Washington — In late December, two months before the U.S. war with Iran began, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George warned that his service was critically short on missile defense munitions and that the shortage would last another five years, according to multiple U.S. officials familiar with the matter. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ousted George in April, as the Iran war was underway.
George's risk analysis appeared in the Pentagon's Global Force Management Allocation Plan, a defense secretary-approved annual order determining where troops and weapons will be allocated across the globe, according to the U.S. officials who spoke to CBS News. He warned that the stockpile of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense batteries and Patriot missiles would continue to be strategically low until 2030. His assessment was written for the Defense Department's plan for fiscal year 2027 and before the outbreak of the U.S.-Israel-led war with Iran, now in its seventh month.
U.S. officials who spoke to CBS News under condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly said his assessment stemmed from the transfer of Patriots to Ukraine after Russia's invasion in 2022, the expenditure of munitions to defend Israel, and the reduced capacity of the defense industrial base. CBS News is withholding the exact percentage figures conveyed by U.S. officials because of security concerns, and George declined to comment. U.S. officials say that while the U.S. possesses a significant stockpile of some offensive munitions, like the Joint Direct Attack Munition and Small Diameter Bombs, missile defense munitions used in Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, batteries, and Patriot missile systems are at low strategic-risk levels.
The THAAD system is one of the U.S. military's most advanced missile defense systems, designed to intercept and destroy incoming ballistic missiles during the final phase of their flight, either inside or just outside Earth's atmosphere. The Army has eight THAAD batteries. Each battery consists of 90 soldiers who operate six truck-mounted launchers, with each truck possessing eight launchers.
A full battery controls 48 interceptors, according to a 2025 report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. The Patriot air-defense system is designed to protect military installations, troops and other critical infrastructure from incoming ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as hostile aircraft. It can engage a broader range of aerial threats at lower altitudes than a THAAD battery, but when used together, they provide even more effective overlapping layers of defense against missile attacks.
The Patriot munition at a critical low is the Patriot Advanced Capability-3, or PAC-3, a high-velocity surface-to-air interceptor designed to destroy incoming tactical ballistic missiles and cruise missiles by ramming into them. PAC-3s can also bring down enemy aircraft, according to U.S. officials who spoke to CBS News. "Those are the two Army munitions that would be most heavily used in a conflict with China," said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and CSIS Defense and Security senior adviser.
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