Defense Spending

America Spent a Fortune Shooting Down Cheap Drones. Now the Missile Stores Are Bare.

After burning through interceptors in the Iran war, the U.S. faces a dire math problem: Enemies can build drones faster than America can build missiles.

Matthew Petti | 6.20.2026 8:00 AM

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(Adani Samat/Midjourney)

Does the U.S. government have enough ammunition for all its wars and potential wars? Ask two different Pentagon officials and get two different answers.

In May 2026, acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao told Congress that "we're doing a pause" on sales to Taiwan "in order to make sure we have the munitions we need" for the Iran war. A few days later, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth backpedaled. "Hung Cao is fantastic, but I would not couple the two in any way at all," he told reporters. "And I feel good about not only where we are, but where we are in future production rates as well." It was the latest in a series of statements from Hegseth and other Trump administration officials complaining that the media were exaggerating munitions shortages.

The lady doth protest too much. Warning lights have been blinking for years about the United States' ability to prepare for future conflicts while also supporting proxy wars in Europe and the Middle East. The direct war with Iran burned through U.S. magazines at an even faster pace.

"The U.S. has stockpile requirements that reflect contingency plan requirements. Of course, it accepts some risk when it needs to," explains Josh Paul, previously the State Department official in charge of weapons sales. In other words, the question of how much ammunition is enough is a question of acceptable danger.

The current shortages are especially dire when it comes to air defense ammunition. That introduces a kind of danger that the U.S. and its partners simply aren't used to. After generations of U.S. aerial dominance, the economics of war are exposing American troops—and First World societies—to being bombed from above.

The main round of U.S.-Iranian fighting ended in April 2026 with 14 Americans dead and 409 wounded. There are signs that the situation would have gotten dramatically worse if it had continued. Just before the ceasefire, Iran was achieving an increasing hit rate with smaller barrages because the U.S. and its partners had used up so much of their air defense ammunition. Israel was rationing its high-end missile interceptors, whose numbers had fallen to "double digits," a U.S. source told Drop Site.

Future U.S. wars may look "more like Ukraine," with heavy bombing on both sides, says Justin Logan, director of defense and foreign policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. "The Americans like to insulate ourselves and our friends from adversaries' ability to retaliate, but that's extremely costly."

Shortages are already being felt in Ukraine itself. After a June 2026 air raid by Russia killed 22 people, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded with European allies to speed up deliveries of the American-made Patriot air defense system, adding that the issue was "no longer about financing." There just wasn't enough inventory to go around. The Ukrainian government proposed "borrowing" Patriot ammunition from Germany, emptying German warehouses in exchange for an IOU.

Meanwhile, Taiwan is waiting for the Trump administration to approve a $14 billion arms sale that Congress has already signed off on. Part of the holdup seems to be political; President Donald Trump told Fox News the delay was "a very good negotiating chip for us" against China and a way to get both sides to "cool down." But shortages are another part of the calculation, as Cao admitted. Reuters reports that the deal, whose contents have not been publicly reported, "largely consists" of Patriot ammunition and other air defense........

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