Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth privately urged Senate Republicans on Tuesday to approve a significantly larger increase in military spending, warning lawmakers in a classified briefing that America’s weapons stockpiles are being depleted, that China is racing ahead on artificial intelligence, and that threats to U.S. security are mounting around the globe. The closed-door session, held in a secure setting on Capitol Hill, came as new reporting revealed just how strained those stockpiles have become after five months of U.S. military action against Iran.
Hegseth and several Pentagon undersecretaries briefed Republican members of key Senate committees on Tuesday morning, giving senators what one source described as a detailed, around-the-world threat assessment. The briefing focused heavily on how the United States now stacks up against its principal adversaries, with particular emphasis placed on China’s growing military and technological capabilities.
Emil Michael, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, used part of the session to press the case for a major infusion of funding into artificial intelligence programs, arguing that sustained investment is necessary for the United States to preserve its technological edge over Beijing. Officials also displayed what one source called “candor” about the state of U.S. munitions stockpiles, providing senators with a level of detail on the shortages that congressional committees had reportedly been requesting for some time.
The Stockpile Numbers Behind the Warning
The Pentagon’s private appeal follows new reporting that the U.S. Army has used up much of its global stockpile of long-range precision missiles during its five-month war with Iran. According to three people familiar with the data, the United States has expended “virtually all” of its Army Tactical Missile Systems and Precision Strike Missiles — the Army’s primary surface-to-surface weapons, which cost more than $1 million apiece and allow accurate strikes from a safe distance.
The scale of the drawdown had not been previously reported. ATACMS have played a significant role in Ukraine’s war against Russia, giving Kyiv’s forces the ability to strike targets deep inside Russian territory, while the newer Precision Strike Missile is intended to eventually replace the aging ATACMS system entirely. A March report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted that PrSM stockpiles were already low to begin with, given how recently the weapon entered service, though the Army has placed large orders for delivery in 2027.
Defensive interceptors have thinned out as well. A CSIS report published last week estimated that roughly 65 percent of the Patriot interceptor stockpile had been expended between February and July, and that supplies of THAAD ballistic missile interceptors were at least 38 percent lower than when the conflict began. Two people familiar with internal Pentagon data said those figures track closely with the government’s own numbers, even though Reuters has not independently viewed the classified figures itself. The U.S. has also burned through a little less than half of its global supply of ship-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles since the war began, according to one source, a figure Reuters could not independently verify.
Military Leaders Sound the Alarm
Military leaders have privately warned President Trump for weeks that stockpiles of defensive systems, including the Patriot interceptors used against ballistic missiles, were dwindling, according to two of the sources. Several media outlets reported last week that Trump had opted against launching another large-scale offensive inside Iran in part because his military advisers cautioned him about the state of the stockpile — though a U.S. official disputed that account, saying the decision instead reflected pressure from Gulf states.
One source said the reduced use of ATACMS and PrSM missiles also reflects a deliberate choice by the administration to avoid riskier alternatives, such as sending piloted aircraft to drop bombs on Iranian targets. Because the long-range missiles allow strikes from a distance, analysts consider them especially valuable against an adversary with sophisticated air defenses — a category that includes China, a nation increasingly at the center of the Pentagon’s private funding pitch to Congress.
A fourth person familiar with the matter offered a more reassuring view, saying that despite the heavy use of precision weapons, U.S. Central Command has been able to reload from military supplies stationed around the world. Raytheon, a unit of RTX, has reached a tentative multi-year agreement with the Pentagon to boost production of Tomahawk missiles, part of a broader push to rebuild stockpiles alongside increased output of other munitions.
The White House Pushes Back
Asked for comment on the stockpile figures, the White House issued a statement from Trump asserting that the United States has “far more munitions than anyone in the world” and “far more than we need.” Trump added that American defense contractors “are, at this moment, making more munitions than they have ever made before, in addition to expanding their plants and equipment at record levels.”
Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell echoed that confidence, saying America’s military “is the most powerful in the world and has everything it needs to execute at the time and place of the President’s choosing.” Parnell added that the military has carried out “multiple successful operations across combatant commands while ensuring the U.S. military possesses a deep arsenal of capabilities to protect our people and our interests.” Lockheed Martin, which manufactures the ATACMS, PrSM and THAAD systems, and Raytheon, which produces the Tomahawk and Patriot systems, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the stockpile levels.
Independent analysts have offered a more measured assessment, agreeing that certain munitions — including artillery shells and several missile types — are being produced at record levels, while cautioning that current output may still fall short of what a prolonged conflict would demand.
Turning the Ask Into Dollars
Hegseth’s private pitch to Senate Republicans goes beyond simply replenishing weapons used in Iran and Ukraine. Officials have also been sounding alarms about the need to invest heavily in artificial intelligence now, framing the spending as essential to keeping pace with China’s advances. In the nearer term, the White House has been pushing the House’s version of a budget resolution, which allocates $67 billion in new defense spending — an amount that still falls short of the roughly $350 billion in reconciliation-tied defense funding the administration requested earlier this year.
Multiple senators who attended Tuesday’s briefing urged Pentagon officials to broaden their outreach beyond the Republicans already supportive of a large defense increase, pushing them to try to win over senators who remain undecided. Notably, Democrats were not invited to the classified briefing, and sources familiar with the matter said they have also been excluded from other recent briefings related to Iran.
A Debate Playing Out in Public
The private pitch mirrors a public fight that has been building for months. Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins has previously cautioned against relying too heavily on a future reconciliation bill to cover funding gaps rather than securing the money through standard defense appropriations, warning that doing so “creates the instability” of depending on a package that has not yet passed. Senate Armed Services Committee members, including Sen. Roger Wicker, have separately argued that the administration’s baseline budget request understates what is actually needed, with Wicker previously calling for a bigger package.
The broader debate over the size and structure of a third reconciliation bill — which would need to advance through the Senate on party lines — has also exposed divisions among Republicans over whether new defense spending should be offset with cuts elsewhere in the budget, a sticking point that has slowed the package’s momentum even as the Pentagon’s private appeals to individual senators continue.
Taken together, the classified briefing and the stockpile disclosures paint a picture of a Pentagon leadership team working two tracks at once: publicly defending the strength of America’s arsenal while privately telling the lawmakers who control its budget that the cupboard is barer than the administration is willing to say out loud.