Trump’s Unnecessary War of Choice in Iran Has Drained U.S. Supplies of Critical, Costly Weapons

[BeaverFever]

 

Iran War Has Drained U.S. Supplies of Critical, Costly Weapons

 

The Pentagon’s rush to rearm its Mideast forces makes it less ready to confront potential adversaries like Russia and China, administration and congressional officials say.
 

Since the Iran war began in late February, the United States has burned through around 1,100 of its long-range stealth cruise missiles built for a war with China, close to the total number remaining in the U.S. stockpile. The military has fired off more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, roughly 10 times the number it currently buys each year.

The Pentagon used more than 1,200 Patriot interceptor missilesin the war, at more than $4 million a pop, and more than 1,000 Precision Strike and ATACMSground-based missiles, leaving inventories worrisomely low, according to internal Defense Department estimates and congressional officials.

The Iran war has significantly drained much of the U.S. military’s global supply of munitions, and forced the Pentagon to rush bombs, missiles and other hardware to the Middle East from commands in Asia and Europe. The drawdowns have left these regional commands less ready to confront potential adversaries like Russia and China, and it has forced the United States to find ways to scale up production to address the depletions, Trump administration and congressional officials say.

The conflict has also underscored the Pentagon’s overreliance on excessively expensive missiles and munitions, especially air-defense interceptors, as well as concerns about whether the defense industry can develop cheaper arms, especially attack drones, far more quickly.
 

White House officials have refused to estimate the cost of the conflict so far, but two independent groupssay the expense is staggering: between $28 billion and $35 billion, or just under $1 billion a day.

In the first two days alone, defense officials have told lawmakers, the military used $5.6 billion of munitions.

To restore the U.S. global stockpile to its previous size, the United States will have to make tough choices about where to maintain its military strength in the meantime. “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, said this week.

 

“The United States has many munitions with adequate inventories, but some critical ground-attack and missile-defense 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 Center for Strategic and International Studies, which recently published a studyestimating the status of key munitions.
 

…

The Pentagon, for example, has committed most of its inventory of stealthy, long-range cruise missiles to the fight against Iran. These missiles, called Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range, or JASSM-ER, are launched from fighters and bombers and have a range of more than 600 miles. They are designed to penetrate hard targets outside the range of enemy air defenses.

Since the war started, the military has used about 1,100 JASSM-ER missiles, which cost roughly $1.1 million apiece, leaving roughly 1,500 in the military’s inventories, according to internal Pentagon estimates, a U.S. military official and a congressional official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential combat assessments.

 

Tomahawks, which cost about $3.6 million each, are long-range cruise missiles that have been widely used for U.S. warfighting since the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. They remain a key munition for potential future wars, including one in Asia.

 

“While sufficient munitions exist to wage this war, high expenditure of Tomahawks and other missiles in Operation Epic Fury creates risks for the United States in other theaters — particularly the Western Pacific,” concluded a C.S.I.S. study, which estimated the remaining Tomahawk stockpiles to be around 3,000 missiles.

Patriot interceptor missiles can cost nearly $4 million each. The United States produced about 600 of them in all of 2025. More than 1,200 have been used in the war so far, according to internal Pentagon estimates and congressional officials.

Overall, the cost of the war so far is between $25 billion and $35 billion, according to a study this month by the American Enterprise Institute compiled by Elaine McCusker, a senior Pentagon official during the first Trump administration. Mr. Cancian of C.S.I.S. said in an email that he and his analysts put the cost of the conflict so far at about $28 billion.

The military is also incurring unexpected costs from damaged or destroyed aircraft. In the Navy SEAL Team 6 operation to rescue a downed Air Force officer in Iran, the military had to destroy two MC-130 cargo planes and at least three MH-6 helicopters inside them after the planes’ nose gear got stuck in the wet sand of a makeshift airstrip. Mr. Cancian estimated the total cost of the lost aircraft at about $275 million. Three replacement planes eventually flew the airman and the commandos to safety, but the Pentagon did not want sensitive technology from the aircraft to fall into Iranian hands.

 

All regional military commanders are feeling the strain of shrinking munitions stocks.

In Europe, the war has led to depletions in weapons systems critical for defending the eastern flank of NATO from Russian aggression, according to Pentagon information reviewed by The New York Times.

A problem described as serious was the loss of surveillance and attack drones. The demands of the Iran war have also curtailed exercises and training. According to military officials, this hurts the ability to mount offensive operations in Europe, as well as deterrence of potential Russian attacks.
 

