 countries use Patriot. The U.S. will need to deliver some munitions to allies either under attack or under a threat of attack,” retired Marine Corps Reserve Col. Mark F. Cancian, a senior adviser at CSIS, told the DCNF. “That would include the Gulf states, who want to replenish their diminished inventories, and Ukraine, which is starting to get the upper hand in its conflict. These are all sales so the U.S. is reimbursed and money is not an issue. Other countries might be pushed back in the queue or receive partial deliveries as the U.S. rebuilds its inventories.”
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