US warns Japan of severe delays in Tomahawk missile deliveries due to Iran war

The United States has formally notified Japan that delivery of 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles will be significantly delayed. The reason: Washington needs to replenish its own stockpiles first, after burning through a staggering number of missiles during military operations against Iran.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered the news directly to Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi during a meeting in May 2026. The original timeline called for the first batch to arrive in April 2028. That date could now slip by up to two additional years.

Japan signed a $2.35 billion contract in 2024 for these missiles specifically to build counterstrike capabilities against China and North Korea. Japan’s deal was structured as two batches of 200 missiles each. The contract was designed to give Japan long-range strike capability it hasn’t possessed since 1945.

What Operation Epic Fury consumed

The US military reportedly expended over 850 Tomahawk missiles during the early stages of its conflict with Iran, an operation dubbed “Operation Epic Fury.” To put that in perspective, Japan’s entire order of 400 missiles represents less than half of what the US fired off in the opening phase alone.

Raytheon, now part of RTX Corporation, manufactures the Tomahawk. Production lines can only move so fast, and when your biggest customer just emptied the shelves and immediately turns around with a priority reorder, everyone else waits.

Why Japan wanted these missiles in the first place

Japan’s decision to acquire Tomahawks didn’t happen in a vacuum. For decades, Japan’s constitution and political culture kept its military strictly defensive. No power projection. No offensive strike capability. The country relied almost entirely on the US security umbrella.

That started changing as China’s military buildup accelerated and North Korea’s missile tests became routine provocations. Japan’s leadership concluded that the ability to strike back, to hit launch sites or staging areas on enemy soil, was no longer optional.

The $2.35 billion Tomahawk purchase was the centerpiece of that strategic pivot. Operating Tomahawks requires intelligence sharing and targeting coordination that binds the two militaries closer together.

What this means for allied military readiness

The Iran conflict didn’t just burn through Tomahawks. If 850 missiles can vanish from inventories in the opening phase of a single regional conflict, the implications for allied stockpiles during simultaneous contingencies in the Taiwan Strait or the Korean Peninsula are significant.

For Japan specifically, the delay creates a window of vulnerability. The counterstrike capability that was supposed to be operational by the late 2020s may not materialize until 2030 or beyond.

Tokyo was already exploring domestically produced standoff missiles before the Tomahawk deal. A two-year delay, or longer if the Iran conflict drags on, could accelerate that development into an urgent national priority.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.