Pentagon races to buy 10X more missiles as Iran war dwindles arsenal, threatens readiness for China aggression

The Pentagon is preparing a dramatic course correction after years of purchasing key missile-defense interceptors in relatively modest numbers — even as China built up the world's largest arsenal of conventional ballistic and cruise missiles and the U.S.increasingly focused on the threat of a conflict in the Indo-Pacific.Following a string of missile-heavy conflicts, U.S.

air defenses have been used repeatedly to protect Israel, American forces in the Middle East and Navy ships in the Red Sea, drawing down some of the Pentagon's most sophisticated and difficult-to-replace munitions.The Pentagon's abrupt course correction raises a question that has taken on new urgency after years of missile-intensive warfare: Why did the U.S.wait so long to build deeper interceptor magazines?US DRAINS CRITICAL MISSILE STOCKPILES IN IRAN WAR AS YEARSLONG REBUILD LOOMSU.S.

Soldiers and civilians observe a MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems during a static-display demonstration Aug.15, 2019, at Katterbach Army Airfield in Ansbach, Germany.

(U.S.Army photo by Charles Rosemond) The Army's fiscal 2027 budget, reviewed by Fox News Digital, calls for a massive increase in purchases of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (PAC-3 MSE) and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors, part of a broader effort to rapidly expand a munitions industrial base that cannot be scaled overnight.The shift is particularly striking when compared with what the military was buying only a few years ago.The budget documents show PAC-3 MSE procurement at 230 missiles in fiscal 2024 and 214 in fiscal 2025.

The same FY2026 budget book shows the Army Requirements Oversight Council had increased its acquisition objective for the missile from 3,376 to 13,773 in April 2025 — more than quadrupling the requirement."The problem is 25 years of not buying enough munitions," retired Rear Adm.Mark Montgomery, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democr...