US weapons stockpiles under strain as Iran war enters second week, Democrats warn

As U.S. and Israeli forces continue strikes on Iran now in their second week, Democratic lawmakers and defense experts are raising questions about the long-term adequacy of American weapons stockpiles — particularly the Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors central to the missile defense campaign. The Trump administration has insisted the military has what it needs, while announcing that major defense contractors have agreed to quadruple production of certain munitions.

The dispute over stockpiles exposes a production shortfall that experts say predates the Iran war by decades, with the deeper worry focused not on running out during the current conflict but on whether sufficient interceptors will remain to deter China and Russia once the fighting stops.

WASHINGTON — As U.S. and Israeli forces continue strikes against Iran now in their second week, Democratic lawmakers and defense experts are raising concerns about the long-term adequacy of American weapons stockpiles — particularly the Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, interceptors central to the missile defense campaign.

The Trump administration has pushed back firmly. Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said in a statement that the U.S. military “has everything it needs to execute any mission at the time and place of the President’s choosing and on any timeline.”

President Donald Trump posted on social media Friday that several defense contractors had agreed to quadruple production of weapons “as rapidly as possible,” though he did not specify which systems. Defense contractor Lockheed Martin followed with its own post on X, saying it had agreed to “quadruple critical munitions production” and had “began this work months ago.” Neither Trump nor Lockheed offered a timetable for when the increases would reach their target.

Interceptors already depleted before the war began

Missile defense interceptors are under the sharpest strain, according to Ryan Brobst, deputy director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank that advocates for robust defense spending. He said about 25% of the entire THAAD stockpile was estimated to have been consumed defending Israel from Iran’s ballistic missiles in a 12-day war last summer.

“These were already in very high demand and we had not procured enough before the conflict,” Brobst said. “And now we’ve probably used, between the two of them, probably several hundred more.”

The THAAD system is designed to defeat medium-range ballistic missiles; the Patriot system handles short-range ballistic missiles and crewed aircraft. Both had been in high demand — Patriot in Ukraine, THAAD in Israel — before the Iran war began.

Demand for interceptors is likely falling as the U.S. and its allies degrade Iran’s missile capabilities, Brobst said. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters this week that the number of ballistic missiles fired by Iran was down 86% from the war’s first day.

But Brobst said his deeper concern is what happens after.

“I’m not particularly worried about us actually running out during this conflict,” he said. “It’s about deterring China and Russia the day after this conflict is over.”

Democrats question long-term impact

Several Democratic lawmakers said administration assurances do not address a structural gap.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told CNN on Thursday: “We’ve been told again and again and again one reason that we can’t provide interceptors for the Patriot system or other munitions for Ukraine is that they’re in short supply.”

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters that American supplies were dwindling after the military’s campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen and more recent conflicts under the Republican administration.

“Our munitions are low. That’s public knowledge,” Warner said. “It will require additional funding, funding where we have other domestic needs as well.” Warner did not specify which munitions he was referring to.

Many Democratic lawmakers have also argued that Trump is waging a “war of choice” in Iran, framing the stockpile debate as part of a broader critique of the administration’s decision to launch the campaign.

Shift to cheaper munitions as standoff stocks peak

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the campaign’s munitions profile has changed. He told reporters Wednesday that American forces used more “standoff munitions at the start, but no longer need to” and would instead rely on “500-pound, 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound GPS- and laser-guided, precision gravity bombs.”

Those weapons are cheaper and in healthy supply, Brobst said, though they require aircraft to fly closer to targets. Their use likely peaked at the beginning of the war as U.S. forces struck Iran’s early-warning systems, air defenses and other installations.

The U.S. military is also deploying an anti-drone system called Merops to the region. The system uses drones to intercept drones, fits in the back of a midsize pickup truck, and uses artificial intelligence to navigate when satellite and electronic communications are jammed. U.S. officials said they have struggled to stop waves of Iranian drones with conventional interceptors, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each — against drones that cost less than $50,000.

A production gap decades in the making

Brobst attributed the underlying problem to decisions made across multiple administrations.

“Successive administrations over multiple decades did not procure sufficient quantities of these interceptors, and when that happens, companies don’t have an incentive to expand their production capacity,” he said, adding that ramping up production takes “significant time.”

Katherine Thompson, a former deputy senior adviser at the Pentagon during the current Trump administration who left that position in October, said former President Joe Biden had depleted interceptor stockpiles by sending them to Ukraine.

“It was a short-term win for the Biden administration but a long-term strategic problem for the United States as a whole,” said Thompson, now a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. “I would hope that the Trump administration doesn’t make that same mistake here.”

Riki Ellison, chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, said the military could shift interceptors from one region to another or draw on allied stocks if needed and pointed to the Pentagon’s push to expand contractor output.

“We’re moving in that direction,” Ellison said. “That’s not going to be ready next week or anything, but it’s moving.”

The exact numbers of U.S. THAAD and Patriot interceptors remain classified, with both administration officials and Democratic lawmakers declining to offer specifics.