“In 2022, Ukraine produced 5,000 drones, various. In 2026, they will produce, and I'm afraid I can't give the figure, but let's just say it is going to be well north of 5 million, of all flavors,” Air Chief Marshal Johnny Stringer told attendees at the Global Air and Space Chiefs Conference “So, for NATO nations, if 32 nations can't kind of meet those figures, then frankly, what do we do?”

The U.S. war on Iran has shown how quickly a conflict can consume arsenals of costly, exquisite weapons, Stringer said.

“Op Epic Fury has obviously had an impact on munitions as well, so assumptions that we may have had even months, not even a year ago, about what would be available when are now, in a sense, a little bit moot,” he said.

“These things cost a fortune,” he added. “You have to have them, but there's a bunch of other things you can get in far greater numbers with a little bit more imagination.”

The U.S. military has heavily depleted its critical munition stockpiles during the Iran war. Coalition forces fired over 11,000 munitions in the first 16 days of the conflict, at a cost of about $26 billion, according to a report by the Royal United Services Institute think tank.

The leader of the Royal Air Force struck similar notes in his own speech. 

Air Chief Marshal Harv Smyth praised the “overwhelmingly lethality” of the U.S. and allied use of airpower during Epic Fury, but he also pointed out problems with the operation.

“The Iran conflict has also exposed the opposite side to that point: the saturation and sheer weight of modern retaliatory attacks. Air forces had to intercept a torrent of hundreds of ballistic missiles and thousands of attack drones,” Smyth said. “More Patriots were fired in the first few days of this campaign than during the last four and a half years in Ukraine. This is a sobering reminder of the importance of magazine depth, even in a short form.”

The U.S. war also ate into fleets of exquisite aircraft. At least 42 aircraft have been destroyed or damaged, according to a Congressional Research Service report. This includes fighters like the F-35 and critical radar aircraft like the E-3 Sentry airborne early warning-and-control system. 

Stringer said countries that are looking at sixth-generation aircraft should be cautious.

“A lot of discussion on sixth-gen seems to be almost solely about flashy aircraft,” Stringer said. “We have to define what we actually mean by sixth-gen air warfare, and then we can build the right mix of systems.”

The U.S. war in Iran has stretched on for more than four months, and no immediate diplomatic end to the conflict has emerged. Stringer ended his speech by pointing to Epic Fury as an example of how the changing threat environment means the U.S. can’t quite manage two ongoing conflicts at once.

“A younger, better-looking, and thinner version of me that joined the air force joined it at a time when U.S. doctrine could reasonably expect to fight and win two separate theater campaigns,” Stringer said. “We are no longer in that place, and what you're seeing through the likes of Epic Fury, but elsewhere, just geopolitics full-stop, and the demand signals being placed on air and space forces, means that simultaneity is now a thing. It's not actually an abstract concept. Which means we're going to have to prioritize. We're going to have to make choices.”

Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, the U.S. Air Force’s chief of staff, told attendees that Epic Fury “demonstrated the ability of modern air and space power to generate effects across vast distances at a speed unmatched by any other form of military power.”

Wilsbach also praised allies' support during the war in Iran, adding, “The most effective air power is combined air power.” 

“The Space Force has not established a process or guidance to consistently and accurately determine its personnel needs to accomplish its missions. Relatedly, although it has estimated the number of contractor personnel supporting it, the Space Force does not have a process or guidance to accurately measure the number of contractor personnel and the nature of work they perform,” the GAO wrote in findings published Tuesday. “GAO also found that the Space Force is partly addressing personnel challenges, but its efforts are not guided by a comprehensive strategic workforce plan. Without such a plan, the Space Force may not be able to systematically plan for and manage a workforce that meets current and future mission needs.”

The Space Force filled just 13,500 of the 18,000 positions it said it needed in 2025, and shortages in cyber, enlisted, intelligence, and support roles put the service’s missions at risk, investigators wrote after analyzing Space Force staffing data and visiting five bases as part of a Congressionally-ordered probe into the service’s workforce woes. 

“Even as the Space Force has continued to grow its workforce, officials have identified personnel shortfalls as a primary workforce challenge,” the report said. “GAO’s analysis found a 25 percent shortfall when comparing assigned personnel with total personnel requirements for fiscal year 2025. “

Investigators said that the Space Force, the smallest of the military service branches, has a process for determining the number of guardians, civilians, and contractors it needs that is is “not consistent,” “outdated” and does “not reflect mission growth.”. 

The report comes as the service’s top leaders push to double the number of guardians and as it seeks a $71 billion budget request in 2027. 

Last year, the Space Force had 4,649 officers (30 percent), 5,336 enlisted (35 percent), and 5,407 civilian personnel (35 percent), according to the report. Service officials told the GAO that it needs more enlisted guardians for its force-generation models.

“The proportion of officer to enlisted Guardians was approximately 1:1 (47 percent to 53 percent),” the GAO report read. “This is substantially higher than the average proportion of about 1:4 (20 percent to 80 percent) officer to enlisted personnel across the military services.”

Service officials and officers who spoke with GAO investigators said other key roles are also undermanned.

Senior Combat Forces Command officials also said there is “a critical deficiency of cyberspace expertise” within the service and senior field command officials “cited a shortage of intelligence analysts,” according to the GAO report.

The shortfalls aren’t just within the Space Force. The small service relies heavily on the Air Force for many of its support roles like security forces, lawyers, and installation support. GAO investigators found “a 22 percent shortfall in the number of support personnel the Air Force provides to the Space Force” and added that could “ increase risk” to the space service’s missions.

One official from a Space Base Delta told GAO that a shortfall of funded civil engineering positions is “leading to a higher risk of mission failure, and that the Space Force is taking risk against wartime readiness requirements and Joint Force needs.”

Another official from a Space Launch Delta told GAO “supporting increased space launch operations is becoming more challenging and unsustainable.” In one example, a Space Force delta had to close one of its six fire stations due to manning problems and the squadron can’t “meet National Fire Protection Association safety standards” and “providing enough fire crew support for launches leaves the remainder of the base vulnerable in case of an emergency.”

When the Pentagon unveiled the service’s budget request earlier this year, Jules W. Hurst III, who is performing the duties of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)/Chief Financial Officer, said workforce cuts implemented by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth didn’t affect “critical efforts” like “space acquisition.”

Space System Command, the service’s acquisition arm, lost roughly 10 percent of its workforce during last year’s cuts. Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, acting assistant Air Force secretary for space acquisition and integration said late last year that “we barely have enough acquirers to do all of the work that we have now.”

The GAO said major Trump-administration initiatives, such as the Golden Dome missile-defense effort, will strain the understaffed acquisition workforce.

“Officials expected that the development of the Golden Dome for America missile-defense system will increase demands on the Space Force’s acquisition, test and evaluation, and operator workforces.”

The GAO made four recommendations to the Space Force. 

Investigators said the service should “establish a process to accurately determine personnel requirements,” accurately track its total number of contractor personnel, evaluate what manning needs are for long-term goals, and “evaluate the effectiveness of the current arrangement for Air Force-provided base operating and other support functions for the Space Force.

In their official response to the report, Defense Department officials concurred with all four recommendations.