Hello, it's even from daybreak Europe. I wanted to share the latest episode of the other podcast that I host. Here's Why. We look at a single story every week and give you the context and analysis from our global network of reporters and analysts. This week, we've been examining the supply of weapons in the Iran war and how that might affect what happens next. If you like the episode, you can subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. Here is Here's Why.
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Since the start of the war, the US and Israel have been attacking sites across Iran. In response to Ihran has fired hundreds of missiles and drones at targets around the Middle East, from its neighbors in the Gulf, but also reaching as far as Cyprus and Turkey. As the shock of the opening days of the conflict gives way to a more sustained campaign, some key questions are emerging, like who could run out of weapons first, and when.
There's really a race on to figure out who expends their ammunitions first and fastest. I don't believe that the US entered this fight going okay, we only have enough missiles for one week, two weeks, three weeks, or even four weeks.
I think it's really about the tempo of taking out the Iranian capacities for dromes and ballistic missiles.
But if you look at the basic math before the war, I certainly favored Iran and just share numbers. The question becomes how effective is it being at degrading those capabilities.
Here's why the around war could hinge on missile math. Becha Wasser leads our defense research at Bloomberg Economics and she joins US now for more. Becca, First of all, what do we know about Iran's stockpile of missiles and how many they may have left?
So nobody knows exactly how many they have left right now. But I think the most important thing is it's not just about the missile numbers. It's about whether they can add actually use those missiles. And the United States has really focused on degrading Iran's missile program, going after the missile launchers and making it so those missiles that Iran
does still have they can't fire them. But that being said, prior to the Twelve Day War, Iran had approximately two thousand to three thousand ballistic missiles and it fired at least five hundred of those. It spent some time reconstituting prior to this current conflict, so they probably have a
sizeable amount. And it's worth noting that they've got missiles of different ranges, short range missiles that they've used to strike the Gulf States, medium range missiles that they've used in places like Jordan and Israel, as well as some long range missiles that we haven't really seen play such a large role in this fight. They also have a number of drones and cruise missiles, and those also come into play.
Well, let's talk a little bit more about the drone which are of course cheaper and faster to produce. What do we know about the capacity that Iran has in that area.
So Iran as by my account, fired over three thousand drones at the Gulf States alone at this juncture in time in the conflict. As you said, they're cheap, they're roughly you know, twenty to fifty thousand dollars. They've used them to great effect to create a number of economic costs as well as psychological costs on the Golf States
and the global economy. They've managed to fire these at a pretty consistent rate, and part of that is because they can't rely on their missiles as much, so they've tried to make up for that with their use of drones.
We imagine that right now there is still some drone capacity, drone production capacity that Iran still has, but a lot of the US and Israeli strikes have also tried to go after some of the drone storage locations and production facilities, really going after the heart of their drone and missile programs and making it so that they can't replenish and they can't reconstitute either during the conflict or into the future.
So that speaks to I suppose the possibility of them being able to replenish those stocks too. What about the pace of attacks that we've seen, though there's been some change in cadence as we've moved into the second week of this war, what does that tell us about the strategy that Iran appears to be adopting.
So, by my calculations, Iran's missile and drone attacks are down approximately eighty three percent from the start of the conflict, and there's a few different reasons for this. The first is those initial salvos were quite large. They were intended to overwhelm. They were intended to overwhelm air defenses, to extract costs, and to try and make it so that the Gulf States in particular didn't become partied to the fight.
Since then, we've seen continued use of those drone attacks, and part of them is because of the attrition that Iran has taken to some of its missile launchers and trying to continue to use what it can. But even though drones don't require dedicated launchers, you still have to move them out into the open. You need to position them and be able to get them off the ground, and that means that they are viable targets for both US and Israel to strike. So that has also degraded
some of the tempo that we've seen in those attacks. Really, what I think we're seeing right now is a shift to what I would term an attritional approach from Iran, where they're in it for the long haul and they're trying to impose costs slowly over time, and all they need to do is just keep up the pace of attacks and make it so that there are attacks every single day rather than have intense attacks every single day.
We've also seen them have a shift in targeting, where they're targeting has seemingly gotten better Rather than these large salvos of both drones and missiles, we see drones being able to cause some damage to critical infrastructure, including oil infrastructure, AI data centers, population centers, as well as really critical military hardware like radars needed for air defense. So we're
seeing the start of a cost and position strategy. That means that Iran's probably also trying to preserve some capabilities in case of a long war.
What about the weapons that the US and it's partners are using to defend against Iran's attacks, and of course the continuing strikes on the US and Israeli sides as well, stretched to those stockpiles and how quickly could they be replaced?
So I think it's worth making a difference between air defense interceptors and some of the offensive missiles that the US and Israel are using. The offensive missiles, while yes, there are limited stockpiles for some of those higher end long range capabilities, they do exist in greater members and I think that it's very likely that the United States and Israel could sustain the conflict over time without having
to dip too far into their stockpiles. Although there may be some pulling of missiles and munitions from one theater, say Europe or the Indo Pacific, to the Middle East. Air defense interceptors are a little bit harder because they're so in demand. There's never enough air defense to go around, and there's air defense for the US, and then there's also the air defense interceptors that it sells to the
Gulf States and other regional allies. So when you have that, there is this stress and strain on the US defense industrial base to produce more, and they're trying to quickly ramp up production. There's a new push to quadruple production of really critical interceptors, but that's not going to happen until twenty thirty and you're moving from producing say ninety six bad interceptors per year to close to four hundhre in the twenty thirties, so replenishment is not going to be quick.
All of that being said, if the fighting then continues at this intensity, what is likely to become the most limiting factor?
First, I think the most limiting factor is not the one that you can count. It's not missiles and munitions it's not going to be things like force readiness. It's going to actually be political will. The ability to wage war, and frankly, the ability to terminate war is so based on political will, and it's going to require leaders who are able to do that, and that is something that we can't quite quantify, and I think we're already starting
to see shifts in that direction. We're starting to see President Donald Trump say that the war is going to end soon and he can end it whenever he wants. At the same time that he's saying the US can sustain this conflict for as long as it takes. So, when it comes down to it, what we should be looking at, it's not just the math, it's also the political part.
Okay, Becca Wasser, leading our defense research at Bloomberg Economics. Thank you For more explanations like this from our team of three thousand journalists and analysts around the world, go to Bloomberg dot com slash explainers. I'm Stephen Carroll. This is here's why. I'll be back next week with more. Thanks for listening.