…

Before the war with Iran started, American military commanders redirected the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group from the South China Sea to the Middle East. Since then, two Marine Expeditionary Units, each with about 2,200 Marines, have been sent to the Middle East from the Pacific. The Pentagon has also moved sophisticated air defenses from Asia to bolster protection against Iran’s drones and rockets.

 

The redirected weapons include Patriot missiles and interceptors from the THAAD system in South Korea — the only Asian ally hosting the advanced missile defense system, deployed by the Pentagon to counter North Korea’s growing missile threat. Now, for the first time, the system’s interceptors are being moved away, according to American officials.

U.S. readiness in the Pacific was hurt earlier by the Pentagon’s deployment of warships and aircraft to the Middle East after the Israel-Gaza war began in October 2023 and after Houthi militia forces in Yemen started attacking ships in the Red Sea to support the Palestinians, the officials say.

The monthlong bombing campaign against the Houthis last year — an operation the Pentagon called Rough Rider — was much larger than the Trump administration initially disclosed at the time. The Pentagon used up about $200 million of munitions in the first three weeks alone, U.S. officials said. The costs of the overall operation far exceeded $1 billion when operational and personnel expenses were taken into account, the officials added.

The American ships and aircraft, as well as the service members working on them, are being pushed at what the military calls a high operating tempo. Even basic equipment maintenance becomes an issue under those grinding conditions.

A spokeswoman for Adm. Samuel J. Paparo Jr., the head of the military’s Indo-Pacific Command, declined to comment on the arms diverted from Asia to the Middle East.

Admiral Paparo largely sidestepped the issue of stockpile shortages during a Senate hearing on Tuesday, acknowledging only that “there are finite limits to the magazine.”

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/23/us/politics/iran-war-cost-military.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

 

Putin’s preferred candidate strikes again. America’s enemies couldn’t have asked for a better friend 

[paxamericana]

Are we expecting to fight Russia and China in a conventional war soon? To defend deadbeat countries like Canada, who has nothing useful to contribute? If America fought China and Russia it wouldn’t be with the stuff we’re throwing at Iran okay, the world would be a nuclear furnace within the in the first 2 hours. No the war would be through proxy like Ukraine and Taiwan. 

Edited April 24 by paxamericana

[gatomontes99]

First off, that was a major violation of fair use.

Second, it is not an unnecessary war if the war prevented nuclear holocaust, which it did. 

[robosmith]

1 hour ago, paxamericana said:

Are we expecting to fight Russia and China in a conventional war soon? To defend deadbeat countries like Canada, who has nothing useful to contribute? If America fought China and Russia it wouldn’t be with the stuff we’re throwing at Iran okay, the world would be a nuclear furnace within the in the first 2 hours. No the war would be through proxy like Ukraine and Taiwan. 

We have been helping Ukraine fight Russia and YOU KNOW THAT, LIAR.

We have a LOT to lose if China takes Taiwan, since we cannot domestically manufacture the chips TSMC makes with US IP.  So we either fight to free Taiwan, or give up a HUGE resource for AI development.

Expending our advanced weapons on Iran was HUGE MISTAKE.

[robosmith]

@BeaverFever there is already a thread on this subject about the foolishness of wasting advanced US weapons on Iran.

 

[BeaverFever]

6 hours ago, paxamericana said:

If America fought China and Russia it wouldn’t be with the stuff we’re throwing at Iran okay, the world would be a nuclear furnace within the in the first 2 hours. No the war would be through proxy like Ukraine and Taiwan.

You would still need your arsenal for those proxy wars and you’re wasting them. 
 

6 hours ago, gatomontes99 said:

the war prevented nuclear holocaust,

LMAO NOT EVEN CLOSE 

[paxamericana]

6 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

proxy wars and you’re wasting them. 

We need high end weapons for proxy wars? As in give Taiwan and Ukriane our best fighter jets and weapons!!!?????? How about no, Ukriane get our leftover from the 80s . Taiwan will get a boat load of cheap drones. 
 

Also wasting them isn’t the right word, sure there’s always a concern of running out of ammunition. But that’s not the right perspective, Americans value their service members lives more than pearl clutching like other cultures. Using those high end munition to avoid putting our service members in harms way is why we use them.  @Army Guy

Edited April 24 by paxamericana

[John Stone]

Fear is a significant factor in influencing voter behavior, it instills anxiety and is used to create a sense of crisis, a sense of urgency or danger.

Historically, populist hacks have used it effectively to create division and by extension to promote a political agenda.

With Trump as President there is no chance of the U.S. acting in defense of Taiwan much less, Europe. Trump punches, ‘down’.  The thought of a conflict,  even  via  proxy,  with China, Russia or NK scares the bejesus out of him.

