You cannot simply run a munitions line faster. There is no switch to flip, no second shift that doubles the output overnight.
Building missile propulsion takes specialized facilities. It involves chemists who spend careers learning their craft, and an area engineered to handle energetic materials without catastrophe. It takes years to stand up, and once it exists, it must keep running.
That reality has collided with a country that has rarely needed more of these systems, at a moment when they remain among the most difficult things it makes.
Stockpiles Drawn Down
Since the conflict with Iran began on February 28, heavy usage has severely strained U.S. munitions. According to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the U.S. has expended over half of at least four of its most critical precision weapon stockpiles. The think tank estimates that over 1,400 Patriot interceptors have been fired, leaving fewer than 1,000 remaining in reserve.
The U.S. has burned through a substantial portion of its advanced air defenses during the conflict with Iran. Estimates suggest a conservative expenditure of over 53%, and potentially up to 80%, of its high-end THAAD interceptor stockpile. Media reports tracking global supply strains indicate that intense regional fighting has drained roughly 45% to 65% of the Pentagon’s Patriot missile inventories, leaving fewer than 1,000 available in reserve.
Replacing that inventory will not be quick. CSIS estimates it could take three to five years to rebuild the most sophisticated munitions to prewar levels. THAAD interceptors alone could take more than three and a half years.
Defense analyst Mark Cancian and others have pointed to a structural cause. The country built a peacetime industrial base and, for decades, was content to keep it that way.
Now the Pentagon is pressing contractors to double, triple and quadruple production across a dozen types of missiles, both to refill emptied magazines and to prepare for the possibility of a larger conflict in the Pacific.
Why Speed Is So Hard
Scott Alexander has spent his career inside that challenge. As president of Propulsion Systems for L3Harris Missile Solutions, he oversees the making of the solid rocket motors that power many of the interceptors and strike weapons currently in short supply.
Escalating production, he said, is one of the harder problems in the business, and the reasons run deeper than most people would guess. “For scaling munitions production, you need qualified facilities and processes, an abundance of space to safely make energetics, specialized long lead equipment, experienced chemists, engineers and manufacturers, and a robust supply chain that can keep up,” Alexander said.
Each of those is its own bottleneck. Energetic materials demand facilities built and certified for the danger they carry. Specialized equipment can take years to order and install. And the expertise cannot be hired in a hurry, because the work is so specialized. “If a company hasn’t been investing ahead of demand,” Alexander said, “these requirements can present challenges for rapid escalation.”
Ahead of the Curve
He argues that companies must prepare for a surge before it arrives. L3Harris has been expanding its rocket motor production since it acquired Aerojet Rocketdyne, the storied propulsion maker, in a $4.7 billion deal that closed in July 2023.
“We’re investing billions, constructing around 60 new facilities, leveraging automation and advanced manufacturing processes, growing our workforce and strengthening our supply chain so they too can scale,” Alexander said.
Through those investments, he said, the company expects to “double, triple and quadruple solid rocket motor production across a range of programs,” and has already posted record output years for several of them.
That expansion has taken concrete form across the country. This year, the company announced a billion-dollar expansion in Orange County, Virginia; a facility expansion in Arkansas tied to the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptor; and a framework agreement to quadruple production of the propulsion that powers the THAAD interceptor. These are the same THAAD’s that have been depleted by 38–50% since the start of the Iranian conflict.
The government has also put its own money behind that direction. In January, the Defense Department agreed to a $1 billion convertible equity investment directly in L3Harris’ Missile Solutions business, a stake that closed in April, an unusual move that underscored how urgently Washington views the need to rebuild capacity.
Hardened Logistics
Alexander notes that the weak points often hide far upstream, in the specialty materials and niche suppliers where only a handful of qualified sources exist. A single constrained input can bottleneck everything downstream. A completed missile is just the final link in a long logistical chain.
To harden that chain, he said, the company has invested more than $1 billion in its suppliers, funding new equipment and expanding its workforce. They are qualifying alternative materials, so no single source becomes a choke point.
In exchange, it is asking those suppliers to invest alongside it. “We’re providing long-term demand visibility and multi-year partnership opportunities,” Alexander said, “and we’re looking to our supply chain to self-invest alongside us.”
Transparency matters because a supplier will not build an entirely new line for a one-time order. Alexander pointed to the Pentagon’s move toward multi-year framework agreements, which give companies a clear signal of sustained demand and the confidence to spend against it.
People Behind the Product
The hardest part of the industrial base to rebuild may not be the machinery at all, but its people. This work is highly specialized, Alexander said, with an art to it that takes time to learn, and competition for that talent has only intensified.
L3Harris has grown its workforce sharply at its propulsion sites over the past five years, by 50 to 60 percent in Arkansas and Alabama. All while continuing to hire engineers, manufacturing specialists and quality experts across sites in Alabama, Arkansas, Cincinnati, California and Virginia.
To feed that pipeline, Alexander said, the company works with local schools, technical colleges and workforce programs to prepare new hires for the demands of high-rate, high-safety production.
Keeping those lines warm, rather than letting them go cold between orders, is its own form of readiness. “Active production lines enable us to retain our experienced workforce and ensure our supply chain stays in business,” Alexander said, “so we remain ready, responsive and resilient rather than having to rebuild each time demand shifts.”
The Point of it All
Instead of the economics, Alexander framed the work as something closer to insurance against a war no one wants to fight. “Industrial capacity is a strategic form of deterrence,” he said.
An adversary that knows the United States can replenish its munitions rapidly would be less tempted to test it. When production keeps pace, he said, “the men and women who rely on these systems have the reliable, combat-proven technology the moment they need it.”
For him, the stakes are personal in a way spreadsheets cannot capture. In many cases, those building these systems are connected to the ones who will carry them. Alexander noted that much of his workforce is made up of veterans and the families of veterans, people who have some sense of what is at stake when a soldier reaches for a weapon and needs it to work.
In other words, they are building for their own. And in a period when the nation is drawing its magazines down faster than it can fill them, that may be the surest motivation of all.
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