Washington — In late December, two months before the U.S. war with Iran began, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George warned that his service was critically short on missile defense munitions and that the shortage would last another five years, according to multiple U.S. officials familiar with the matter. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ousted George in April, as the Iran war was underway.
George's risk analysis appeared in the Pentagon's Global Force Management Allocation Plan, a defense secretary-approved annual order determining where troops and weapons will be allocated across the globe, according to the U.S. officials who spoke to CBS News.
He warned that the stockpile of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense batteries and Patriot missiles would continue to be strategically low until 2030. His assessment was written for the Defense Department's plan for fiscal year 2027 and before the outbreak of the U.S.-Israel-led war with Iran, now in its seventh month.
U.S. officials who spoke to CBS News under condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly said his assessment stemmed from the transfer of Patriots to Ukraine after Russia's invasion in 2022, the expenditure of munitions to defend Israel, and the reduced capacity of the defense industrial base.
CBS News is withholding the exact percentage figures conveyed by U.S. officials because of security concerns, and George declined to comment. U.S. officials say that while the U.S. possesses a significant stockpile of some offensive munitions, like the Joint Direct Attack Munition and Small Diameter Bombs, missile defense munitions used in Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, batteries, and Patriot missile systems are at low strategic-risk levels.
The THAAD system is one of the U.S. military's most advanced missile defense systems, designed to intercept and destroy incoming ballistic missiles during the final phase of their flight, either inside or just outside Earth's atmosphere. The Army has eight THAAD batteries. Each battery consists of 90 soldiers who operate six truck-mounted launchers, with each truck possessing eight launchers. A full battery controls 48 interceptors, according to a 2025 report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
The Patriot air-defense system is designed to protect military installations, troops and other critical infrastructure from incoming ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as hostile aircraft. It can engage a broader range of aerial threats at lower altitudes than a THAAD battery, but when used together, they provide even more effective overlapping layers of defense against missile attacks.
The Patriot munition at a critical low is the Patriot Advanced Capability-3, or PAC-3, a high-velocity surface-to-air interceptor designed to destroy incoming tactical ballistic missiles and cruise missiles by ramming into them. PAC-3s can also bring down enemy aircraft, according to U.S. officials who spoke to CBS News.
"Those are the two Army munitions that would be most heavily used in a conflict with China," said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and CSIS Defense and Security senior adviser. "You're not gonna use that many Javelins, for example, because the amount of ground combat is going to be relatively limited, even artillery will be limited, but air defense — missile defense — that will be huge."
An April estimate from the Center for Strategic and International Studies showed that it currently takes defense contractors four years and five months to complete delivery of new THAAD interceptor contracts. Patriot PAC-3 interceptor orders have an average delivery time of three and a half years.
CSIS' estimate said that before the Iran war, the U.S. entered 2026 with roughly 2,300 or so Patriot interceptors and expended between 1,050 and 1,430 during the conflict, potentially consuming as much as 61% of its prewar inventory. Fewer than 500 replenishment munitions were expected to be delivered in fiscal year 2026.
The stockpile for THAAD systems prior to the Iran war sat at around 355 interceptors, with the Iran war using between 190 to 290, or about 82% of its prewar inventory, according to CSIS. There were no expected deliveries for replenishment in fiscal year 2026. In the current fiscal year — 2027 — the U.S. has requested more than 800 THAADs.
Two of the nation's largest defense contractors — Lockheed Martin and RTX, through its Raytheon business — are involved in manufacturing these systems and their key components. They've recently signed agreements aimed at accelerating production.
In January, Lockheed Martin announced a plan to quadruple the production capacity of THAADs from 96 to 400 interceptors per year.
While the war with Iran has caused missile defense munitions to be depleted at a much higher rate, decades of Pentagon spending decisions, a shrinking defense industrial base and successive military operations that consume weapons faster than manufacturers can replace them have contributed to the current shortages.
