Bloomberg Opinion commentator Andreas Kluth warns that the U.S. ammunition shortage following the war with Iran is a global catastrophe that diminishes America's ability to deter China, Russia, and North Korea, and leaves Ukraine without crucial support.
What began as President Donald Trump's decision to strike Iran alongside Israel in February has escalated into an unexpected and serious crisis for the United States: it is running out of ammunition. Bloomberg Opinion commentator Andreas Kluth, in his analysis published on August 11, 2026, describes the U.S. ammunition shortage as a "global catastrophe," emphasizing that the consequences extend far beyond the Middle East battlefield.
Kluth notes that President Trump is reportedly furious with his Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. The President, who previously spoke approvingly of Hegseth's love for war, now accuses him of misleading him by failing to explain in time that America was running out of ammunition. He vented his frustration at Camp David, but Kluth believes the blame lies primarily with Trump as the commander-in-chief who ordered this conflict. Both, he argues, could have heeded the numerous advisors who warned of the risks, including the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Chief among them, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and top military officer Dan Caine, had been warning about shortages of certain types of munitions in the event of a prolonged conflict. Trump ignored this. Now the numbers are devastating. According to Reuters, the U.S. military has expended "nearly all" of its global stockpiles of high-precision offensive missiles, including ATACMS and the newer Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM), and Tomahawk cruise missiles are also running low.
The situation is no better with defensive missiles. The Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) estimates that the U.S. has used two out of every three Patriot missiles and nearly half of its THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) systems, which intercept incoming ballistic missiles. The Pentagon is now pressuring manufacturers like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon to urgently ramp up production, but it will take years to replenish U.S. arsenals.
This shortage already has tactical and strategic consequences. It limits Trump's options for military escalation if negotiations with Iran, which he claims are ongoing behind the scenes, fail. If bombing were to continue, aircraft would have to fly closer to targets, where the risk of being shot down by Iranians is higher. This could lead to an increase in U.S. casualties, which already stand at 18 dead and hundreds wounded. With a limited number of interceptors, the U.S. would also have to decide which bases and allies, such as the Gulf emirates or Jordan, to protect and which to leave to their fate.
Strategically, the Middle East is not the only potential theater. The U.S. is expected to deter China from attacking Taiwan or the Philippines, an ally with which it has a defense treaty. On the Korean Peninsula, it must discourage North Korea from launching a new attack on the South. As the most important NATO member, Washington should be ready to deter Russia, which is already waging a hybrid war against European members, from entering the Baltic states.
Even without that kind of escalation, the U.S. ammunition crisis directly affects Ukraine, which had hoped to buy more American weapons with European money to defend against relentless Russian bombardment. Now, that weaponry simply will not be available in sufficient quantities. Kluth concludes that while it is unlikely that Beijing, Pyongyang, or Moscow will immediately open new fronts, they could not have missed the fact that the U.S., once described as a "hyperpower," now appears militarily weakened.
Trump is trying to dismiss reports of the crisis as fake news, claiming that "everything was extraordinary." However, as Kori Schake, a veteran of the National Security Council from an earlier Republican administration, puts it, "far from discovering a new way of warfare, Trump has only discovered new ways of losing." Ammunition stockpiles are just one measure of a catastrophe whose full scale is only now becoming clear.
