A leak from the Pentagon last week reported by US media suggests that if the attack on Iran continues for more than 10 days, US stocks of some critical missiles could begin to run low.
On Saturday, the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran, while talks between Washington and Tehran over Iran’s nuclear program and other issues, understood to include limiting Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and disarming regional armed groups, continued.
Iran counterattacked with missile and drone strikes across the region, including on Israeli targets as well as U.S. military facilities in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Iraq.
The Pentagon, home to the US Department of Defense, also reportedly warned President Donald Trump that prolonged military operations in Iran carry serious risks, including the high cost of replenishing America’s dwindling military stockpile.
President Trump maintains that the United States has sufficient stockpiles to continue military operations in Iran.
“The United States’ stockpile of munitions, at the intermediate and above-intermediate level, does not get any better. As stated to me today, there is a virtually unlimited supply of these weapons. Using only these supplies, wars can be fought ‘forever’ and very successfully,” President Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday.
President Trump said on Monday that plans for a war with Iran were initially “scheduled for four to five weeks” but could last longer, but analysts told Al Jazeera that some of the weapons stockpiled by that point, particularly critical interceptor missiles, could be very low.
Here’s what we know:
What kind of weapons is the US using to attack Iran?
According to the U.S. military’s Central Command (CENTCOM), it has used more than 20 weapons systems across air, naval, ground and missile defense forces during the ongoing operation in Iran.
The United States uses B-1 bombers, B-2 stealth bombers, F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters, F-22 Raptor jets, F-15s, and EA-18G Growlers.
It also uses drones and long-range attack systems, including the Low-Cost Unmanned Combat Attack System (LUCAS) unidirectional drone, the MQ-9 Reaper drone, the M-142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), and the Tomahawk cruise missile.
It also uses air defense systems such as Patriot, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries, and Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft.
Two US aircraft carriers, USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Gerald R. Ford, were in the Middle East when the attack on Iran began.
The Wall Street Journal reported on February 23 that Pentagon officials and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Kaine had warned President Trump about the dangers of prolonging the campaign against Iran.
At the same time, the Washington Post reported that Kaine told Trump that a lack of critical munitions and support from regional allies could hamper efforts to thwart possible Iranian retaliation in the event of a U.S. attack.
The report said U.S. ammunition stockpiles, including those used in missile defense systems, are strained due to use in support of allies such as Israel and Ukraine.
Trump slammed media reports that Kaine issued such a warning, adding that the general “believes” in war with Iran.
How many weapons did the US use in last year’s attack on Iran?
Iran fought a 12-day war with Israel from June 13 to 24, 2025. The United States participated in this operation on Israel’s side and bombed some of Iran’s nuclear facilities late in the war. During this time, the United States deployed two advanced THAAD missile defense system squadrons to Israel.
THAAD is an advanced missile defense system manufactured by Lockheed Martin that uses radar and interceptor missiles to shoot down short, intermediate, and medium-range ballistic missiles at distances of approximately 150 to 200 km (93 to 124 miles).
After the 12-day war, U.S. officials reported that they had to launch more than 150 of these missiles to intercept incoming missiles from Iran, accounting for about 25% of the THAAD interceptors, multiple reports said.
The United States also ran out of large numbers of carrier-based interceptor missiles during last year’s war, according to US media reports.
What weapons could the United States run out of now?
Analysts say that if the war with Iran continues, the most likely shortages the United States will have are high-precision advanced weapons and interceptors like THAAD.
This includes the Joint Direct Attack Weapon (JDAM), a guidance tool that uses the Global Positioning System (GPS) to turn unguided bombs into precision-guided weapons, effectively making a “dumb” bomb “smart.”
A THAAD battery typically consists of 95 soldiers, six truck-mounted launchers, 48 interceptors (eight on each launcher), a radar system, and fire control and communications components. Lockheed Martin says there will be nine THAAD batteries in operation around the world as of mid-2025.
In 2024, Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna reported from Washington DC that the cost of a single THAAD battery was between $1 billion and $1.8 billion.
Interceptors and weapons take months to assemble, integrate, and test. It then takes more time to be transported by sea or air, installed and deployed.
Experts say advanced missile defense systems are primarily designed with limited, powerful attacks from states such as Russia, China and North Korea in mind, rather than a sustained, large-scale barrage of cheaper missiles.
Analysts say the finite stockpile of advanced interceptor missiles will be depleted over time at a very high cost, since each intercept can cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to shoot down a missile that cost only a few thousand dollars to produce.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Monday that Iran can mass-produce far more offensive weapons than the United States and its allies can produce interceptors to stop it.
“By some estimates, they’re producing more than 100 of these missiles a month. Compare that to the six or seven interceptors they can produce a month,” Rubio said.
“They can build 100 of these a month, not to mention they also have thousands of one-way attack drones. They’ve been doing this for a very long time. They’re doing it under sanctions, by the way.”
Additionally, stocks of Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) are already being depleted due to production delays, attacks on Houthi rebels in Yemen, and previous conflicts with Iran. The SM-3 is an anti-ballistic missile launched from warships.
Not only is the United States running out of weapons, it is also losing weapons due to operational miscalculations. On Sunday, for example, at least three U.S. fighter jets were shot down in Kuwait, in what U.S. officials described as a mutual attack.
How soon will the US run out of interceptors?
Christopher Prebble, a senior fellow at the US think tank Stimson Center, told Al Jazeera that while the US could cover the economic costs of war given its multitrillion-dollar defense budget, the real constraint lies in its stockpile of interceptor missiles such as the Patriot and SM-6.
Prebble cautioned that high interception rates won’t last forever.
He said: “It is reasonable to assume that the current pace of operations, in terms of the number of interceptions, certainly cannot continue indefinitely and probably cannot continue for more than a few weeks.”
Manufacturing of replacement products will not occur immediately. “The Patriot missile and the SM-6 are very complex equipment,” he added.
Prebble said he could not comment on how long it would take to manufacture the weapon.
“We’re not churning out hundreds or thousands of units a day. That’s not the pace of manufacturing.”
What happens if the United States runs out of weapons?
Prebble said the United States could continue producing weapons or move them to the Middle East from other deployment sites.
“Some of these interceptor missiles were intended to be sent to or used in Ukraine in response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine,” he said.
“Some of those weapons have been used in Asia and the Indo-Pacific, and while they’re not currently in use, they would be important in the event of an Indo-Pacific contingency. So there would be some concern about removing those weapons from that theater.”
How much will this war cost the United States?
The Pentagon does not say how much the war is costing the United States, but estimates suggest that sustaining the war is costly.
Anadolu Agency reported that the US spent about $779 million in the first 24 hours of the operation against Iran, with an additional $630 million spent on pre-attack preparations such as moving aircraft, deploying more than a dozen naval vessels and mobilizing regional assets.
The Center for a New American Security estimates that operating a carrier strike group like the USS Gerald R. Ford costs about $6.5 million per day.
