Pentagon Pulls 1,900-Plus JASSM-ERs From Global Stocks for Iran War

Washington’s mass diversion of standoff munitions echoes 1944’s critical 155 mm shell shortage and the 1991 Gulf War’s 297-Tomahawk binge: high-tech firepower can outrun industrial capacity. Strategically, the move spotlights a 30-year U.S. drift toward casualty-averse, precision, long-range strikes—now colliding with finite stockpiles and a potential two-front reality against China. If it takes until 2030 to replenish interceptor and cruise-missile inventories, today’s decision may erode deterrence in the Indo-Pacific for the rest of the 2020s. On a century scale, the episode illustrates a recurring pattern—from Britain’s 1916 shell crisis to Russia’s 2022 drone scrounging—that industrial depth, not just technology, decides protracted wars; the U.S. is gambling that Iran can be subdued before its magazines run dry.