SPECIAL REPORT: The U.S. Has Fired Off 'Virtually All' of Its Long-Range Precision Missiles in the Iran War
A five-month air war has drained the Pentagon's deepest magazine of precision firepower, and the bill is coming due in Washington, Moscow and Beijing.
Summary:
Washington has spent “virtually all” of its ATACMS and Precision Strike Missile inventory, two sources say
A little under half the global Tomahawk supply is gone, according to one source
Officials fear the drained magazines leave the U.S. exposed if a second conflict opens
THE U.S. ARMY has burned through much of its stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles during five months of war with Iran, according to three people familiar with the data, raising concerns about the military’s readiness for future conflicts.
The weapons are chiefly the Army’s surface-to-surface systems: the Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, and the Precision Strike Missile, known as PrSM. Two of the sources said the U.S. has used “virtually all” of them.
How far those inventories have fallen has not been reported before.
The missiles cost more than $1 million apiece and anchor the military’s ability to hit a target precisely from beyond the reach of enemy defenses. U.S.-supplied ATACMS have been central to the war in Ukraine, giving Kyiv’s forces the range to strike targets inside Russia. PrSM is the newer, longer-range generation built to replace it.
The drawdown narrows Donald Trump’s options. Should he relaunch large-scale attacks on Iran, he may have to lean on riskier, piloted bombing missions.
The sources declined to say how many of each munition remain.
Trump launched the war jointly with Israel in February, predicting the fighting would be brief.
Five months on, the three people familiar with the matter said the falling supply could limit the U.S. ability to deter adversaries, including Russia and China.
A fourth person familiar with the matter said Central Command—which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East—has nearly exhausted the land-based missiles it held before the war and has been able to reload from American stocks elsewhere in the world.
The sources interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Asked about the stockpile data, the White House issued a statement from Trump saying the U.S. had “far more munitions than anyone in the world” and “far more than we need.”
“Our defense companies are, at this moment, making more munitions than they have ever made before, in addition to expanding their plants and equipment at record levels,” Trump said.
Analysts agree that artillery shells and several classes of missiles are coming off production lines at record rates, and caution that the output may still fall short of what a prolonged war demands.
Lockheed Martin, which builds ATACMS and PrSM along with the THAAD anti-ballistic missile system, did not immediately respond to questions about Trump’s statements or about supply levels. Raytheon, which builds Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot interceptors, two important U.S. weapons, also did not immediately respond.
Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said:
“America’s military is the most powerful in the world and has everything it needs to execute at the time and place of the President’s choosing. We have executed multiple successful operations across combatant commands while ensuring the U.S. military possesses a deep arsenal of capabilities to protect our people and our interests.”
The figures have moved through the federal government over the past week during tense conversations inside the administration about how much longer the U.S. can keep striking Iran without pulling the stockpile down to levels that would limit a response to a crisis elsewhere.
What the Commanders Have Been Telling the President
One of the sources said the rate at which ATACMS and PrSM have been spent reflects a decision by the Trump administration to avoid riskier ways of attacking Iranian targets, such as sending piloted aircraft to drop bombs.
Because the missiles strike from a distance, analysts say they would prove valuable against an adversary with dense air defenses, such as China. They have been fired at targets inside Iran, according to a March report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
PrSM stocks were thin at the outset, since the weapon is relatively new, and the military has ordered a large number of them for 2027. The Army has said ATACMS are being phased out and that production is shifting to the newer missile.
Military leaders have for weeks warned Trump that stockpiles of defensive weapons were dwindling, including Patriot interceptors, which are effective against ballistic missiles, two of the sources said. Last week, several outlets reported Trump had decided against another massive offensive inside Iran in part because his military advisers had warned about the stockpile.
A U.S. official disputed those accounts, saying Trump chose not to move forward because of pressure from Gulf states.
The conflict has touched off an intense fight over Trump’s authority to prosecute hostilities against Iran without congressional authorization. No request for a declaration of war or an authorization to use military force has been submitted to Congress.
The Defensive Arsenal Is Thinning Too
Last week, CSIS estimated that about 65% of Patriot interceptors had been expended between February and July, and that the number of THAAD ballistic missile interceptors in U.S. stockpiles was at least 38% lower than at the start of the war. Patriot and THAAD detect and destroy incoming missiles and rank among the most effective systems in the country’s arsenal.
The underlying supply figures have not been reviewed independently. Two of the sources said the estimates match internal U.S. data.
The U.S. has also burned through a little less than half of its global supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are generally launched from ships, since the war began, one of the sources said. That figure could not be independently verified.
The Tomahawk is a Navy weapon, launched from destroyers, cruisers and submarines, and has long served as the sea service’s principal means of striking heavily defended targets without risking pilots.
Raytheon, a unit of RTX, has reached a tentative multi-year agreement with the Pentagon aimed at boosting Tomahawk production, alongside increases in other munitions, as Washington races to rebuild stockpiles.
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Poor weapons discipline. The incompetent regime wants to blame supporting Ukraine for the diminishing weapons systems.
Trump & Hegshit shot their wad. Iran has them by the balls and barrels.