US Shifts Bulk of JASSM-ER Stockpile to Iran Front

Great-power arsenals have run dry before: in early 1942, the US Navy’s Mark-14 torpedo shortage forced rationing in the Pacific, while during Desert Storm 1991 the coalition fired 288 Tomahawks—half of America’s then supply—in six weeks. Today’s transfer echoes those moments, highlighting a century-long tension between high-tech, high-cost munitions and the industrial base that must sustain them. By stripping Pacific stockpiles, Washington signals that Iran now outranks China in immediate priority, but it simultaneously exposes the brittle ‘just-in-time’ approach to precision-guided weapons that has grown since the 1990s RMA era. If the conflict widens or drags on, the US could confront a WWI-style shell-crisis, accelerating a shift toward expanded production lines, allied co-manufacturing, or cheaper autonomous swarms. On a 100-year horizon, the episode may be remembered less for the missiles fired than for whether it catalysed a structural re-armament cycle—much as the 1905 Russo-Japanese War spurred global naval build-ups—or, conversely, underscored the unsustainability of attritional wars fought with exquisite weapons.