WASHINGTON – The US Air Force plans to buy nearly 4,300 long-range stealth cruise missiles from Lockheed Martin over the next five years, according to new budget documents, after using them against Iranian targets.
The Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) purchases would run through 2031, with military planners considering the projectiles key to any potential future conflict with China.
The service plans to purchase 821 of the missiles for the next fiscal year beginning Oct 1, 2026, up from 144 in the 2026 fiscal year.
Planned annual purchases will rise to nearly 900 in fiscal year 2028 and 860 each for the following years.
The goal is to build up a US inventory of over 11,000 missiles by 2031, up from 6,700 purchased prior to 2025.
The funding details follow the Trump administration’s record US$1.5 trillion (S$1.92 trillion) request – 42 per cent larger than the budget in 2026 – which amounts to essentially a wish list of items they would like to fund.
Congress has the ultimate say, and it is unlikely such a dramatic spike in defence spending would be approved amid pushback from both fiscal conservatives and Democrats.
The budget figures released on April 22 also do not count replenishing weapons fired during the Iran conflict, as the request was completed before the US began the war.
Replacements for those expended weapons will likely be bankrolled in an upcoming supplemental defence request.
The weapons were seen as so useful during the current US and Israeli war against Iran that the Pentagon pulled quantities of the weapon from Pacific stockpiles in late March, Bloomberg previously reported.
The extended range version of the missile can fly more than 966km, and was designed to avoid enemy air defences and hit targets from safer distances.
The weapon is now carried by the Air Force’s B-1B, B-52 and B-2 bombers in addition to F-16, F-15E and F-35A fighter jets. BLOOMBERG
