US THAAD and PrSM stocks run low in Iran war
Analysts warn high-intensity operations outpace production, allies face the bill through insurance and energy prices
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US air-defence stocks are being consumed faster than they can be replaced. After 16 days of US and allied operations in the war with Iran that began on 28 February, analysts cited by Business Insider estimate Washington is on track to run out of key munitions—Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM)—within weeks.
The numbers matter because they turn a geopolitical crisis into an industrial scheduling problem. The researchers told Business Insider they counted more than 11,000 munitions fired in the first 16 days, and singled out THAAD and PrSM as particularly exposed. THAAD interceptors are expensive, complex, and produced in limited runs; PrSM is meant to replace older Army Tactical Missile System rounds, but ramping production takes time, trained labour, and components that are not sitting idle.
That bottleneck lands awkwardly on Europe. US stocks are not dedicated to a single theatre: the same air and missile defence inventory underwrites deterrence in Asia and reassures Nato allies. When Washington draws down scarce interceptors in the Gulf, it is implicitly choosing what risk to carry elsewhere, and allies are left to price the residual risk into their own planning.
The war’s economic effects are already arriving through channels that do not require a single ship to be sunk. In the Strait of Hormuz, insurers and trade-finance providers have become de facto gatekeepers for commercial traffic, a dynamic already visible in recent reporting on “zombie ships” and shadow routing in the region. When underwriters step back or premiums spike, cargoes stop moving even if the sea lanes are technically open.
In that environment, the marginal cost of each additional interceptor is not just the unit price of a missile. It is the cost of keeping maritime commerce insurable, of preventing a temporary war-risk surcharge from hardening into a long-term rerouting of energy and container flows, and of avoiding a second shock in global fuel prices that spills into European inflation.
The US can move carrier strike groups quickly. It cannot conjure interceptor inventories on the same timeline. As the war enters its fourth week, the limiting factor is increasingly measured in factory throughput and delivery schedules rather than sorties flown.
Business Insider’s researchers estimate the US is burning through some of its most advanced air-defence and strike munitions in less than a month.