So the idea that the US is depleting it’s munition reserve to a point where a confrontation with the (3) would be a concern is moot – a direct conflict will never happen.

Ask yourself why the Administration is requesting a record breaking budget of trillions for the Defense dept?

Historically this type of strategy has led to an arms race ………. conventional and nuke.

Trump is a scared C-in-C, not at the National level ..............at the personal level. 

Some have labelled him  a thin skinned, ignorant, 80 y/o, coward, in his dotage and teetering on senility. 

 

[John Johnston]

15 minutes ago, John Stone said:

Fear is a significant factor in influencing voter behavior, it instills anxiety and is used to create a sense of crisis, a sense of urgency or danger.

Historically, populist hacks have used it effectively to create division and by extension to promote a political agenda.

With Trump as President there is no chance of the U.S. acting in defense of Taiwan much less, Europe. Trump punches, ‘down’.  The thought of a conflict,  even  via  proxy,  with China, Russia or NK scares the bejesus out of him.

So the idea that the US is depleting it’s munition reserve to a point where a confrontation with the (3) would be a concern is moot – a direct conflict will never happen.

Ask yourself why the Administration is requesting a record breaking budget of trillions for the Defense dept?

Historically this type of strategy has led to an arms race ………. conventional and nuke.

Trump is a scared C-in-C, not at the National level ..............at the personal level. 

Some have labelled him  a thin skinned, ignorant, 80 y/o, coward, in his dotage and teetering on senility. 

 

You are describing a school yard bully. Trump and the Sock puppet war monger are little more than a couple thugs. However, every Dog has their day. 

[John Stone]

1 minute ago, John Johnston said:

You are describing a school yard bully. Trump and the Sock puppet war monger are little more than a couple thugs. However, every Dog has their day. 

.................. ask urself why Trump has surrounded himself with such incompetence .............. the answer is that he wants to be 1st amongst equals. 😄

[John Johnston]

2 minutes ago, John Stone said:

.................. ask urself why Trump has surrounded himself with such incompetence .............. the answer is that he wants to be 1st amongst equals. 😄

True that, for sure.

[John Johnston]

The person who sits in the Oval Office has no endgame for this war, hasn’t given a consistent answer for what ‘victory’ will require, and doesn’t appear to know what he’s doing.

No Shit,  Sherlock... 

[John Johnston]

9 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

 

Iran War Has Drained U.S. Supplies of Critical, Costly Weapons

 

The Pentagon’s rush to rearm its Mideast forces makes it less ready to confront potential adversaries like Russia and China, administration and congressional officials say.
 

 

Since the Iran war began in late February, the United States has burned through around 1,100 of its long-range stealth cruise missiles built for a war with China, close to the total number remaining in the U.S. stockpile. The military has fired off more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, roughly 10 times the number it currently buys each year.

The Pentagon used more than 1,200 Patriot interceptor missilesin the war, at more than $4 million a pop, and more than 1,000 Precision Strike and ATACMSground-based missiles, leaving inventories worrisomely low, according to internal Defense Department estimates and congressional officials.

The Iran war has significantly drained much of the U.S. military’s global supply of munitions, and forced the Pentagon to rush bombs, missiles and other hardware to the Middle East from commands in Asia and Europe. The drawdowns have left these regional commands less ready to confront potential adversaries like Russia and China, and it has forced the United States to find ways to scale up production to address the depletions, Trump administration and congressional officials say.

The conflict has also underscored the Pentagon’s overreliance on excessively expensive missiles and munitions, especially air-defense interceptors, as well as concerns about whether the defense industry can develop cheaper arms, especially attack drones, far more quickly.
 

 

White House officials have refused to estimate the cost of the conflict so far, but two independent groupssay the expense is staggering: between $28 billion and $35 billion, or just under $1 billion a day.

In the first two days alone, defense officials have told lawmakers, the military used $5.6 billion of munitions.

To restore the U.S. global stockpile to its previous size, the United States will have to make tough choices about where to maintain its military strength in the meantime. “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, said this week.

 

“The United States has many munitions with adequate inventories, but some critical ground-attack and missile-defense 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 Center for Strategic and International Studies, which recently published a studyestimating the status of key munitions.
 

…

 

The Pentagon, for example, has committed most of its inventory of stealthy, long-range cruise missiles to the fight against Iran. These missiles, called Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range, or JASSM-ER, are launched from fighters and bombers and have a range of more than 600 miles. They are designed to penetrate hard targets outside the range of enemy air defenses.

