Norms Impact
U.S. Is Running Out of Missiles Thanks to Trump’s War in Iran
A war posture that drains U.S. missile stockpiles is forcing allies into scarcity while executive decision-making reshapes national security commitments without durable, transparent guardrails.
Mar 6, 2026
Sources
Summary
U.S. missile stocks have been rapidly depleted during the war with Iran, limiting Washington’s ability to supply allies. The resulting constraints are shifting defense burden and production expectations toward Europe as U.S. priorities move to replenishing its own inventories and Middle East demands. In practice, Ukraine and other partners face delayed or reduced access to air-defense and precision munitions at a moment of escalating need.
Reality Check
When executive war decisions consume finite national arsenals, the democratic danger is a security state that can reshape alliance commitments and strategic priorities faster than public oversight can respond. Normalizing prolonged, open-ended conflict conditions our institutions to accept depletion, secrecy, and reactive procurement as default governance rather than deliberated policy. The precedent shifts real power toward the executive by making military scarcity and allied dependency consequences of decisions that are difficult to unwind, scrutinize, or reverse once the stockpiles are spent.
Detail
<p>In Warsaw on Friday, European Union defense and space commissioner Andrius Kubilius said Europe must urgently increase production of air-defense and anti-ballistic missiles because U.S. capacity is no longer sufficient to meet demand for the U.S. military, Gulf partners, and Ukraine. Kubilius said Ukraine alone needs 700 Patriot PAC-2 and PAC-3 missiles for the winter, a figure he compared to roughly a year of U.S. manufacturing output.</p><p>Polish defense minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said Europe’s situation is critical and called for rapid expansion of missile production, adding that the U.S. will prioritize replenishing Middle East stockpiles, which will increase delivery delays to Europe if the conflict continues. Since Sunday, U.S. military officials have said the Iran fighting has sharply depleted missile-defense systems. In a closed-door meeting Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Caine reportedly told lawmakers Iran’s Shahed drones posed greater difficulty than expected, and a source told CNN the U.S. has been burning through long-range precision-guided missiles.</p>