As we enter the second month of the conflict with Iran, it is not heated statements that will decide the war, but cold inventory reports. For decades, we have been told that Western technological superiority is an absolute shield. Today, as the smoke over the Persian Gulf does not seem to be clearing, we are discovering that a $1 trillion budget cannot buy us a way out of a logistical nightmare. The US could soon be running out of ammo.
The blitzkrieg failed. Washington’s planners, influenced by Israel’s optimistic predictions, may have expected a repeat of the 2025 twelve-day war. Instead, though, they have been lured into a trap of asymmetric exhaustion. Only in the first 48 hours of this war, Iran launched over 1,200 projectiles – 70 per cent of them cheap drones. The response was a catastrophic waste of means: Gulf partners burned through 618 Patriot PAC-3 interceptors in 96 hours. That is 15 per cent of their total inventory in four days. About 30 per cent of the total US inventory is gone in a month.
The math of this war is relentless. After thirty days, the coalition has launched 5,900 high-end interceptors to counter 5,500 Iranian threats. We are firing $3 million (€2.6 million) Patriot missiles at $70,000 (€60,700) drones. In the naval theatre, the overkill is even more staggering. US sailors are using $6 million (€5.2 million) SM-6 missiles to swat away $20,000 (€17,350) flying scooters. Iran is using plastic to consume our steel.
What if Iran indeed has many more in store? The US began the conflict with approximately 2,000 Patriot units, exhausting 20 per cent of this national arsenal in a mere fourteen days. The military is now burning through a year of Lockheed Martin’s production capacity every three weeks. Batteries and interceptors are being brought in from Germany, and even the Pacific. The POTUS may be claiming that he can go on for as long as he wants, but numbers suggest otherwise.
Things are even worse in the case of Israel. By day 16, it had already depleted 54 per cent of its David’s Sling Stunner missiles and a staggering 80 per cent of its Arrow 2 and 3 anti-ballistic stocks. In the UAE, the precious THAAD batteries are down to 34 units -an 80 per cent depletion rate. When you consider that Lockheed Martin produces only 96 THAAD interceptors per year, you realise that a year’s worth of production has been fired in 96 hours.
To make things worse, the problem is not restricted to defensive weapons. The US Navy began the war with roughly 3,200 Tomahawk cruise missiles. In 30 days, 850 have been fired — 25 per cent of the lot. Between 2023 and 2026, the Navy acquired only 181 new Tomahawks. Ammunition is being used at a rate that would take decades to be replaced. In the air, B-52s have already dropped 45 per cent – of the total US inventory of AGM-158 JASSM standoff missiles.
How safe is Europe when the US runs out of ATACMS by mid-May? How can Washington lead with its magazine empty? The longer this war lasts, the more certain it is that by the end of it, the West – also feeding Ukraine for four long years with stashes of American and EU weapons – will be militarily exhausted. Whoever on the planet wants to act unchecked will then have a first class opportunity to do so. Let us just hope that Taiwan has already begun to build and hide drones and missiles by the thousands.
P.S. Kudos and a shoutout to Alex of History Legends on YouTube
