Episode summary
War in Iran is Chewing Through American Missile Stockpiles | Odd Lots
Odd Lots
· · 45 min · Hosts: Joe Weisenthal, Tracy Alloway · Guests: Tom Karako
Summary
The episode argues that the fighting over Iran, Ukraine, and regional deterrence is exposing a hard physical truth: the U.S. and its allies are burning through missiles and interceptors faster than they can replace them. Tom Karako says the “scary” part is not just the cost of each round, but the “massive expenditure” of scarce inventory at the same time the Pentagon still has to think about China and the Pacific. Missile defense can buy time, he says, but it does not end a war, and it does not solve the problem of limited stockpiles.
Karako breaks down the missile ecosystem into offensive standoff weapons, ballistic and cruise missiles, and defensive interceptors, arguing that the modern battlefield is defined by precision-guided munitions on both sides. He says the U.S. has already spent hundreds of interceptors and offensive missiles, while the conflict in Iran is chewing through inventories that were already stressed by Ukraine. The result is pressure on allies as well, since Patriot and other systems are being shifted from places like South Korea and Japan to the Middle East.
He also argues that ramping production is possible but slow. Bottlenecks include long-lead facilities, single-source components, workforce limits, and a procurement system that has historically been too cyclical. The Pentagon is trying to push industry to expand, but Karako says the money and the seven-year planning horizon have to be there for the buildout to matter.
Key takeaways
- Tom Karako says the urgent risk is not just battlefield losses, but the “extraordinary vaporization” of U.S. missile inventory in a short window.
- He argues missile defense buys time, but it cannot win a war or stop the need for other means to end the threat.
- Karako says the U.S. is shifting Patriot and other systems away from the Pacific, which weakens deterrence against China and North Korea.
- He says production is constrained by long-lead factories, workforce limits, and single-source supply-chain chokepoints.
- Karako says the Pentagon’s current munitions ramp is sensible, but it will not work without more appropriations and multi-year procurement.
Notable quotes
“what they're doing right now is presiding over an extraordinary vaporization of our inventory in a very short window of time”
“The scary part is, is the massive expenditure of these things”
“missile defense will not win a war for you, but its absence will lose one or could lose one pretty quickly”
“What I worry about most is that this extraordinary expenditure of stuff is not going to be replaced in a year”
How the episode opens
In this conflict. There has been an enormous, and I would say, a scary amount of missiles expended on the part of the United States, hundreds and hundreds on the part of Iran lashing out at basically all of their neighbors. And what was once an American idiosyncrasy, the pursuit of this missile defense capability is now very much a global phenomenon.
The demand signals the supply and demand signal of long range standoff and the means to contend with it is very much a global phenomenon. Use the word scary to talk about the sort of volume of activity that the U.S. has or how much we fired already.
What did you mean by that? The scary part is, is the massive expenditure of these things. And I want to quote General Keane, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who said he was asked, do we have enough?
And he said, we have enough for this conflict. That is not the same as saying that we have enough for the other tasks that we have around the world, most significantly, deterring a conflict with China. And what they're doing right now is presiding over an extraordinary vaporization of our inventory in a very short window of time.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lives Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway Tracy. You know, I think we're roughly maybe a little bit less than two weeks into the war, and we are recording this March 12th, 2026.
And there, of course, extraordinary number of questions about the timing and the duration of the war. We know already that the economic impact has been quite significant, particularly if you just look at commodity markets. But one of the questions that sort of may help determine timing or outcome, I guess, you know, we talked about this in the after the war in Ukraine started.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- missile stockpiles
- supply chain constraints
- missile defense production
- iranian drones
- pentagon procurement
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
Watch the episode
Watch “War in Iran is Chewing Through American Missile Stockpiles | Odd Lots” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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