Since the war started, the military has used about 1,100 JASSM-ER missiles, which cost roughly $1.1 million apiece, leaving roughly 1,500 in the military’s inventories, according to internal Pentagon estimates, a U.S. military official and a congressional official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential combat assessments.

 

 

Tomahawks, which cost about $3.6 million each, are long-range cruise missiles that have been widely used for U.S. warfighting since the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. They remain a key munition for potential future wars, including one in Asia.

 

“While sufficient munitions exist to wage this war, high expenditure of Tomahawks and other missiles in Operation Epic Fury creates risks for the United States in other theaters — particularly the Western Pacific,” concluded a C.S.I.S. study, which estimated the remaining Tomahawk stockpiles to be around 3,000 missiles.

Patriot interceptor missiles can cost nearly $4 million each. The United States produced about 600 of them in all of 2025. More than 1,200 have been used in the war so far, according to internal Pentagon estimates and congressional officials.

Overall, the cost of the war so far is between $25 billion and $35 billion, according to a study this month by the American Enterprise Institute compiled by Elaine McCusker, a senior Pentagon official during the first Trump administration. Mr. Cancian of C.S.I.S. said in an email that he and his analysts put the cost of the conflict so far at about $28 billion.

The military is also incurring unexpected costs from damaged or destroyed aircraft. In the Navy SEAL Team 6 operation to rescue a downed Air Force officer in Iran, the military had to destroy two MC-130 cargo planes and at least three MH-6 helicopters inside them after the planes’ nose gear got stuck in the wet sand of a makeshift airstrip. Mr. Cancian estimated the total cost of the lost aircraft at about $275 million. Three replacement planes eventually flew the airman and the commandos to safety, but the Pentagon did not want sensitive technology from the aircraft to fall into Iranian hands.

 

All regional military commanders are feeling the strain of shrinking munitions stocks.

In Europe, the war has led to depletions in weapons systems critical for defending the eastern flank of NATO from Russian aggression, according to Pentagon information reviewed by The New York Times.

A problem described as serious was the loss of surveillance and attack drones. The demands of the Iran war have also curtailed exercises and training. According to military officials, this hurts the ability to mount offensive operations in Europe, as well as deterrence of potential Russian attacks.
 

…

Before the war with Iran started, American military commanders redirected the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group from the South China Sea to the Middle East. Since then, two Marine Expeditionary Units, each with about 2,200 Marines, have been sent to the Middle East from the Pacific. The Pentagon has also moved sophisticated air defenses from Asia to bolster protection against Iran’s drones and rockets.

 

The redirected weapons include Patriot missiles and interceptors from the THAAD system in South Korea — the only Asian ally hosting the advanced missile defense system, deployed by the Pentagon to counter North Korea’s growing missile threat. Now, for the first time, the system’s interceptors are being moved away, according to American officials.

U.S. readiness in the Pacific was hurt earlier by the Pentagon’s deployment of warships and aircraft to the Middle East after the Israel-Gaza war began in October 2023 and after Houthi militia forces in Yemen started attacking ships in the Red Sea to support the Palestinians, the officials say.

The monthlong bombing campaign against the Houthis last year — an operation the Pentagon called Rough Rider — was much larger than the Trump administration initially disclosed at the time. The Pentagon used up about $200 million of munitions in the first three weeks alone, U.S. officials said. The costs of the overall operation far exceeded $1 billion when operational and personnel expenses were taken into account, the officials added.

The American ships and aircraft, as well as the service members working on them, are being pushed at what the military calls a high operating tempo. Even basic equipment maintenance becomes an issue under those grinding conditions.

A spokeswoman for Adm. Samuel J. Paparo Jr., the head of the military’s Indo-Pacific Command, declined to comment on the arms diverted from Asia to the Middle East.

Admiral Paparo largely sidestepped the issue of stockpile shortages during a Senate hearing on Tuesday, acknowledging only that “there are finite limits to the magazine.”

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/23/us/politics/iran-war-cost-military.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

 

Putin’s preferred candidate strikes again. America’s enemies couldn’t have asked for a better friend 

One single individual is now wreaking havoc – lives lost, energy prices soaring, our treasury being drained, our own needs overlooked, and potential future terrorism unleashed on this and other lands for years to come.

This war marks an overwhelming failure of American democracy. It is ultimately our failure.

[Nationalist]

7 hours ago, gatomontes99 said:

First off, that was a major violation of fair use.

Second, it is not an unnecessary war if the war prevented nuclear holocaust, which it did. 

How do you know that? Because a bunch of Zionists told you? Why should Isreal be the only nuclear armed country in the ME? How can you trust them, knowing their sorted history?

