Is the Iran conflict depleting U.S. weapons stockpiles?

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the United States and Israel have hit more than 5,000 enemy targets since their joint air campaign against Iran began on Feb. 28. In the firepower-heavy operation against Iran, President Donald Trump has defined victory as obliterating the nation’s ability to hit back or develop nuclear weapons.

A few days after the operation began, Trump also asserted that the United States’ medium-grade munitions stockpiles have never been better.

“As was stated to me today, we have a virtually unlimited supply of these weapons,” he wrote in a Truth Social post. “Wars can be fought ‘forever,’ and very successfully, using just these supplies.”

He was contradicting a Washington Post story that reported, citing anonymous sources, that chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine had warned the president that the U.S. weapons stockpile has been significantly depleted due to years of sending munitions to Israel and Ukraine.

Although Trump said this week the war would be over “soon,” he has not offered a definitive timeline, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said the operation could last as long as eight weeks. But even if the U.S. munitions stockpile is strong, analysts worry that if the strikes on Iran continue, it could deplete assets to hold China in check. And higher budget requests for Congress are almost guaranteed.

How much has the United States spent on the Iran conflict so far? The exact cost of the operation is not immediately clear, but anonymous sources told The Washington Post that the military used $5.6 billion in munitions in just the first two days. The Associated Press reported other sources saying the Pentagon estimates the first six days of the war cost around $11.3 billion overall.

What weapons is the U.S. military using? The U.S. role in the Iran conflict has involved airstrikes rather than artillery systems. Among the weapons used in the conflict are Joint Direct Attack Munitions, which use GPS to guide bombs to their targets. They cost roughly $80,000 each. Even more valuable are the Tomahawk long-range ground attack munitions, cruise missiles that cost roughly $2.5 million to produce.

Other top munitions the United States is using are Patriot missile systems and other ballistic missile interceptors, according to Stefano Ritondale, a chief intelligence officer at Artorias, an open-source intelligence company. The Trump administration is also selling the Patriot systems, some of the best interceptors in the world, to several U.S. allies and donating them to other war-torn countries. Both Ukraine and Israel use Patriots for air defense.

Ritondale, previously an opposing force analyst for the U.S. military, noted that many of the munitions used so far in Iran had already been held in reserve in the region.

“We’ve had 20-plus years of air defense assets deployed to the Middle East in preparation for exactly this scenario,” Ritondale told me. “The reason why you deployed Patriots wasn’t because of ISIS or al-Qaeda, it’s because of Iran. What they’re trying to do is knock out Iran’s ability to punch back so that we’re not so dependent on just the Patriots for intercepting missiles or drones.”

What firepower does Iran have? At this point, analysts say that Iran’s capabilities are significantly depleted. It has launched attacks on U.S. military bases in several Middle Eastern countries. But much of the attacks use one-way drones, which Ritondale described as cheap and slow. Intercepting them using Patriots is akin to bringing a cannon to a knife fight, so the United States has copied Iran’s design to launch intercept drones. While ballistic missile interceptors are more expensive, Iran has rapidly lost its own stockpiles of short- and medium-range missiles.

“Frankly, looking at the number of launches that they have, it’s been significantly less than I assumed,” Ritondale said. “Based on my previous experience, the numbers we’re seeing Iran launching now is something akin to what we might have seen optimistically at the beginning of week three of a war, and we’re at that at the beginning of week two.”

How is the U.S. stockpile and production of weapons? Last July, the Pentagon stopped weapon shipments to Ukraine, arguing that the U.S. stockpile was too low. A few days later, the United States resumed weapons shipments, but Trump said NATO would pay for them instead. The Trump administration, like the Biden administration before it, has tried to boost production.

“The Biden and Trump approaches are actually quite similar,” said retired Marine Col. Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “With the war in Ukraine, we got to a level that the war planners drew a line and said we can’t go below it or we put ourselves in danger for a future conflict.”

In 2023, the Pentagon contracted to boost artillery ground munitions from 14,000 produced per month to 100,000. The Pentagon more recently signed a seven-year contract with Lockheed Martin to boost Patriot missile production to 2,000 per year, up from roughly 600. Last year, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act included tens of billions of dollars for munitions production and weapons development. Nevertheless, Cancian said production should be higher.

“It’s clear that we use a lot in a major conflict,” Cancian said. “Many of the Gulf states have been shooting Patriots that they had bought from us. So we want to get up to a higher level on Patriots, particularly.”

Less than a week after launching Operation Epic Fury, Trump hosted the CEOs of several defense contractors at the White House. In a Truth Social post after the meeting, Trump said the six top companies promised to quadruple production of “exquisite class” weaponry, though plans to do so began three months ago.

Is the United States still assisting Ukraine? The Trump administration has committed to sending Ukraine munitions in its defense against Russia. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pointed out during a March 5 news conference that the United States has sent far more Patriots to Iran than to Ukraine.

“Ukraine has never had this many missiles to repel attacks. More than 800 have been used over the past three days alone,” Zelenskyy claimed.

What does the Iran conflict mean for U.S. readiness? Analysts worry that the U.S. stockpile of munitions must be strong to deter threats from Russia or China. Cancian noted that Russia has built more ballistic and cruise missiles, and Patriots are the most effective to intercept them.

“We’ve lost some capabilities, some of the radar systems we had,” said Ritondale. “There’s not many in reserve. How quickly can those get repaired so that we are ready for the next couple of years? ... Those would be critical for any China-Taiwan contingency if that were to kick off.”

When will the war be over? The White House has said victory in Iran comes down to four objectives: destroying ballistic missiles, eliminating Iran’s missile industry, preventing its terrorist proxies from destabilizing the region, and ensuring the country never develops a nuclear weapon. But the succession of Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, could prolong the conflict.

Cancian said that if the main U.S. priority is military dominance over Iran, the operation should be over soon. But if President Trump also wants to effect regime change, that typically requires ground troops. Ritondale said that devastating Iran’s military is a net benefit for American national security. But what comes next is less clear.

“When the Trump administration says that Iran’s military has been significantly degraded, there is a truth to this. And so the question becomes, what does Iran look like if the regime survives afterwards?” Ritondale said.