Sources: US air defense shortage

 

TT

 

Published 06:00

 

US Thaad missile defense system is loaded onto a military transport aircraft in Fort Bliss, Texas. File photo. Photo: Cory D Payne/US Air Force via AP/TT

The war in Iran has led to the US stockpile of air defense missiles shrinking too quickly, US media reports. This could weaken the US position in a potential conflict with China, analysts warn.

After airstrikes for 13 nights in a row, the Pentagon paused its attacks on Iran on Friday. One reason is that the US stockpile of Patriot missiles and other air defenses is shrinking at an alarming rate, according to information provided to The New York Times.

The US has been forced to choose which Iranian missiles and drones to stop in order to conserve the dwindling stockpile, according to two senior officials who NBC News has spoken to.

One explanation for the shortage is that the American defense industry has been operating at “medium speed” in recent years, according to Lieutenant Colonel Johan Huovinen, a military expert at the Finnish National Defense University.

– The reason for the production rate is that the United States has not had this type of war since it entered Iraq 23 years ago, says Johan Huovinen.

– The stocks have been thinned to some extent, partly because equipment has been donated to Ukraine.

Classified stocks

President Donald Trump has ordered American arms companies to increase production. He has also promised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj that the country will be allowed to manufacture its own Patriot missiles, so that the United States will not have to donate ammunition.

– But it will take six months to a year before Ukraine can have a production line for this type of missile, says Johan Huovinen.

How much ammunition has been consumed and how much is in the stocks is classified. But by April, the Pentagon had fired nearly half of its Patriot missiles and at least half of its more advanced Thaad missiles, which are designed to intercept ballistic missiles, according to an analysis of public data by the Center for Strategic & International Studies, a think tank.

Denies shortage

It takes more than two years to produce a single Patriot missile. Last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asked the Senate for an additional $87 billion to address “critical deficiencies,” including in equipment.

The shortages have arisen at a sensitive time, when the Pentagon says China has an increasing capacity to invade Taiwan. CSIS analysts speak of a “window of vulnerability” where the United States would not have sufficient ammunition stocks if a conflict with China were to break out in the Pacific.

Donald Trump, however, denies that the United States has any shortage of missiles. In a statement to The Wall Street Journal on Sunday, he said that the United States has "significantly more ammunition than any other country in the world, and significantly more than we need."