Garrison Davis

I certainly don't have good insight into the levels of Iran's stockpiles of the weapons systems that they're using.

However, there is reason to doubt that the United States is coming off the better in this conflict.

Ari Cicerell is an analyst for the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, or JINSA, and he told Fox News, quote, Overall, high missile and drone interception rates have been important, but only tell part of the story.

Iran came into this war with a deliberate plan to dismantle the architecture that makes those strikes possible.

It has struck energy infrastructure to upset markets and used cluster munitions to achieve higher hit rates.

Because we simply lack good data on this stuff, I can't tell you perfectly how our rate of interceptions has changed from day one to day 30, but there is evidence in a few different places that in late March, the rate of successful drone attacks on our regional allies like the UAE increased.

In other words, more drones were getting through or being launched, but I think getting through is the more supported conclusion.

And they're getting through because our defenses have gotten, or the defenses of our allies have gotten less effective.

The Jinsa report also notes that Israeli officials have stopped intercepting some cluster munition attacks in order to preserve ammunition, basically not shooting down the cluster munitions that don't look like they're going to hit anything or anyone because they don't have the ammunition to stop everything.

Now, I don't doubt that Iran is also feeling somewhat pinched in the munitions department.

It would be kind of weird if they weren't, both due to how many they fired and how many have been destroyed via airstrikes.

But the question isn't, are they suffering attrition too?

It's, are they better able to maintain the rate of attrition they're suffering than we are?

And while I can't answer that question in absolute terms, I think the answer is probably yes.

Iran's ballistic missiles generally cost a few hundred thousand dollars each.

THAAD interceptor missiles cost, as I said, around $13 million.

Shahid drones cost like $30,000 to make and are often stopped by munitions that cost millions to make and are hard to replace.

It's also worth noting that the reduction in the total number of missiles fired by Iran is not just due to the fact that they run through some of their stockpiles, at least partly a strategic decision, as even Fox News admits.

Quote,

finite stockpiles.