John Spencer | Aug 20, 2026
Nobody outside a small circle in the U.S. government knows the size of America’s missile stockpiles. The numbers are classified for a reason. Anyone claiming to know the exact totals is either using leaked classified information, inventing a number from incomplete public data and analysis, such as comparing every missile launched to two interceptors, or dismissing every statement from the Trump administration as false. None of that is a sound basis for military analysis. I hate the potential for leaking operational secrets the most. It doesn’t “speak truth to power.” It hands adversaries information that can put American service members at risk.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Dan Caine has rightly refused to discuss quantities. He’s also said the United States has enough precision munitions for the mission, both offense and defense. Critics can question that judgment. What they shouldn’t do is substitute confident guesswork for classified facts.
For the sake of argument, let’s accept the central claim: U.S. missile inventories are low. The important question is what conclusion follows. Calls to end the war with Iran because America is running short of missiles get it backward.
The first mistake is treating every missile as the same. Offensive and defensive stockpiles create different problems. Early in the campaign, U.S. forces used long-range standoff weapons to punch through Iranian air defenses and hit targets from outside their reach. Once the United States and Israel owned the airspace, the mix shifted to stand-in weapons (JDAMs, Hellfires, and other air-delivered bombs that exist in far greater numbers). A Tomahawk missile count alone doesn’t measure American striking power.
Public estimates still point to a real replenishment challenge. The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) assessed that more than 1,000 Tomahawks were expended and that replacing them at previous delivery rates would stretch into late 2030. Just this week, the Navy awarded Raytheon a seven-year, $22.9 billion contract aimed at lifting annual Tomahawk production from about sixty missiles to more than a thousand. That’s a serious course correction. It also shows how far earlier procurement had fallen behind the realities of modern war.
Defensive missiles are the bigger worry. Patriot and THAAD interceptors protect troops, bases, allies, cities, ports, and critical infrastructure. They’re costly, hard to produce, and often fired against far cheaper weapons. A single PAC-3 interceptor takes more than two years to build and costs about $4 million. Only one plant in the United States conducts final assembly of the PAC-3: Lockheed Martin’s facility in East Camden, Arkansas. CSIS estimates that restoring Patriot inventories to prewar levels will take at least three years under current production schedules, while replacing the THAAD and Tomahawk missiles expended during the war will take approximately two years. The Department of War is working to shorten those timelines. In January 2026, it signed a framework agreement with Lockheed Martin intended to cut PAC-3 lead times and increase annual production from approximately 600 to 2,000 interceptors. Lockheed Martin is also developing a cheaper interceptor called the PAC-3 Adapted Capability Effector. The company says it can be produced faster and will cost less than half as much as the PAC-3 MSE.
This shortage didn’t begin with the current administration or this war. Multiple administrations accepted an industrial base built for low annual demand, narrow production lines, and long lead times. They sized inventories around planning assumptions and war games that underestimated how many missiles a sustained fight would burn. Russia’s war in Ukraine exposed the same weakness in artillery, Javelins, and air-defense weapons. Iran has driven the point home again.
War has a way of revealing bad assumptions. It also reveals the limits of allies who rely on the United States to defend sites they haven’t adequately protected themselves. Iran shifted attacks toward bases and critical infrastructure across the region because those targets offered a better chance of getting through. Those attacks threatened countries that weren’t parties to the war and infrastructure that serves millions of civilians. One missile that penetrates and kills American soldiers is a tragedy. It doesn’t erase thousands of successful interceptions, sustained U.S. strikes across Iran, or American control of Iranian airspace. No missile defense system has ever promised zero casualties.
The proper response is straightforward. Congress needs to fund replenishment and expanded production now. The Pentagon has to move past single-source production, slow contracting, and delivery timelines measured in years. The United States and its allies need layered defenses that use cheaper weapons against drones and lower-end threats, saving Patriot and THAAD interceptors for the ballistic missiles they were designed to defeat. Allies hosting American forces must invest more in their own air and missile defense.
Ending a successful campaign because Iran fired enough cheap missiles to strain U.S. interceptor stocks would teach every American adversary the same lesson: build large missile forces, attack exposed U.S. partners, absorb the punishment, and wait for Washington to lose its nerve. China, Russia, North Korea, and every Iranian proxy would take careful notes.
If the stockpiles are low, fix the stockpiles. Expand the factories. Shorten the production timelines. Buy enough munitions for the wars the United States may actually face, not the wars previous planners hoped it would fight. America should close the weakness Iran exposed and keep pursuing its military objectives. The goal of war is to break the enemy’s ability and will to continue, not to surrender our own when a long-neglected production problem finally comes into view.
John Spencer is the Chair of War Studies at the Madison Policy Forum.
He is the author of 20 Times I Almost Died: Life Lessons from the Edge of Survival
and coauthor of Understanding Urban Warfare
Learn more at www.johnspenceronline.com
X: @SpencerGuard
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