As the Trump administration weighs an attack on Iran, the Pentagon’s top general has cautioned President Donald Trump and other officials that shortfalls in critical munitions and a lack of support from allies will add significant risk to the operation and to U.S. personnel, according to people familiar with internal discussions.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed his concerns at a White House meeting last week with Trump and his top aides, these people said, cautioning that any major operation against Iran will face challenges because the U.S. munitions stockpile has been significantly depleted by Washington’s ongoing defense of Israel and support for Ukraine. Caine’s remarks at the White House meeting have not been previously reported.
Separately, in Pentagon meetings this month, Caine also has raised concerns about the scale of any Iran campaign, its inherent complexity and the possibility of U.S. casualties, one person said. The general has said that any operation would be made all the more difficult by a lack of allied support, this person said, speaking like others on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Two munitions critical to the defense of U.S. military personnel against Iranian-launched ballistic missiles — Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD interceptors, and Patriot missile systems — have been extensively used in recent military operations in the Middle East. Patriot missiles also remain one of the most in-demand items by Ukraine as it defends against Russian missile attacks.
But the U.S. produces only several hundred of both defenses each year — far less than would be needed, said Ryan Brobst, deputy director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The Navy, too, has a limited supply of its standard missiles, a must-have if the U.S. is going to limit risk to the thousands of U.S. military forces that have surged to the region. But ship-launched SM-2, SM-3 and SM-6 munitions have been rapidly consumed as the Navy has protected vessels in the Red Sea against Iranian-proxy forces in Yemen and defended Israel against ballistic missiles.
Because of their complexity and production constraints, it can take two years or more to produce each replacement missile, said Mackenzie Eaglen, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “There’s no quick fix to this problem,” Eaglen said.