Both Iran and Isreal are cancerous to peace in the ME. Let the 2 of then fight if they must. This is not our fight.

[LinkSoul60]

When you don't have an endless supply of bullets you're logically not going to shoot them all at guys that for the most part aren't shooting back. Logic and common sense don't prevail though when you have 2 children running the show and who were too excited about blowing things up and killing people with their fancy weapons.  

Donald J Trump and Pete Fox News Hegseth miscalculating....  I'm shocked.  I'm also sure US's adversaries have been aware of this and it's provided the incentive to quietly support Iran to keep this conflict going and the US distracted, which is working quite well...

 

[gatomontes99]

46 minutes ago, Nationalist said:

How do you know that? Because a bunch of Zionists told you? Why should Isreal be the only nuclear armed country in the ME? How can you trust them, knowing their sorted history?

Both Iran and Isreal are cancerous to peace in the ME. Let the 2 of then fight if they must. This is not our fight.

Israel attacks when provoked. If someone came over and exterminated half of north America and then said they would kill the rest of us later, would you be passive? 

[User]

10 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

Putin’s preferred candidate strikes again. America’s enemies couldn’t have asked for a better friend 

Americas enemies… like Iran?

Just another brain dead thread. 

[John Johnston]

9 hours ago, paxamericana said:

Are we expecting to fight Russia and China in a conventional war soon? To defend deadbeat countries like Canada, who has nothing useful to contribute? If America fought China and Russia it wouldn’t be with the stuff we’re throwing at Iran okay, the world would be a nuclear furnace within the in the first 2 hours. No the war would be through proxy like Ukraine and Taiwan. 

That's right America turns itself into a shit show and then criticizes everybody else. You are on your own for a reason. 

[paxamericana]

10 minutes ago, John Johnston said:

That's right America turns itself into a shit show and then criticizes everybody else. You are on your own for a reason. 

America didn’t fight this war on our own. We have partners, some better than others. But you Canada, you’re on the naughty list. 

[John Johnston]

19 minutes ago, paxamericana said:

America didn’t fight this war on our own. We have partners, some better than others. But you Canada, you’re on the naughty list. 

That's a you problem. Not a me problem. 

[paxamericana]

16 minutes ago, John Johnston said:

That's a you problem. Not a me problem. 

Oh America can make it a you problem too. 

[Nationalist]

1 hour ago, gatomontes99 said:

Israel attacks when provoked. If someone came over and exterminated half of north America and then said they would kill the rest of us later, would you be passive? 

March 9, 2027 - "Russia’s international humanitarian cooperation agency said on Monday that Israel attacked the partner Russian House in the Lebanese city of Nabatieh, calling it an “unprovoked act of aggression,” "

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260309-unprovoked-act-of-aggression-russia-claims-israel-attacked-its-cultural-center-in-lebanon/

12 Day War - "The Twelve-Day War was an armed conflict between Iran and Israel which lasted from 13 to 24 June 2025. It began when Israel bombed military and nuclear facilities in Iran in a surprise attack, assassinating prominent military leaders, nuclear scientists, and politicians, killing civilians, and damaging or destroying air defenses"

2025 - "Israel has attacked more countries than any other country this year.

In 2025, Israel attacked at least six countries, including Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Qatar, Syria, and Yemen.

It also carried out strikes in Tunisian, Maltese and Greek territorial waters on aid flotillas heading for Gaza.

According to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), an independent conflict monitor, from January 1 to December 5, Israel carried out at least 10,631 attacks, marking one of the broadest geographic military offensives in a single year."

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2025/12/29/all-the-countries-israel-attacked-in-2025-animated-map

That took all of 3 minutes. There's scads more. We can include the current "war" with Iran as well.

Edited April 24 by Nationalist

[Gaétan]

It is a characteristic of narcissistic psychopaths to provoke conflicts in order to draw attention to themselves of other. This madman loves having the media talk about him.

Edited April 24 by Gaétan

[paxamericana]

18 minutes ago, Gaétan said:

narcissistic

As are all world leaders

[John Stone]

Anyone seen the manner in which Trump scrapes to Xi, Kim Jong, Putin?

The manner is representative of a coward - 'they' on the other hand treat him with disdain.

Trump is incapable of debate with any Global leader ................. and his so-called 'press communications'?

Akin to an empty drum - loud, abusive, empty and without substance.

Contrast Trump's manner in terms of respect / speech when  he is addressing or critiquing a national leader he considers 'less'. 

Zelenskyy comes to mind - Trump's all aggression then - bullying. 

That is not a display of strength, gentlemen - on the contrary, it is a vulgar display of weakness. 

Trump is a coward.