The US military is coming under mounting pressure as the war with Iran continues, with attacks on American bases and warships across the Middle East causing extensive damage while defensive ammunition stocks decline, deployments lengthen and logistical problems intensify.
US officials have warned that if these pressures persist, they could undermine the military’s ability to sustain the war effectively.
A report by The Intercept, written by journalist Nick Turse, said the widening conflict has confronted US forces with an expanding list of challenges, including Iranian attacks on American bases and warships across the Middle East, depleted defensive ammunition stocks, rising casualties, ship maintenance problems, prolonged deployments, logistical complications and deteriorating morale.
Taken together, these problems have weighed heavily on US forces, damaged military readiness and increased pressure on the Pentagon’s budget, contradicting the optimistic assessments repeatedly presented by the Trump administration over recent months.
According to The Intercept, two US officials said Iran itself was facing severe economic pressure, citing intelligence reporting.
The first official described Iran’s recent ballistic missile attacks on US warships as a strategy of “maximum risk”, intended to increase economic pressure on the United States ahead of the US midterm elections. The official added that it remained unclear which side would “back down first”.
Trump on Sunday suggested that the United States could potentially “stay and take the oil” in Iran, similar to the administration’s policy of seizing resources in Venezuela.
The second US official, however, said an American occupation of Iran would be “nearly impossible” and described the idea as “completely illogical”.
US Defences Under Pressure
The Intercept said Iran’s ability to penetrate US air defences in the Middle East using attack drones and advanced ballistic missiles had placed the American military in an increasingly precarious position.
The first US official said the Trump administration had failed to properly assess Iran’s military capabilities, while the second described the war as having been launched amid a “total absence of planning”.
According to official Pentagon figures, hundreds of US military personnel have been injured in Iranian attacks since 7 July alone.
Extensive Damage in Bahrain
US officials told The Intercept that the military’s ability to operate at full capacity was severely disrupted in the opening hours of the conflict after an Iranian attack on 28 February destroyed US Navy facilities in Manama, Bahrain, the most important American logistics hub in the region.
For months, the Pentagon maintained that the strikes had not materially affected military operations.
However, acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao acknowledged last week that the attack had caused “massive destruction” to US Navy facilities in Bahrain.
More than six months after the strike, the US Naval Support Activity, or NSA, base in Bahrain remains extensively damaged.
A previous Wall Street Journal investigation found that rebuilding the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet, military barracks and communications towers at the Bahrain base could cost more than $400 million.
Growing Pressure on the US Fleet
Despite Trump’s repeated claims that the destruction of the Iranian navy ranks among his administration’s major achievements during the war, officials cited by The Intercept described enormous pressure on US naval forces operating in the region.
With the Fifth Fleet headquarters out of service and other regional ports within range of Iranian missiles and drones, the US Navy faces the challenge of keeping a force of more than 24 vessels continuously deployed.
The fleet includes two large aircraft carriers, numerous guided-missile destroyers and cruisers, attack submarines and supply ships.
Although aircraft carriers are nuclear-powered, their aircraft and helicopters, along with accompanying vessels, consume millions of gallons of fuel every week. Sailors aboard the ships also require hundreds of thousands of meals.
As a result, US Navy supply vessels must transport provisions more than 2,000 miles from the established American base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
A report by the inspector general of the US Department of War found that these logistics cycles now take between 14 and 18 days.
The second US official told The Intercept that White House assumptions that Iran would “collapse” before the US Navy had not materialised.
The official described the situation as “difficult and ultimately unsustainable”.
USS Nimitz Service Extended as Deployments Lengthen
The Intercept noted that the US Navy has only 11 aircraft carrier strike groups.
With the fleet under sustained pressure from prolonged deployments, the Navy decided to extend the operational life of its oldest aircraft carrier, USS Nimitz.
Four of the 11 carrier strike groups have so far been deployed to the Middle East during the war, while several of the remaining carriers are undergoing extensive repairs and will not be available for deployment again for years.
The USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group completed a record 11-month deployment that also included the invasion of Venezuela.
Under normal circumstances, an aircraft carrier typically enters port about once a month to allow its crew time to rest.
According to the Presidential Unit Citation awarded to the ship, the Ford faced a “continuous threat from enemy missiles and suicide drones” during its Middle East deployment.
