U.S. forces have shot down hundreds of Iranian ballistic missiles in recent days, raising questions about how long America’s stockpile of air defense interceptors will last in a war that could continue for weeks or longer.
Iran responded to the massive US-Israeli air campaign launched over the weekend with bombardments of hundreds of missiles and drones against Middle Eastern countries hosting US forces and bases.
Since the start of the war, the United States has “intercepted hundreds of ballistic missiles targeting American forces, our partners and regional stability,” Gen. Dan Caine, the top U.S. military officer, said Monday.
Those interceptions are a success (they prevented the missiles from reaching their targets), but they also come at the cost of expensive, high-tech interceptors that are in short supply.
“There is a risk that the United States and its partners will run out of interceptors before Iran runs out of missiles, although it is far from certain,” said Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center think tank.
At the beginning of the conflict, Israel estimated that Iran had about 2,500 ballistic missiles, “almost certainly more than the combined total of Israeli and US ballistic missile interceptors,” Grieco said.
However, the United States and Israel are searching for launchers and storage sites, so “the race is, in short, between Iranian launchers and US and Israeli strikes against the sources of those launches,” he said.
Demand exceeds production
Caine said Iranian drones also pose a threat, but did not provide a figure for the number shot down, saying only that “our systems have proven effective in countering these platforms, engaging targets quickly.”
Grieco said that while interceptors are being spent on drones, it is not to the same extent as on missiles, and “the most serious shortage is on ballistic interceptors.”
The duration of the conflict is a factor affecting how many interceptors will be needed and it is currently unclear how long it will last.
US officials, including Donald Trump, have referred to a weeks-long war, although the president said Monday that “we are already substantially ahead of our time projections.”
“From the beginning, we projected four to five weeks, but we have the ability to go much further,” Trump said.
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth had previously offered several possible timelines for the conflict: “Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks, it could go forward. It could go back.”
Joe Costa, director of the Atlantic Council’s defense program, said that “a sustained conflict with Iran could severely impact U.S. stockpiles of air defense interceptors critical to China and other global priorities.”
“It depends on how effective the United States and Israel are in neutralizing Iran’s missile and drone launch capabilities,” he said.
Grieco said that when it comes to interceptors, “production simply cannot keep up with demand.”
“All theaters, from Europe and the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East, have a great need [for] more missile defense launchers and interceptors, and the United States is simply using them up faster than it can replace them.”
