THE IRAN WAR COULD SAP AMERICAN MILITARY POWER FOR YEARS / THE ECONOMIST

Fire-retardant spray 

The Iran war could sap American military power for years

It is devouring munitions and exhausting an already stretched navy

A scarce resource / Photograph: Getty Images

“WE LIVE IN a world of scarcity,” declared J.D. Vance, then a senator, at the Munich Security Conference in 2024. 

“We don’t make enough munitions to support a war in eastern Europe, a war in the Middle East and potentially a contingency in East Asia.” 

Mr Vance, who is now vice-president, was correct. 

The war that his boss, Donald Trump, has launched in Iran will pile pressure on America’s overstretched armed forces, leaving them less prepared for a conflict in Asia. 

The impact of Operation Epic Fury could last for years.

America probably used just over 5,000 munitions of different sorts in the first four days of the war, and 11,000 or so in the first 16 days, according to analysis by Jahara Matisek, Morgan Bazilian and Macdonald Amoah of the Payne Institute of Public Policy in Colorado. 

That would make Epic Fury “the most intensive opening air campaign in modern history”, they note, eclipsing the first three days of NATO’s bombing of Libya in 2011.

Once American and Israeli aircraft gained control of Iran’s skies, by destroying the country’s air defences, they could fly close to their targets and use short-range bombs, which are cheap and plentiful. 

America is thought to have hundreds of thousands of JDAMs, a guidance kit that can be strapped to ordinary bombs. 

“We have a nearly unlimited stockpile,” Pete Hegseth, the secretary of war, recently boasted. 

Two weeks into the conflict, the Pentagon estimated that 99% of the munitions it was using in Iran were of this sort.

The problem lies mainly in what was consumed before then. 

In the first six days of the war, when American planes needed to keep their distance, CSIS, a think-tank in Washington, estimates that over 1,000 scarce and expensive “stand-off” munitions were fired. 

Hundreds more medium-range missiles, as well as anti-radiation missiles, which home in on air-defence radars, are also thought to have been used. 

Stocks of all these are far less plentiful, although the precise numbers are secret.

An even bigger problem relates to air defence. 

Iran’s initial salvoes of ballistic missiles and drones have burned through a significant chunk of American and allied interceptors. 

In the first week of the war, America is estimated to have fired around 140 Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptors and more than 150 THAAD interceptors. 

Stocks were already low. 

America had reportedly fired a quarter of its THAAD inventory last year while defending Israel against Iranian strikes. 

“We have enough Patriots to keep going,” notes Mark Cancian of CSIS. 

“But every one we fire is one fewer that we could have for Ukraine or the Western Pacific.”

Replenishing all this will take years. 

The cost of replacing the first four days’ worth of munitions would be $20bn-26bn, estimate Messrs Matisek, Bazilian and Amoah. 

The problem, however, is more to do with scarcity than cost. 

America is thought to have used more than 300 Tomahawk cruise missiles in the opening days of the war, but the Pentagon had planned to buy just 57 new ones in the current fiscal year. 

There have been no deliveries of THAAD interceptors since 2023 and the Pentagon has not placed any new orders this year. 

A puny 39 interceptors are slated for delivery in 2027—six years after they were ordered.

The Pentagon has grand plans to speed up procurement with big, multi-year contracts. 

It wants to raise production of Tomahawks from 60 to 1,000 a year, and PAC-3 MSEs from 600 to 2,000, for example. 

But Congress has not agreed to pay for this. 

And the supply chain for munitions is opaque and gummed up. 

The motors missiles use are a good example. 

Some materials, such as propellant, are available from only one or two firms, often after a long wait. 

Other components involve critical minerals controlled by China. 

“Congress can appropriate $26bn overnight,” note Messrs Matisek, Bazilian and Amoah. 

“It cannot appropriate gallium, neodymium or ammonium perchlorate into existence.”

Only a handful of drones, refuelling tankers and fighter jets have been lost in the war; wear and tear is the more serious concern. 

This is most acute in the US Navy. 

America has 11 big aircraft-carriers but only a handful are available at any one time. 

Two—the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Gerald R. Ford—are now involved in Epic Fury, with the USS George H.W. Bush thought to be en route. 

The Ford has been at sea for almost 270 days. 

In mid-April it will break the record for the longest carrier deployment since the Vietnam war. 

In two months, if still deployed, it will also break the record set by the USS Midway in 1973.

Fighting decay

The strain is evident. 

The Ford suffered a 30-hour fire this month, leaving more than 600 sailors without beds, the New York Times reports. 

Such mammoth deployments will be felt long after the war ends. 

“It’s like driving a car at 200 miles per hour for months, without an oil change,” says Joe Costa, a former Pentagon official now at the Atlantic Council. 

That compounds a “massive backlog” in maintenance.

The current pace of operations is likely to produce occasional “carrier gaps”—when America cannot deploy a carrier in some parts of the world—for two or three years, says Stacie Pettyjohn of CNAS. 

Personnel are also exhausted. 

Long deployments contribute to family stress, which is a risk factor for suicides, notes Mr Costa.

This does not mean the war is all bad for America’s armed forces. 

Mike Horowitz, a former Pentagon official, points to three bright spots. 

One is the debut of new, cheaper weapons such as the Low-cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS), a drone modelled on Iran’s own Shaheds that could be mass-produced far more quickly than Tomahawks. 

The second is the combat experience gleaned by American forces—“a huge differentiator between the United States and China”. 

The third is America’s use of modern AI-enabled decision-support systems, for tasks such as targeting and command-and-control, for the first time on a large scale.

But Mr Horowitz is not sure that these benefits outweigh the longer-term costs. 

Indeed, the very process of testing new weapons and gaining experience under fire also carries a risk. 

“We are revealing our tactics to China,” says Mr Costa, pointing to the question of how America might reopen the Strait of Hormuz. 

“The Chinese will learn about how we de-mine,” he says. 

“If the Chinese have a sense of our tactics and the time it takes, they will use that information if they decide to invade Taiwan.”

Mr Vance and others in Mr Trump’s orbit came to office arguing that America had wasted blood and treasure in the post-2001 wars in the Middle East, that the armed forces were woefully over-extended and that America ought to husband its resources in preparation for any future conflict with China. 

Instead the war in Iran is cannibalising forces in Asia—a marine expeditionary unit has been diverted from Japan and parts of a THAAD system from South Korea—while eroding the readiness of units that might be needed there in the years to come. 

“There is no sugar-coating this situation,” argues Tom Karako, also of CSIS. 

“The scale of recent munition expenditures and the degradation of US missile-defence capability may well undercut deterrence in the Pacific for the remainder of this decade.”