Why the United States is Fighting a War in the Strait of Hormuz It Cannot Win

14 July 2026 by Larry C. Johnson

strait-of-hormuz-3-1024×536

The United States, according to Donald Trump’s letter to Congress, has started a new war with Iran. Apparently no one told the Orange Man that the US does not have enough weapons in its arsenal to pursue a campaign that lasts longer than a month.

Let’s start with some basics. The HIMARS is not a missile or rocket… It is a launcher. It has been reported that missiles fired from HIMARS hit the Iranian coast the last three days, i.e., Saturday, Sunday and Monday. There are three types of missiles/rockets that can be fired from the HIMARS:

PrSM (Precision Strike Missile) — its newer successor to ATACMS. The maximum range is 500+ km in its baseline Increment 1 form. It was deliberately designed to exceed 499 km, the old floor imposed by the INF Treaty before that treaty lapsed in 2019, and open-source estimates put its effective reach at roughly 500–600 km. Later increments are intended to extend it further, but the fielded version is the 500+ km baseline.

GMLRS (Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System) — precision rockets. The baseline GMLRS Unitary and GMLRS Alternative Warhead both have a range of about 70 kilometers (roughly 45 miles). The newer GMLRS Extended-Range (GMLRS-ER) roughly doubles that, reaching targets up to 150 kilometers away.

ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) — longer-range ballistic missiles. The maximumrange is approximately 300 km. The early cluster-munition variants (M39) were shorter — around 165 km — but the GPS-aided unitary variants (M39A1, M48, M57) all reach out to about 300 km, which has been the program’s ceiling throughout its service life.

The only two possible missiles that could have been used are the ATACMs and the PrSM. Let me explain why. Measured as a straight-line (great-circle) crossing from Bahrain over to the Iranian coast, the distance depends on the bearing you take, since the Gulf widens as you go northwest:

Bahrain roughly due north to Bushehr: ~309 km

Shortest crossing (Bahrain to the nearest Iranian shore, around the Kangan/South Pars area): ~234 km

Bahrain to Asaluyeh: ~244 km

In other words, the ATACM would fall short of Bushehr but could hit parts of the coast to the south of Bushehr. That leaves the PrSM as the only missile with the capability of striking targets along the Iranian coast of the Persian Gulf. But here is the problem confronting Trump: There are limited supplies of ATACMs and PrSMs.

ATACMS — There were 3,700–4,000 produced over the program’s life, with Defense Express estimating more than 2,500 in US inventory in various conditions at the end of 2024, and about 900 exported. The Pentagon is not buying any more ATACMS and is phasing it out in favor of the PrSM. I do not know how many have been fired since the start of Operation Epic Fury, but some sources claim a substantial number.

PrSM — This is the newest and has the smallest inventory, since it only recently entered service and made its combat debut in Epic Fury. There is no legacy stockpile; the number in hand is whatever has been delivered against early contracts. Contracts dating to 2023 call for 335 missiles by 2029, phased as 54 in 2026, 208 in 2028, and 73 in 2029. In other words, the US had less than 60 available at the start of Epic Fury in February.

There are also potential shortages, though not as dire, with the Tomahawk cruise missile and the JASSMs. During the five weeks of Epic Fury — before the ceasefire was declared in early April — the US fired 850 Tomahawks, which represented about 25% of the entire inventory. 400 were fired in the first 72 hours alone (~10%). That puts remaining stocks in the low-3,000s. Not a problem, right?

Wrong. Tomahawk output averaged about 86 per year over the past decade and had fallen to lows of 68 in FY23, 34 in FY24, and a planned 22 in FY25 — while, as was observed during Epic Fury hundreds were expended in three days. FY26 procurement was only 57–58 missiles. The response is a February 4, 2026 RTX framework agreement targeting 1,000+ per year over seven years, and a FY27 Navy request for 785 Tomahawks (~$3 billion), a roughly 1,200% jump. But because each missile takes 18–24 months to build, replacing the 1,000+ expended in the Iran war is a multiyear project. Making matters worse, the Tomahawk requires 18 rare-earth minerals that are controlled by the Chinese.

The situation for the JASSM is even worse. The most operationally relevant figure is for the JASSM-ER (AGM-158B), the extended-range stealth variant that’s been the workhorse. Its prewar global inventory stood at roughly 2,300 units. Operation Epic Fury drew that down hard: more than 1,000 expended since February 28, 2026, leaving an estimated 425 JASSM-ER remaining worldwide as of April 2026.

The same structural problem we have seen across every system applies here: even after expansion, planned production tops out around 1,000 missiles per year — roughly 19 per week — against a wartime consumption rate that analysts estimated at 500–800 JASSM-type missiles per week during high-intensity strikes on layered air defenses. That’s the mismatch that took JASSM-ER down to a few hundred rounds in about a month, and replenishment runs over multiple fiscal years. It too is vulnerable to the rare-earth supply chain.

CENTCOM claims that its objective in using force against Iran in the Strait of Hormuz is to degrade Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping, employing precision munitions against Iranian coastal defense systems, missile and drone sites, and maritime capabilities. Here’s the next problem… Iran is firing from more than 1,000 locations along the 171-mile coast stretching from Bandar e Lengeh in the north to Sirik in the south. If CENTCOM could destroy all missile and drone sites along the coast, it still leaves untouched the missile and drone launch sites in the interior of Iran that can reach the Strait.

In other words, the US does not have enough Tomahawk and JASSMs in inventory to degrade Iran’s ability to attack non-compliant ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

I also want you to focus on the fact that Iran has a much easier task in retaliating against the US attacks. The US is carrying out air and missile operations from less than 10 bases — i.e. two in Jordan, one in Kuwait, one in Bahrain, one in Qatar, one in the UAE and one in Oman. All Iran has to do every time it is attacked is to pummel those same seven bases repeatedly until they are no longer capable of supporting US military operations. Instead of trying to hit 1,000 targets — many which are protected by caves or underground sites — Iran only has to focus on the limited number of bases hosting US forces and operations. This is why Trump’s latest war is doomed to failure.

My chat about the wars in Ukraine and the Persian Gulf with Hakan Bergmark of Sweden:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrDPeAcfGSE