Commentary
Diminishing US ammunition stocks are one metric of a catastrophe whose scale is only gradually becoming clear, says Andreas Kluth for Bloomberg Opinion.
A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor is launched during a test, in this undated handout photo provided by the US Department of Defense, Missile Defense Agency. (Handout via Reuters/File Photo)
12 Aug 2026 05:59AM
BERLIN: It appears that Donald Trump is livid at Pete Hegseth. Not long ago the United States president still cooed that his macho secretary of defence “loves war”, including the one Trump launched in Iran. Now that war is turning out to be unwinnable and seemingly unendable, Trump, venting his frustration at Camp David, wanted to know why Hegseth misled him by not explaining earlier that America was - who could have guessed? - running out of ammunition.We should all be mad at Hegseth for overselling “lethality” in general and the war against Iran in particular. But we should be even angrier at Trump, who as commander-in-chief gave the order to start this misguided conflict. Both men could have listened to any number of advisers who would have “red-teamed” scenarios of things going wrong, from Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz to the US depleting its munitions.The most important adviser, as it happens, did warn specifically about that latter risk. In the days leading up to the US-Israeli attack on Iran in February, Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and highest-ranking military officer, worried about the scarcity of certain types of ordnance in a prolonged conflict. Trump ignored him.
