Trump pauses Iran strikes as Pentagon warns of depleted air defence stockpiles

In the shadow of three soldiers lost and missiles already spent, the most powerful military on earth found itself constrained not by will but by inventory. President Trump, who had spoken of strikes 'bigger than ever before,' stepped back from a major escalation against Iran after senior advisers made plain that the Pentagon's Patriot interceptor stockpiles across the Middle East were dangerously depleted — a vulnerability the battlefield had already proven real. The pause is a reminder that the limits of power are often logistical before they are political, and that the distance between resol