One U.S. official told CBS News that even if the United States could avoid expending additional THAAD or Patriot munitions in Iran or in other conflicts, it would take until the midterm elections of the next presidential administration — 2030 — to replenish the stockpile to the already-low December 2025 levels.
Contacted by CBS News, Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell said, "Claims of U.S. munitions shortages are false. When the Fake News media irresponsibly amplifies these lies, the real-world consequences is clear: our enemies are emboldened to provide — or attack — American troops."
He added that the U.S. still has "everything required to strike at the time and place of the President's choosing."
"Across multiple combatant commands," Parnell said, "we have already executed successful operations while maintaining a deep, ready arsenal to defend our people and our interests."
How munitions are used around the world
The U.S. military is divided into 11 unified combatant commands, each responsible for either a region of the world or specialized military mission. For operations against Iran, U.S. Central Command, led by Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, is in charge.
Each combatant command needs a certain number of troops and weapons. The Pentagon uses a framework known as Global Force Management to decide where American troops, their units and some of the military's most sought-after weapons are sent around the world.
The Global Force Management Allocation Plan, or GFMAP, is at the center of the process, laying out which forces will be provided to combatant commanders, for what missions and for how long.
The plan is typically organized around the federal fiscal year. Generally, the Pentagon enters a new fiscal year with an existing plan for many of the forces expected to deploy or remain deployed during the coming 12 to 24 months, rather than deciding from scratch each time a commander asks for troops or weapons.
But the plan is not set in stone. Wars erupt, crises develop, missions end and commanders are faced with unanticipated events to address.
For instance, the commander of U.S. European Command might want more Patriots in Poland at the same time that U.S. Central Command wants those same resources in Kuwait, while U.S. Indo-Pacific Command may also need the systems for contingencies involving China.
There's a constant shuffling of troops and assets from one region to another — in one instance in April 2025, Adm. Samuel Paparo, the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Army had transferred a Patriot battalion from his region to U.S. Central Command amid ongoing fighting with the Iranian-back Houthi rebels in Yemen.
What led to the current weapons systems shortage?
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, American military planners abandoned the assumption that the U.S. might need to fight a prolonged war against another superpower, explained Cancian.
"After the Cold War, we planned on fighting short regional conflicts against countries like Iraq or North Korea. And for those countries we didn't need the large inventories that we had needed during the Cold War," Cancian said. "We needed much smaller inventories."
He added: "We shrank the industrial base. There was the famous 'Last Supper' which was literally a dinner that the deputy defense secretary put on for the heads of the defense industry, and he told them there's not enough money to keep you all in business, so you're going to have to consolidate or move out of the business, which they did."
The resulting mergers reduced the number of major aerospace and defense contractors from 51 to five, according to the CSIS analysis.
Also, historically, the Pentagon's procurement decisions have reduced spending on ammunition and missiles to free up money for fighter jets, tanks and warships, even while acknowledging that those weapons are essential to war fighting.
Cancian told CBS News that the consolidation of the defense industrial base shaped an industry that produces efficiently during peacetime but is not designed to surge production.
"We squeezed all the surge out because it was seen as unnecessary. So, that's where we end up when the war in Ukraine begins," said Cancian. "And after six months or so, we realized that we just don't have enough munitions and equipment for a protracted conflict."
Under the Biden administration, there was a renewed interest in building surge capabilities back into the defense industrial base but that would take time. As the war between Russia and Ukraine began in full, the U.S. transferred roughly 600 Patriot interceptor missiles to Ukraine. However, not all of those weapons came from American military stockpiles; some were manufactured through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative or provided by European countries.
Additionally, both Biden and Trump administrations used Patriot and THAAD missile interceptors to defend Israel against Iranian strikes. Six months before Gen. George's warning assessment, U.S. forces fired roughly 150 THAAD interceptors and almost 80 Patriot interceptors during the Twelve Day War.
Cancian noted that the five-year timeline to bring Patriot and THAAD stockpiles just to the low pre-Iran war levels is based on the assumption that the production schedule stays on track — and that additional military operations do not further deplete the inventory.
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