US President Donald Trump's "war of choice" in Iran has put a massive strain on the United States' warfighting capacity, with an internal Pentagon estimate indicating that the military has burnt through thousands of high-end stock, including Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot interceptor missiles. The Iranian response to US-Israeli strikes on February 28 forced US forces to draw heavily from their stockpile meant to be used during any possible military campaign against major adversaries like China and Russia.
So far, the White House has not released an estimated cost of the conflict, but two independent groups have said the expense ranged between a staggering $28 billion and $35 billion, or just under $1 billion a day.
In the first two days alone, reports have claimed, the military used $5.6 billion of munitions.
US Stockpile Used In Iran
Citing internal Defence Department estimates, the New York Times reported that the US military has fired off around 1,100 of its Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range, or JASSM-ER-- which is close to the total 1,500 remaining in the US stockpile.
The JASSM-ER has a range of more than 600 miles and is designed to penetrate hard targets outside the range of enemy air defences. It costs roughly $1.1 million apiece.
The military has also used more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles in Iran, which is roughly 10 times the number it currently buys each year. Costing about $3.6 million each, Tomahawks are long-range cruise missiles that have been widely used for US warfighting since the first Persian Gulf War in 1991 and remain a key munition for potential future conflicts for the US.
According to a CSIC study, the US is left with just 3,000 Tomahawk missiles in its stockpiles.
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Per the NYT report, the Pentagon has also fired off over 1,200 Patriot interceptor missiles in the war, costing more than $4 million a pop. The United States produced about 600 Patriot interceptor missiles in all of 2025.
The US forces have also used more than 1,000 Precision Strike and ATACMS ground-based missiles, leaving inventories worrisomely low, the report said.
The Pentagon has not disclosed how many munitions it used in 38 days of war before a cease-fire took effect two weeks ago. The US military has said it struck more than 13,000 targets, but officials told NYT that the figure masks the vast number of bombs and missiles it used because warplanes, attack planes and artillery typically strike large targets multiple times.
War Exposes US Military's Shortcomings
AFP
The war in Iran has drained much of the US military's global supply of munitions, as the Pentagon rushed bombs, missiles and other hardware to the Middle East from commands in Asia and Europe to support the operations. This has left other regional commands less combat-ready for any potential confrontation with adversaries in the region, like Russia and China.
The war has also exposed the Pentagon's overreliance on excessively expensive missiles and munitions, especially air-defence interceptors, raising concerns about whether the defence industry can develop cheaper arms, especially attack drones, far more quickly.
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The Pentagon has asked Congress for additional funding before it can pay weapons manufacturers to replenish the depleted American supply and is waiting for approval.
But the restoration of the US' global stockpile to its previous size may take time. In the meantime, Washington may have to reduce its military strength. "At current production rates, reconstituting what we have expended could take years," Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, told NYT.
"The United States has many munitions with adequate inventories, but some critical ground-attack and missile-defence munitions were short before the war and are even shorter now," said Mark F Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and a senior adviser at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
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Team Trump's Reaction
The White House has dismissed the report, claiming "the entire premise of this story is false".
"The United States of America has the most powerful military in the world, fully loaded with more than enough weapons and munitions in stockpiles here at home and all around the globe to effectively defend the homeland and achieve any military operation directed by the commander in chief," Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement to the NYT.
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