An American THAAD system: The USA has used a significant part of its ammunition reserves for air defense.Image: www.imago-images.de
US President Donald Trump is not yet allowing the conflict with Iran to escalate. One reason: The US armed forces are slowly running out of important ammunition.
July 26, 2026, 4:26 p.mJuly 26, 2026, 4:26 p.m
The United States and Iran’s mullahs’ regime have been involved in armed conflict since March of this year. The two powers repeatedly fire at each other. While U.S. forces target military and civilian infrastructure, Iran targets U.S. bases in surrounding Gulf states, oil fields and occasionally merchant ships.
So far, however, there has been no major escalation in the Iran conflict. While the Iranian army spokesman threatened to expand the conflict on Sunday, both parties to the conflict have stopped their air strikes over the past two nights.
The Iranian justification for this is that its own military action is aimed exclusively at retaliation. And on the US side? As the “New York Times” Reportedly, a major reason for American hesitation is limited ammunition reserves.
Interceptor ammo dangerously low
President Trump is said to have discussed the dwindling reserve of so-called interceptor ammunition at a meeting with top advisors and cabinet members on Friday, the newspaper writes, citing two anonymous insiders.
Interceptor missiles are used to intercept enemy missiles and/or drones. In the Iran war, such ammunition is particularly important for US troops in the region because Iran almost exclusively uses ballistic missiles and drones (such as the Shahed used in the Ukraine war). Just last week, three US soldiers died when an Iranian airstrike got through the defense network and hit a US base in Jordan.
According to the newspaper, General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also sees the situation critically. According to him, the resumption of major combat operations against Iran is feasible, but it would bring the central command’s (CENTCOM) ammunition reserves to a dangerously low level.
Pentagon data evaluated by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) shows how much ammunition the US armed forces are estimated to have already used in the Iran war. The numbers show: Significant proportions of stocks have already been used both in offensive weapon systems such as the Tomahawk missile or the JASSM cruise missile and in interceptor ammunition such as the Patriot system.
The SM-3, the THAAD system and the Patriot missiles are all used to intercept enemy missiles.data: center for strategic and international studies
Expert warns
Dr. Kelly Grieco, defense expert at the Stimson Center, warns ABC about the US armed forces’ large consumption of ammunition: “The military is currently eating away more ammunition than it can afford.”
The military also used a large part of its “high-quality critical systems”, i.e. systems that are only available in limited numbers:
“We already had a hole before the war… now we’ve dug it even deeper.”
According to Kelly, it will take years until the ammunition used in the war is fully produced again. Some of the weapon systems take up to seven years to produce. A period of time during which the deterrent capabilities of U.S. forces could be compromised.
According to CENTCOM, over 10,000 targets in Iran have already been attacked in the conflict – but according to a Times report from May, Iran still has around 70 percent of its ballistic weapons systems. (cpf)