America’s allies in the Middle East are reportedly begging Donald Trump for a swift end to the conflict.
A key reason is they are rapidly running out of ways to defend themselves if Iran’s counter-attack continues.
Iran’s neighbours, like the UAE, have been remarkably effective at shooting down Iranian missiles and drones.
But the expenditure is not financially, or logistically, sustainable.
An analysis by Kirsty Greico, a security expert at the Stimson Centre in Washington DC, found the UAE had shot down an impressive 92% of Iranian missiles and drones including 165 ballistic missiles, 541 Shahed drones, and two cruise missiles.
Assuming it used its American-made Patriot or THAAD missile batteries – one of the few ground-based interceptor systems capable of downing Iran’s ballistic missiles – it is a high price compared to Iran’s.
A single patriot missile cost between $4-5m (export prices can be significantly higher), while an Iranian ballistic missile costs just $1-2m.
And when it comes to targeting Iran’s drones, the economics get even more dismal.
‘The maths clearly favours Iran’
Greico estimates Iran spent in the region of $11m to $27m on the 541 drones it launched on the UAE, with interceptors averaging $500,000-$1.5m per drone to shoot down 506 of them.
The UAE’s drone defence costs were between $253M and $759M, suggesting itspent 20 to 30 times more defending itself against Iran’s drones than it cost the attacker launching them.
“The maths clearly favours Iran in this strategy of attrition because we don’t know exactly how many Shahed drones they might have in their stockpiles,” said Greico.
“But it’s much larger than the combined total of the stockpile of interceptor missiles that are available.”
Be the first to get Breaking News
Install the Sky News app for free
The race is on
The pressure that puts on the US and its allies may also now be influencing their tactical response.
“We’re now seeing sort of a race between Israel and the US trying to locate this drone infrastructure, to try to destroy it, to reduce the pressure on these interceptors, versus Iran trying to keep it an active, a mobile and active threat, and to be able to sustain this longer,” said Greico.
It’s being reported that allies in the Middle East asking the US to replenish their supplies are being “stonewalled” by the Pentagon.
While the US military can bear the financial costs of its campaign, its ammunition stockpiles may not.
Trump said yesterday the US attack on Iran could last four to five weeks. But does he have the resources to do that?
‘Long-term strategic risk’
Leaks from the Pentagon ahead of the assault indicated it only had resources for an attack lasting week or two at most.
Analysts estimate that the US military may deploy up to 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles on ships and submarines sent to Iran.
That’s around 10% of the estimated 4,000 Tomahawks in the US military’s arsenal.
Stockpiles of its THAAD interceptor missiles are also thought be depleted. The US launched 150 THAAD missiles in its attack on Iran last June – about a quarter of its total inventory of 632.
Read more from Sky News:
AI could be giving US lethal edge
Iran ‘made a mistake’ targeting civilians
While the Pentagon has moved to increase production of these and other missiles, replacement could take two or three years.
“We are using these interceptors at a rate that’s much faster than you can possibly replace them,” said Greico.
“The US can choose to buy down short-term risk in the Middle East [by] devoting more interceptors to the conflict.
“The problem is that increases your long-term strategic risk. Particularly in other theatres because not only can you not replace these interceptors overnight, you can’t even replace them necessarily this year.”
America’s watchful adversaries
If the conflict continues, financial and logistical asymmetry of combatting Iran’s drones is a deadly one for Iran’s neighbours.
For the US, it’s less existential – it can sail away from the Middle East once it has run out of ammo.
However, America’s other enemies will be counting the rounds fired in this conflict too.
What’s to stop a “peer adversary” like China launching an attack on Taiwan, for example, if it knows the US won’t have the munitions to prevent it?
