US spends more on Iran war in two weeks than four years on Ukraine war

Trump has already spent more in three weeks on the war in Iran than Biden sent to Ukraine in four years of supporting Ukraine. / bne IntelliNews

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By Ben Aris in Berlin March 22, 2026

\The US has spent more on just two weeks of Operation Epic Fury than it has done in four years of supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia.

As bne IntelliNews reported in the feature, Command of the Reload, the cost of replacing the first four days' worth of munitions would be $20bn-26bn after 14 of the systems used from a total of 34 have already fallen to critically low levels. Altogether in the first two weeks of the campaign the Pentagon has burnt through an estimated $100bn and congress has just asked for another $200bn appropriation.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that the US spent $350bn on supporting Ukraine since the start of the war in 2022. However, Congress’ official bookkeeping records that a total of $188bn was allocated for Ukraine’s assistance. But at around half that money was never used. Last year, Bankova and others estimated that only $83.4-$114.15bn was actually spent, and the vast majority of that – an estimated 90% - was spent in the US on buying weapons from US arms manufacturers.

At the time, when asked how much US aid Ukraine received, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy responded: "When I hear (...) that America has given Ukraine hundreds of billions - $177bn to be precise… I tell you as the president of a country at war that we have received more than $75bn. That is, $100bn… we never got.”

Since he took over a year ago, Trump has sent no money to Ukraine. The entire brunt of supporting Ukraine’s government in its $100bn-a-year existential fight with Russia already fell on Europe’s shoulders by August last year.

Cost of war

The Trump administration has badly miscalculated how easy Iran will be to defeat. Trump has relied on presumed US’ overwhelming military power, but Iran is fighting an asymmetric war and its superior cost-to-kill ratio. It has built up a vast stock of some 2,000 surprisingly sophisticated missiles and produces around 150,000 drones, which bne IntelliNews’ military analyst Patricia Marins has likened to “cheap cruise missiles, that Tehran is using to overwhelm America’s defences.

Operation Epic Fury has been, “the most intensive opening air campaign in modern history”, according to Payne Institute of Public Policy in Colorado.

Of the munitions that the US is running short of, most are sophisticated air defense missiles of which America only produces a few hundred a year. Stocks of the key Patriot PAC-3 interceptor missiles have been nearly exhausted in just the first few weeks of fighting and cannot be replaced this year, irrespective of how much money is allocated. A meagre 39 interceptors are slated for delivery in 2027—six years after they were ordered, according to reports.

America is thought to have used more than 300 Tomahawk cruise missiles in the opening days of the war, but the Pentagon 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.

Part of the US motivation for supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia is that for an investment equivalent to around 5% of the US defence budget, it has massively run down Russia’s military capabilities. “This is the best money we have ever spent,” Senator Lindsey Graham said gleefully on several occasions.

Now the tables are turned. The Economist ran an analysis last week entitled “The Iran war could sap American military power for years” as analysts dig into the cost of the war in Iran. In the same way that Ukraine has depleted Russia’s military power to the point where it will take years to rebuild Russia’s military capabilities, in three weeks of fighting in the Gulf, the US is rapidly finding itself in the same position.

That bodes ill for Washington if China chooses now to invade or blockage Taiwan. The Pentagon has already almost exhausted stockpiles of some of its key weapons like tomahawk and PAC-3 interceptor missiles, but now it has started to cannibalise its resources in Asia. As bne IntelliNews reported, the US is relocating parts of a THAAD missile defence system installed in South Korea to the Middle East after its key installations in the Gulf were destroyed by Iranian missiles.

“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,” US Vice President JD Vance said at the Munich Security Conference in 2024.

Despite the call for $200bn in new spending, the supply chain for munitions is opaque and the backlogs for key systems like Patriot PAC-3 interceptors already run to years. Moreover, the key systems, like THAAD radar stations and every single one of the missiles, use large amounts of critical minerals and rare earth metals (REMs) that are all entirely controlled by China, a detailed study by the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) reports.

