America is facing a shortage of defense missiles by 2030

The CBS report shows that the widespread use of interceptor missiles by the United States in the war with Iran has aggravated the country's lack of defensive weapons, and the restoration of Patriot and THAAD missile stocks may take until 2030.

CBS News reported that the U.S. military is facing a severe shortage of THAAD and Patriot interceptor missiles, and even if most of these ammunitions are stopped in military conflicts, it may take until 2030 to rebuild their stocks.

According to this report, the war with Iran and the extensive use of ammunition to defend Israel have intensified the pressure on the American weapons stockpile.

According to CBS, the roots of this problem go back to the Pentagon's decisions of the past few decades and the limitation of the production capacity of the defense industry.

According to CBS, in late December 2025, about two months before the start of the US war with Iran, General Randy George, the then Chief of Staff of the US Army, warned that the army was facing a serious shortage of missile defense ammunition and this situation may continue for another five years.

His assessment was included in the Pentagon's Global Force Allocation Plan. This annual document, approved by the Minister of Defense, specifies the distribution of American forces and weapons in different regions of the world.

In his assessment, George predicted that the stocks of THAAD interceptor missiles and Patriot missiles will remain at a low and strategically worrisome level until 2030.

In April 2026, in the middle of the war with Iran, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth removed George from his position.

U.S. officials who spoke to CBS attributed the decline in stockpiles to several factors: the transfer of Patriot missiles to Ukraine after Russia invades in 2022, the use of munitions to defend Israel and a reduction in the production capacity of the U.S. defense industry.

These officials did not want to be named because they were not authorized to comment publicly. For security reasons, CBS has also refused to publish exact figures and percentages about the shortage.

Consuming a large part of the missile reserves in the war with Iran

The estimate of the Center for Strategic and International Studies shows that the US had about 2,300 Patriot interceptor missiles before the start of the war with Iran, and used between 1,050 and 1,430 missiles of this type during this conflict.

This amount of consumption may mean the loss of about 61% of the pre-war reserves.

According to the same estimate, less than 500 new missiles were expected to be delivered in fiscal year 2026 to compensate for this shortfall.

The situation of the reserves of the Todd system has also been described as worrying. The reserves of this system before the war were about 355 interceptor missiles, and estimates indicate that the US used between 190 and 290 missiles of this type during the war. This figure is equivalent to about 82% of the pre-war stock.

According to a CBS report, no new deliveries were anticipated to replenish the THAAD stockpile in fiscal year 2026, although the US government has requested the purchase of more than 800 such missiles in the fiscal year 2027 budget.

The importance of this shortage is not limited to the current war. According to Mark Kansian, in the event of a possible conflict with China, the Patriot and THAAD interceptor missiles will be among the most important ammunition needed by the US Army.

He emphasized that in such a war, unlike limited ground conflicts, air and missile defense will play an essential role.

The production of rockets is much slower than their consumption

One of America's main problems is the long time it takes to replace spent missiles.

According to an estimate by the Center for Strategic and International Studies cited by CBS, the delivery of new orders for THAAD interceptor missiles takes an average of four years and five months.

The average delivery time for Patriot PAC-3 missiles is about three and a half years.

Lockheed Martin, one of the main manufacturers of these systems, announced in January that it plans to increase the annual production capacity of THAAD missiles from 96 to 400.

However, increasing production capacity alone cannot solve the accumulated shortfall in the short term.

Kancian explained that after the end of the Cold War, the US defense industry was organized to produce with high efficiency in peacetime, but lost the ability to rapidly increase production in wartime.

According to him, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, American military planners concluded that they needed a smaller stockpile of weapons to deal with countries like Iraq and North Korea.

During the same period, the number of large American aerospace and defense industries decreased drastically.

According to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the merger of companies increased the number of large contractors in these industries from 51 companies to five companies.

At the same time, the Pentagon has repeatedly cut spending on munitions and missiles to free up more funds for fighters, tanks and warships.

"We put aside all the excess production capacity because it was thought that it was not needed," Kansian said.

He added that with the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, the US military realized after about six months that it did not have enough ammunition and equipment for a long-term conflict.

According to CBS, the transfer of weapons to Ukraine after the Russian invasion in 2022 also contributed to the reduction of the US stockpile. At that time, the United States transferred about 600 Patriot interceptor missiles to Ukraine.

Of course, not all of these missiles were provided by the American army reserves, and some of them were produced through the security assistance program to Ukraine or provided by European countries.

In addition to helping Ukraine, the use of interceptor missiles to defend Israel against Iranian attacks has also put pressure on US reserves.

According to the CBS report, during the 12-day war, American forces fired about 150 THAAD interceptor missiles and nearly 80 Patriot interceptor missiles; That was six months before General George's warning about the lack of ammunition.

This news network emphasizes that the war with Iran has increased the rate of consumption of defense ammunition, but the structural problems of the defense industry and long-term decisions about the purchase of weapons have also contributed to the current shortage.