Chapter 1: What urgent problem is the U.S. facing since the war in Iran began?
Since the war in Iran started, the US has been running into an urgent problem. America and its allies are firing defense weapons faster than they can make them. specifically interceptor missiles that shoot down incoming airstrikes. The depletion is pretty rapid. How long it can last, and I think this is part of Iran's strategy, which is can they outlast us. You can't replace them overnight.
You're not probably going to even be able to replace them this year. The U.S. and Israel are trying to wipe out Iran's missile capacity before they run out of missile interceptors. Our colleague Bojan Panczewski has been looking into the issue. There are only so many so-called interceptor missiles that you can buy on the market.
And Arab allies of the United States found themselves burning through their stockpiles very quickly because the barrages coming in from Iran were extremely intense. — In the first few days of the war, the U.S. and its allies fired hundreds of missile interceptors to repel Iranian attacks. That's led to a burn rate that's threatening to exhaust supplies.
— The problem is, it's not an issue of money, it's an issue of manufacturing. America is just not in the position to manufacture enough of these crucial missiles. That's kind of mind-boggling. It's a question of, basically, is the new economy of war? And I think the U.S. is lagging behind. The Department of Defense has said the U.S. does have enough weapons to achieve its goals in Iran.
But the Persian Gulf isn't the only place that relies on these missiles. In fact, they're needed all over the world, especially in Ukraine. For Ukraine, that means that they will probably not have enough air defenses this year if this war in Iran continues. That's, you know, if you do the math, it looks pretty bad for them now. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power.
I'm Ryan Knudson. It's Wednesday, March 11th. Coming up on the show, the U.S. munitions shortage and what it means for Iran, Ukraine, and the rest of the world. Before the war in Iran began, what was the state of the war between Russia and Ukraine? Basically, the war in Ukraine has been reduced to a stalemate, the like of which we'd seen in the First World War.
It's basically the front line is frozen, so to speak. It's changed extremely little in the past two to three years. Since the front lines on the ground are frozen, the skies above Ukraine have become the most important battlefield in the war. Russia has been producing huge amounts of attack drones and missiles. And this is the biggest problem for Ukraine.
They're being bombarded pretty much every day, day in, day out. And the targets of this bombardment are not necessarily military targets, but they are essentially critical nodes of the infrastructure that keeps the country running. You know, heating, electricity, gas, oil, and stuff like that, which are extremely important for the civilian population.
To defend against these attacks, Ukraine has relied on a highly specialized weapons system manufactured in the United States. It's called the Patriot Interceptor System. The Patriot system was developed over half a century ago, during the Cold War.
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Chapter 2: How are U.S. and its allies addressing missile production shortfalls?
And essentially it's able to detect an incoming rocket very early, to engage it with this radar system, and then it fires missiles towards it that shoot it down and prevent it from destroying its target. The Patriot system essentially fires missiles into incoming missiles. Experts describe this process as hitting a bullet with a bullet.
— The interceptor system, which includes the radar, the launcher, and the computers, is made by a defense company called Raytheon. The actual Patriot missiles are made by Lockheed Martin. Both are U.S. companies. In Ukraine, Patriot missile interceptors form the backbone of the country's defenses. Throughout the war, Russia has been firing barrages of drones and ballistic missiles.
According to Ukrainian and Western intelligence, Russia can manufacture around 80 ballistic missiles every month. Ballistic missiles are the biggest and most dangerous menace coming out of Russia. These are rockets, essentially, that fly high up in the atmosphere of the Earth and then fall down at many times the speed of sound. And they're extremely difficult to intercept.
and they're extremely damaging when they hit a target. So it's practically impossible for Ukraine to defend itself from them unless they have enough Patriot missiles. Over the past year, Ukraine has become desperate for more Patriot interceptor systems, and its allies in Europe have been buying more from the U.S. on its behalf.
But the American companies that make these systems aren't making enough. In 2024, Germany ordered eight new Patriot systems for about 2 billion euros apiece, systems it plans to transfer to Ukraine. But German officials say they haven't gotten them yet, and they have no idea when they'll arrive.
As for the missiles themselves, last year, Lockheed Martin produced around 600 of its most advanced Patriot missiles. That works out to about 50 missiles a month. Ukraine says it needs around 60 missiles per month to keep up with Russia. So even if every new missile went to Ukraine, it still wouldn't be enough. What is causing these delays?
Why aren't Raytheon and Lockheed Martin producing more if there's so much more demand? Trouble is the United States have not been commissioning these companies to produce enough of these missiles. And the military-industrial complex in the United States works in a way that it's kind of reliant on government contracts, basically thrives on taxpayer money.
And if there's no sort of prospect of long-term contracts, these companies don't tend to invest into expanding their production.
And if the government doesn't order stuff, no matter how many other orders they get from other countries, and they do get tons of orders at the moment, ever since the war started in Ukraine, they're not going to move until they get this kind of long-term, secure, safe contract.
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Chapter 3: Why is Ukraine's air defense situation critical amid the Iran conflict?
The Chinese are using their satellites to observe every Patriot system in the area. They're counting the missiles that are being fired. And it's a very simple mod. You know, they know how many can be made and they know how many are being expended. So that when they do the mass, they know the actual capacity of the United States to defend itself and its allies.
And that's not a great thing if you want to deter someone like Russia or China. According to Boyan's reporting, U.S. adversaries have long understood that America isn't producing enough Patriot missiles to replace its supply, and they've been looking for ways to exploit it.
For instance, if they can produce more attack weapons more cheaply, then they can theoretically outlast U.S.-made defenses and eventually overtake them. It turns out, if you make a missile which is fairly precise and very, very fast and has a strong warhead, then you're laughing, you know, the effect is the same.
And if you mass produce these weapons and you fire 10 rockets for the enemy's one rocket, then you will eventually prevail. It doesn't matter how sophisticated the opponent is. If your unsophisticated weapons, which do the job, are available in sufficient quantities, then you are eventually going to prevail. It's a numbers game. And Boyan says this is exactly what Russia and Iran are doing.
So basically, they're changing their doctrines to adapt to that reality of the kind of industrial decline, if you will, in the state. Are Russia and Iran facing the same kind of munition shortages, though? It's interesting.
Russia and Iran, despite the sanctions, despite the pressure, the military pressure they've had, they've been able to keep up industrial kind of production of weapons of all kinds because they are basically militarized dictatorships. and their society's energies focused on strengthening the military. — Russia and Iran have also started making weapons together.
In 2023, the two countries entered a tech transfer deal that allows Russia to mass produce drones that were first developed in Iran. To counteract Iran's attacks, the US has been forced to divert air defenses from around the Pacific to the Persian Gulf, air defenses that had been set up to deter potential attacks from China and North Korea. The U.S.
has also sought other ways to counteract the munitions disadvantage. For instance, by trying to take out Iran's ability to fire any missiles at all. Here's Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at a press conference last week. The best defense is good offense.
And so we're aggressively pushing into that airspace over that southern flank to ensure that we control it and we destroy anything that moves that would attempt to shoot us. Think of it as shooting the archer instead of the arrows. That's where we want to be. In the war against Iran, that means the U.S. and Israel are racing to destroy Iran's missile stockpiles and its launch capabilities.
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