THE US–Israeli war on Iran has laid bare a structural crisis at the heart of Washington’s war machine – one that calls into question its ability to sustain prolonged conflict, let alone replenish what it expends.
In the opening weeks alone, vast stockpiles of missiles, aircraft, and precision-guided munitions – from Tomahawk and ATACMS to Patriot, THAAD, and Arrow interceptors – were burned through at a staggering pace.
Battlefield attrition is rapidly translating into an industrial reckoning, exposing the limits of US and Israeli capacity to reproduce high-end weaponry at the pace modern war demands.
Firepower without endurance
According to a report issued by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) on 24 March, the first 16 days of the war saw the use of 11,294 munitions at a direct cost of $26 billion. Reparations could push that figure beyond $50 billion. But the financial toll only tells part of the story.
In the first 96 hours alone, coalition forces launched 5,197 munitions across 35 categories – one of the most intense air campaigns in modern warfare. The scale of consumption quickly overwhelmed the logic of industrial replenishment.
Air defense systems bore the brunt. US and Gulf batteries fired 943 Patriot interceptors in just four days – roughly equivalent to 18 months of production. THAAD systems followed a similar trajectory, with 145 missiles expended, consuming more than a third of the estimated stockpiles.
On the Israeli side, the pressure was even sharper. Arrow interceptor reserves dropped by more than half within the same period. Rebuilding that stockpile could take nearly 32 months. What initially appeared as heavy usage rapidly revealed itself as a structural imbalance.
The cost of those first four days alone ranged between $10bn and $16bn, rising to $20bn when factoring in aircraft and system losses. Worse still, degradation of radar and satellite infrastructure reduced interception efficiency, forcing operators to fire multiple missiles at single targets – in some cases up to 11 interceptors for one incoming threat.
Strategic weapons, empty warehouses
Offensive systems followed the same pattern. In the opening phase, 225 ATACMS and PrSM missiles were fired – core assets designed for deep precision strikes. Alongside them, more than 500 Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched over 16 days.
Replenishing those Tomahawks alone could take up to 53 months – more than four years of uninterrupted production. In practical terms, this means the US cannot replicate the same level of sustained bombardment in any near-term confrontation.
JASSM-ER missiles (precision-guided air-to-ground missiles), each costing over $1 million, were used in large numbers against Iranian radar and communications nodes. Their production cycles depend on advanced electronic components already under strain from global supply bottlenecks. HARM anti-radiation missiles were also heavily deployed, eating into stockpiles originally intended for the European theater.
Precision came at a strategic cost. Every successful strike depleted assets that cannot be quickly replaced.
The use of eight GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators in the first 96 hours – nearly a quarter of available inventory – underscored the intensity of the opening assault on hardened Iranian facilities. Thousands of JDAM kits followed, draining stocks of the guidance systems that convert conventional bombs into precision weapons.
Small-diameter bombs were used in what the report described as near “suicidal” quantities, particularly against mobile launchers. Meanwhile, bunker-busting BLU-109 bombs were expended continuously, pushing global inventories toward depletion within two weeks.
When air superiority breaks
The downing of an F-15E Strike Eagle inside Iranian territory on 3 April marked a turning point. It shattered the assumption of uncontested air dominance and revealed the cascading costs of even a single tactical loss.
The incident triggered a complex rescue operation that quickly spiraled. Alongside the destroyed fighter jet, an A-10 Thunderbolt II was lost, helicopters were hit, and additional assets were damaged or abandoned.
At the peak of the operation, US forces destroyed two MC-130 transport aircraft and four special operations helicopters to prevent their capture. MQ-9 drones were also shot down, adding to the tally.
Direct losses from this single incident exceeded $500 million. But the real cost lies elsewhere.
The rescue mission involved 155 aircraft, hundreds of personnel, and stretched over two days inside hostile territory. To recover a single crew, Washington expended vast operational resources, exposing a deeper vulnerability: high-value platforms can trigger disproportionate losses when confronted with layered defenses.
Iranian air defenses also reportedly struck an F-35 and downed multiple drones, while friendly fire incidents added further strain. Superiority, once assumed, is now conditional.
Supply chains as the new battlefield
US war spending surpassed $45 billion within just over a month, according to tracking data based on Pentagon reporting to Congress. Daily costs eventually reached $1 billion.
Yet the more consequential crisis lies not in expenditure, but in production.
Rebuilding munitions used in the first four days alone requires 92 tons of copper, 137 kilograms of neodymium, 18 kilograms of gallium, 37 kilograms of tantalum, seven kilograms of dysprosium, and 600 tons of ammonium perchlorate – a critical component for solid-fuel rockets.
The US depends on a single domestic source for ammonium perchlorate. At the same time, China dominates global supply chains, controlling 98 percent of gallium production, 90 percent of neodymium processing, and 99 percent of dysprosium.
Rebuilding just the first four days of munitions expenditure alone would require tens of tons of critical minerals and hundreds of tons of rocket propellant inputs, tying any recovery effort directly to these constrained supply chains.
Military power is now tethered to geoeconomic realities beyond Washington’s control, turning industrial recovery into a strategic vulnerability. Replenishment runs up against supply chains shaped by global resource flows that sit firmly outside the Atlanticist sphere.
In practical terms, this means that even unlimited funding cannot accelerate production without access to these materials, placing a hard ceiling on how quickly stockpiles can be rebuilt.
The cost imbalance trap
Beyond sheer consumption, the war exposes a deeper flaw in how interception works.
Air defense systems rely on expensive interceptors to neutralize low-cost threats. Iranian drones and missiles, often built at a fraction of the cost, have pushed the US and its allies into an unsustainable exchange ratio.
Even as Iranian attack rates dropped by 80 to 90 percent after the opening phase, pressure did not ease. Daily barrages of roughly 33 missiles and 94 drones continued to drain defensive stockpiles.
Close-in systems like C-RAM fired over 509,500 rounds at a cost of just $25 million, while interceptor missiles consumed at least $19 billion. This imbalance forces advanced militaries to burn through their most sophisticated systems far faster than their adversaries can replace losses, unless viable “cheap defeat” options are developed.
An industrial base that cannot surge
The structure of the US defense industry compounds the problem. Despite rising demand, production has not meaningfully increased.
Defense contractors remain hesitant to expand capacity without guaranteed long-term contracts. Repeated cycles of political promises followed by funding reversals have left industry wary of overcommitting.
Key facilities, such as the Holston Army Ammunition Plant – the backbone of US ammonium perchlorate production – operate under fixed capacity, exposing a critical bottleneck at the heart of the US missile supply chain.
The consequences extend far beyond the Iran theater. Every missile fired here reduces Washington’s ability to project power elsewhere.
The depletion of more than 500 Tomahawks, alongside dwindling interceptor reserves, weakens US deterrence across multiple fronts – from East Asia to Eastern Europe. The war imposes a “second front tax,” forcing the US to choose between sustaining current operations and preserving its broader deterrence posture.
A myth unraveling
The war on Iran strips away the illusion of limitless western military superiority. Technological advantage remains, but it no longer guarantees endurance.
Missiles can hit their targets. Aircraft can penetrate defenses. But without the industrial capacity to sustain operations, every strike draws down future capability.
This war exposes the limits of US-Israeli power and points to a new strategic equation, where industrial resilience outweighs firepower. The ability to sustain production, rather than deliver precision strikes, increasingly defines military power in a prolonged conflict.
In that equation, Washington is no longer dominant.
Source: The Cradle
The post Between war and industrial breakdown: The US-Israeli attrition crisis appeared first on The Zimbabwe Mail.