Will Iran's missiles drain US interceptor stocks?

Iran responded to the massive US-Israeli air campaign launched over the weekend with barrages of hundreds of missiles and drones against countries in the Middle East that host American forces and bases.

Since the start of the war, the United States has "intercepted hundreds of ballistic missiles targeting US forces, our partners and regional stability," General Dan Caine, the top US military officer, said Monday.

Those intercepts are a success -- they prevented the missiles from striking their targets -- but they also come at the cost of pricey, high-tech interceptors that are in short supply.

"There is a risk the United States and its partners could run out of interceptors before Iran runs out of missiles, though 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 Iran had some 2,500 ballistic missiles -- "almost certainly more than the combined ballistic missile interceptor totals of Israel and the United States," Grieco said.

However, the United States and Israel are hunting for launchers and storage sites, so "the race is, in short, between Iranian launchers and American and Israeli strikes on the sources of those launches," she said.
Demand outpacing production
Caine said Iranian drones also pose a threat but did not provide a figure for the number that had been shot down, only saying that "our systems have proven effective in countering these platforms, engaging targets rapidly."

Grieco said that while interceptors are being expended on drones, it is not to the same degree as for missiles, and "the most acute shortage is with the ballistic interceptors."

The length 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 multi-week war, though the president said Monday that "we're already substantially ahead of our time projections."

"From the beginning we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that," Trump said.

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth had earlier given various possible timelines for the conflict: "Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks, it could move up. It could move back."

Joe Costa, director of the Atlantic Council's defense program, said that "sustained conflict with Iran could severely strain US stocks of critical air defense interceptors for China and other global priorities."

"It depends on how effective the US and Israel will be in neutralizing Iran's launch capability of missiles and drones," he said.

Grieco said that when it comes to interceptors, "production simply cannot keep pace with demand."

"Every theater, from Europe and the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East, has an acute need (of) more missile defense launchers and interceptors, and the United States is simply consuming them faster than it can replace them."