The United States military burned through critical weapons stockpiles during 38 days of combat operations against Iran, firing more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles — roughly 10 times the annual U.S. purchase rate — along with more than 1,200 Patriot interceptor missiles at over $4 million each, according to internal Pentagon estimates and congressional officials. The conflict, which ended with a ceasefire approximately two weeks ago, cost an estimated $28 billion to $35 billion, or nearly $1 billion per day, with $5.6 billion in munitions expended in the first two days alone.

The drawdowns have left U.S. military commands in Asia and Europe significantly less prepared to confront adversaries such as Russia and China, as the Pentagon rushed munitions from those theaters to the Middle East to sustain operations. Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned this week that restoring stockpiles to pre-war levels could take years at current production rates. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt disputed the core findings, stating that "the entire premise of this story is false."

Defense analysts say the conflict has exposed a deeper structural problem: the U.S. military's overreliance on costly precision munitions and air-defense interceptors, and the defense industry's limited capacity to scale production rapidly. Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, noted that several critical ground-attack and missile-defense munitions were already in short supply before the war began and are now in an even more precarious state.

Beyond the military dimension, the war has disrupted global supply chains with broad economic consequences. Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20 percent of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas passes, has driven up energy costs and cascading price increases in pharmaceuticals and other goods. Pharmacies in the United Kingdom are charging 20 to 30 percent more for over-the-counter medicines, while chemists in India report paracetamol prices rising by as much as 96 percent, driven by disrupted petrochemical feedstocks and strained air and sea logistics routes through the Persian Gulf region.

Experts warn that approximately 35 percent of pharmaceuticals globally move by air, and up to 90 percent of critical or life-saving medicines and vaccines do so as well. Wouter Dewulf, a logistics professor at the University of Antwerp, estimated that 22 percent of global air cargo flows are exposed to Middle East disruptions, with the primary near-term effects being delays, rerouting and higher costs rather than outright shortages — though further price increases remain likely if disruptions persist.