JUST IN: Munitions Production Must Look 'Radically Different' After Iran War, Pentagon Official Says
6/17/2026
By Colby Lamb
Operation Epic Fury has depleted the United States' munitions inventories, and the Defense Department needs “radically different outcomes” from industry to rebuild its stockpiles, a Pentagon official said June 16.
In a May 27 analysis, the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that it will take three or more years to return munitions used heavily in the Iran war, such as Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense and Patriot interceptors, to prewar inventory levels. It will take two years to replenish the stockpiles of naval weapons like the Standard Missile-3 and Standard Missile-6, it added.
At a fireside chat hosted by the Center for a New American Security June 16, Assistant Secretary of War for Industrial Base Policy Michael Cadenazzi declined to discuss “speculation about our stockpiles ... but at the end of the day, I think more than anything else, we’ve had a long-term recognition that we wanted to increase our production capacity at the factory floor.”
The United States has “robust stockpiles for strategic and critical materials to underpin supply chains,” and there has “never been a lack of demand,” he said.
Cadenazzi said the department is “committed to fixing industrial-based problems at scale across the entire enterprise.” The department is addressing “many challenges” faced in the past using the tools it has, he added.
In a memorandum dated June 11 and published to the Federal Register June 17, President Donald Trump stated that “systemic constraints in the munitions industrial base, including limited production capacity, fragile supply chains, long-lead dependencies and related production bottlenecks, may impair the ability of the United States to produce, sustain and expand the availability of munitions, missiles and equipment required for the national defense.”
https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2026/6/17/just-in-defense-official-seeks-different-munition-production-after-iran-war
