Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
US Ammo Supplies Depleted
The current suspension of the shooting in Iran is the result of neither side really having the stomach for escalation. For the last three nights, the skies in the region were free of missiles and drones. For the Iranians, there is no point is shooting unless shot at. Their strategy is to close the Strait of Hormuz, and now the Bab al-Mandab at the southern tip of the Red Sea, and wait for the economy of the US to seize up. For the US, the halt stems from the fact that there are no good military options, and it has run down its supply of weaponry. Using valuable ordnance when there is a decent strategic plan is one thing. Shooting when there is not one just wastes resources. And the US is at a point where ammunition is not quite as plentiful as one would like.
The White House sent UN Ambassador Mike Waltz onto the Sunday morning chat shows to defend the mismanagement of the war. He argued that the Biden administration had rundown the supplies by arming Ukraine. He also said to Kristin Welker of NBC, "I want to be crystal clear. The U.S. military -- and I've verified this every which way -- has everything that it needs to conduct this campaign as effectively as it needs to be." He rounded out the thought by saying people leaking information to the contrary should be in jail.
So, either the stockpiles were depleted, or they were not. If the US military has all it needs, why blame the previous administration? If they are depleted, why did the US launch a war of choice without adequate armaments? Ambassador Waltz is a member of a war criminal administration, so if anyone is going to jail, it should be those who started this war of aggression.
Right after the ceasefire in April went into effect, the Center for Strategic and International Studies issued a report on what the US used. These figures are likely to have changed in the last two and a half week, as more missiles and so on were used. The estimates are that the US had 3,100 Tomahawk missiles before the war, and it used more than 1,000. There were 90 precision strike missiles available, and most were used, between 40-70. THAAD interceptor missiles numbered 360 and 190-290 were used. For Patriot missiles, the numbers were 2,330 of which 1,060-1,430 have been used.
The figures show that the US still has quite a significant capability. The US is not out of ammo. There appears to be enough to keep fighting.
So, what is the worry? Simply put, Iran is not the only problem in the world. The US has tried to maintain the capacity to fight two wars at once, and the world is such that it may well have to do so at some point. Every missile or drone used in Iran is a missile or drone that cannot be used elsewhere. This will affect the arming of Ukraine, where the Europeans are buying US weapons and handing them over to Ukraine. If the US no longer has an adequate supply, this arms pipeline is at risk. The same applies to a Chinese attack on Taiwan; the US is not able to help Taiwan as much because of the war in Iran. North Korea is always a concern, and as the US has less in the way of missiles and interceptors, South Korea and Japan are less secure.
The US has opted for gold-plated defense systems. They are expensive. Patriots are almost $4 million each. Tomahawks cost $2.6 million apiece. What Ukraine and Iran have taught the world is that cheap drones can overwhelm defenses with sheer numbers. The American military seems to be procuring weapons for the last war. For the immediate future, restocking supplies is probably necessary.
However, if the US does not draw the correct conclusions from these lessons, it will continue to spend on systems that are cheaply defeated. Given a trillion-dollar-a-year budget deficit, this is unsustainable. One wonders if the lessons need to be repeated in the form of a military disaster. If so, Iran will be the classroom. This journal suggests an armistice and a negotiation over regional security without any more fighitng. And a win looks like the status quo ante bellum, as unlikely as that is.
© Copyright 2026 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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