Early in the war with Iran, the carrier suffered serious damage after a fire broke out in its laundry room while its fire suppression system was malfunctioning.
Crew members were forced to fight the fire manually for around 30 hours.
The fire halted flight operations for two days, while around 600 sailors were unable to access their sleeping quarters because of the damage.
Although the Navy initially announced only a small number of injuries from the fire, reports soon emerged that more than 200 sailors had received treatment for smoke inhalation or other injuries.
Persistent Problems Aboard the Ford
The Intercept said the USS Gerald R. Ford has also suffered for years from persistent problems with its sewage system.
In 2025 alone, 205 breakdowns were recorded over just four days.
Before leaving the Caribbean, the carrier continued to experience problems with its approximately 650 toilets.
The same problems later resurfaced in the Middle East, where toilets became blocked and filled with waste, according to video obtained by CNN.
Meanwhile, the USS Abraham Lincoln spent most of its nine-month deployment at sea without entering port.
The prolonged deployment led to reports of severe morale problems, supply shortages, suicide attempts and at least one crew member falling overboard.
Last month, the USS George Washington replaced the Lincoln, allowing the heavily rusted carrier to travel to Thailand for a port stop.
Air Defence Stockpiles Running Down
The Intercept reported that despite claims made for months by Trump and Pete Hegseth that Iran’s military had been destroyed, Iran had attacked more than 15 bases across the Middle East, according to US officials and Iranian reports.
US officials speaking to the outlet, along with numerous media reports, said stocks of advanced air defence missiles, including Patriot and THAAD interceptors, had been depleted to such an extent that US forces were no longer intercepting every Iranian missile and drone directed at American and allied targets in the region.
Trump and Hegseth have both rejected these claims.
Trump wrote on Monday that the United States was producing “more highly advanced and elite weapons than at any time in our history”.
However, the previously cited inspector general’s report presented a different picture, finding that the conflict had created a “strategic stockpile shortage” and exposed “bottlenecks in the industrial base” responsible for replenishing munitions.
In May, Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command, told Congress: “We have all the munitions necessary to defend our forces and execute a wide range of contingency operations.”
Nevertheless, the US Department of War acknowledges that 410 American service members have been killed or wounded since 7 July alone.
According to an analysis published by the Royal United Services Institute in March, the United States and its allies used more than 11,000 munitions during the first 16 days of the war.
An analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that approximately 65 per cent of US Patriot interceptor missiles were used between February and July.
That left fewer than 830 missiles from a pre-war stockpile of 2,330.
Over the same period, the number of THAAD interceptors declined from more than 450 to fewer than 270.
US Bases Across the Region Hit
Beyond the destruction of the NSA base in Bahrain, Iran’s missiles also caused serious damage to the Combined Air Operations Center at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar early in the war, putting the facility out of service.
Both sites have since come under further attack, raising questions over whether they can be rebuilt.
Iran also attacked Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan last week, damaging several US military aircraft, according to the second American official.
US forces responded by firing a “large” number of Patriot interceptors to protect American personnel, the official said.
US officials also confirmed that Iran attacked Tower 22, an American military position near Jordan’s northern border with Syria.
Satellite imagery, along with photographs and videos circulated online, indicated that the base sustained extensive damage.
In 2024, a drone attack on Tower 22 by an Iran-backed militia killed three US service members.
Iran also said it had attacked American military facilities at Prince Hassan and King Faisal air bases in Jordan, as well as Al-Adiri Air Base, Ahmed Al Jaber Air Base, Camp Doha, Ali Al Salem Air Base and Camp Arifjan in Kuwait.
Last week, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced that its forces had carried out “simultaneous attacks on US bases in Jordan, Bahrain and Erbil”, including a “combined missile and drone attack targeting the headquarters and residence of the American commander of Ali Al Salem Air Base”.
US Central Command did not respond to requests for comment on the attacks against its facilities or provide an official total for the number of sites struck.
The Pentagon inspector general’s report, however, said Iranian strikes had “damaged and destroyed hundreds of buildings and facilities” at US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan during the conflict.
The report also found that dozens of US aircraft had been destroyed or damaged, including four F-15 fighter jets, 12 KC-135 aerial refuelling aircraft and as many as 30 MQ-9 Reaper drones.
