America's go-to cruise missile has been heavily used in the Iran war—and some in the Pentagon are worried about the tab it's running up on US stockpiles. The Washington Post reports that more than 850 Tomahawk missiles have been launched in the first month of Operation Epic Fury, a pace that insiders say is draining supplies far faster than the US can replace them.
- Only a few hundred Tomahawks are built each year, they can take up to two years to produce, and recent Pentagon budgets bought them in relatively small numbers, including just 57 in last year's budget. One official told the Post the Middle East supply is nearing "Winchester"—military slang for out of ammo. Another source told the Post that the supply is "alarmingly low."
The heavy use of Tomahawks—favored because they can strike from over 1,000 miles away without risking pilots—could force the Pentagon to shift missiles from other hotspots like the Indo-Pacific and accept a years-long replenishment timeline, the Post reports. Many of the missiles were used in the first days of the war, including at least one that hit a girls' school, killing more than 100 children. Mark Cancian at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank estimates that the Navy may have had fewer than 3,100 Tomahawks when the war began, since thousands bought earlier in the missile program are now obsolete.
- Publicly, Pentagon and White House officials insist there is no shortage. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told the Post that the military "has everything it needs to execute any mission at the time and place of the President's choosing and on any timeline. He accused the media of being "biased and obsessed with portraying the world's strongest military as weak."
- The administration, has, however, summoned execs from defense companies including Tomahawk maker Raytheon to White House meetings, the Post's sources say. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been urging the companies to speed up deliveries.
- Harry J. Kazianis at 19FortyFive warns that with US missile stockpiles running low, China might decide the time is right to launch its long-threatened invasion of Taiwan. "We are learning a truly uncomfortable truth: The burn rate of precision munitions in a high-intensity conflict against even a mid-tier adversary like Iran puts enormous stress on stockpiles that were never sized for two simultaneous wars," he writes. "And that stress is not going unnoticed in Beijing."
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