Military Munitions and Money

The Pentagon has a lot of unplanned bills right now, including end-strength overage, operational tempo, and increased fuel costs. From munitions to AI to attritable autonomous systems, the military also has well-documented and growing challenges in remaining ready and competitive. As Congress leaves Washington to prepare for midterm elections in early November, the $67 billion supplemental appropriations request submitted by the Pentagon in June sits and waits. The Pentagon has submitted large reprogramming actions to cover shortfalls in military personnel accounts and salvage momentum in key programmatic areas. The only other avenue available to remain solvent involves delaying and deferring planned projects, including facilities maintenance, training and accelerated replacement of expended munitions. Heading into a 72-day continuing resolution on October 1 that is significantly below current and planned budgets could make the entire situation worse and ultimately more expensive in resourcing, military competitiveness, and security. A set of seemingly authoritative cost estimates for Operation Epic Fury (OEF) from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Lead Inspector General (IG) provide insight into a big part of the current cash flow challenge. Following are highlights of key differences and similarities between those two cost summaries and three others from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Pentagon itself. The first point to note is that the major public estimates now all display costs in useful categories and carry similar totals (Table 1). The munitions and interceptor replacement category is the primary cost driver in all incremental estimates. Different assumptions on shot doctrine and missile mix lead to the disparity between the estimates, but the requirement to quickly backfill and restock is consistent. Table 1. Epic Fury Cost Estimate Comparison (IG Categories) Where the estimates differ, it must be noted that they cover divergent time frames and use varied assumptions, methodologies, and source data. For example, the AEI estimate (Table 2) tracks costs beginning in December 2025 when military assets started moving to the region, while others start in February 2026 with the first actual kinetic strike. Table 2. AEI Contingency Cost Estimate (as of September 17, 2026) In all cases, determining accurate base damage repair/replace projections is inhibited by several factors concisely summarized by CBO, including: lack of clarity or official information about the value of damaged or destroyed equipment and property, the extent of repairs or rebuilding planned, and the portion of rebuilding costs likely to be shared by host nations. While AEI is doing a deep dive on these estimates using satellite images, the Pentagon facilities pricing guide, and other available data, we only include a placeholder number in the estimate at this point, as we know there will be costs, but quantifying them remains a work in progress. The last important distinction to note is that only one of the cost estimates—the IG—had United States Central Command (CENTCOM) review its product, particularly damaged/destroyed equipment. As a result, an official thorough operational cost capture, to include actual employment of specific resources and munitions, has not yet been released. Given the criticality of exquisite munitions and defensive interceptors in this fight, potential future conflicts, and the debate about the size and health of the arsenal, it is important to note that the under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment—who has the full enterprise view of the department’s stockpiles, acquisition plans, and manufacturing and delivery timelines—noted to the IG that “the munitions expenditure in OEF has resulted in strategic inventory shortfalls and revealed industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply.” Recent comments by CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper that he is “not concerned at all” about munitions shortages appropriately reflect the level of a combatant command (COCOM) perspective and role. If the Pentagon is doing its job right, a COCOM commander should not be primarily occupied with the enterprise-level stockpile and rebuilding it. They should be developing operational options based on guidance from headquarters and accurately characterizing specific risk—defining what risk, to who, and for how long—of those options from the COCOM perspective. And they should be focused on winning. Though the available estimates specific to the incremental cost of OEF differ, the budget shortfalls are real, are accumulating daily, and will get much worse under a CR to start the fiscal year. When the Senate likely soon joins the House to campaign for reelection, the nation will wait until early November to see what the lame duck session will do on defense spending and the $400 million to $1.7 billion worth in lost buying power per day during the CR. We know what they should do—prioritize agreement on a defense budget that is sufficient for the nation’s security needs and financed in whatever manner is necessary to reach the President’s desk as fast as possible. We await what they will do.