The US military has “significantly depleted” its stockpile of key missiles during the war in Iran and could face shortages in a future conflict, CNN reported on Tuesday.
In seven weeks of war, the US military has used roughly 45 percent of its Precision Strike Missiles, at least half of its THAAD interceptors, and nearly 50 percent of its Patriot air defence missiles, according to a new analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
These figures closely match classified Pentagon estimates, the report said.
The US military has also used roughly 30 percent of its Tomahawk missiles, over 20 percent of its long-range Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles, and about 20 percent of its SM-3 and SM-6 missiles, the report said.
Although the Pentagon signed contracts earlier this year to boost missile production, replenishing these systems will still take three to five years, even with increased capacity.
In the near term, the US likely retains enough munitions to sustain operations against Iran if the fragile ceasefire collapses, according to the report.
However, stockpiles of key weapons are now insufficient for a conflict with a near-peer adversary like China, and rebuilding them to pre-war levels could take years, the report noted.
“The high munitions expenditures have created a window of increased vulnerability in the western Pacific,” Mark Cancian, a retired US Marine Corps Colonel and one of the authors of the CSIS report, told CNN.
“It will take one to four years to replenish these inventories and several years after that to expand them to where they need to be,” he said.
In a statement to CNN, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said that the military “has everything it needs to execute at the time and place of the President’s choosing.”
“Since President (Donald) Trump took office, we have executed multiple successful operations across combatant commands while ensuring the US military possesses a deep arsenal of capabilities to protect our people and our interests,” he said.