 

Ukraine deploys 228 counter-drone specialists to Gulf states amid Iran war

Ukraine deploys 228 counter-drone specialists to Gulf states amid Iran war. / bne IntelliNews

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By bnm Gulf bureau March 20, 2026

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said 228 Ukrainian counter-drone specialists are now working in Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, with further cooperation underway with Kuwait and Jordan, RBC-Ukraine reported on March 20.

"Already not 210 but 228 of our experts are in Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. We are also working with Kuwait and Jordan. I will not disclose the details," Zelenskiy said.

The deployment positions Ukraine as a direct contributor to Gulf air defences at a time when Iran has launched more than 1,600 drones at the UAE alone and hundreds more at Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain since the war began on February 28.

Ukraine has developed extensive expertise in counter-drone warfare through its own conflict with Russia, where it has faced sustained attacks from Iranian-designed Shahed drones.

Kyiv has been keen to export that knowledge as both a revenue source and a means of strengthening ties with wealthy Gulf partners.

The arrangement also carries a geopolitical dimension. Iran has supplied Russia with attack drones used against Ukrainian cities, making the deployment of Ukrainian specialists to defend Gulf states from Iranian drones a pointed reversal.

Zelensky did not elaborate on whether the specialists were providing training, operating systems or advising on procurement.

Middle East war strains US air defence supplies needed by Ukraine

TRUMP'S REAL REASON FOR IRAN WAR

HELPING PUTIN

An M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System conducts live-fire missions during Operation Epic Fury. / war.gov

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By bne IntelliNews March 15, 2026

The widening US-led war with Iran is rapidly consuming expensive American air defence munitions that Ukraine relies on to shield its cities from Russian missile strikes, raising concerns among European allies that Kyiv could face critical shortages in the months ahead, reported Politico.

Hundreds of interceptors from the US-made Patriot system have already been fired by American forces and their Gulf partners to counter waves of Iranian ballistic missiles and attack drones, according to European officials and US lawmakers. The scale of the fighting in the Middle East is eating into stockpiles that might otherwise have been available for Ukraine, placing two simultaneous conflicts in direct competition for the same limited supply of high-end defensive weapons.

The dynamic has unsettled governments across Europe that have been trying to sustain Ukraine’s air defence capabilities as Russia intensifies attacks on civilian infrastructure and energy facilities.

“If [Russian President Vladimir] Putin was feeling any pressure to negotiate before, and it’s not clear he was, it’s gone for now,” said one EU official familiar with the discussions. “The United States is distracted and burning through some of the weapons Europe wants to purchase for Ukraine. It’s a very gloomy scenario.”

The concern is that Moscow could exploit the moment by escalating missile and drone strikes while Western attention is divided between two theatres of war.

Ukraine’s air defence network, heavily dependent on the American-made Patriot missile system, has played a crucial role in protecting major cities from Russian ballistic missiles. However, the interceptors required to operate the system are among the most complex and costly weapons in the Western arsenal.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned this week that shortages could become a serious challenge if the Middle East conflict continues to absorb available supply.

“The overall deficit of missiles for Patriot systems is not because of this war in the Middle East,” Zelenskiy said in an interview with WELT. But, he added, “this war will have influence on decreasing the number of missiles, decreasing the opportunity to get more missiles” for Ukraine.

The scale of the fighting around the Gulf has been striking. The defence ministry of the United Arab Emirates said Iran had launched 1,475 drones, 262 ballistic missiles and eight cruise missiles at the country since the war began. Most were intercepted using American-made systems, including Patriot and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, better known as THAAD.

More than 1,600 incoming drones and missiles were reportedly shot down — a figure that illustrates both the intensity of the attacks and the enormous expenditure of interceptor missiles required to stop them.

According to a Bloomberg Intelligence estimate, US and allied forces in the region may already have fired as many as 1,000 PAC-3 Patriot interceptors since the conflict began. That figure far exceeds the rate at which the sophisticated missiles can currently be replaced.

Production bottlenecks have long plagued the Patriot supply chain. In the years before the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East erupted, the United States produced roughly 270 Patriot missiles annually, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Demand has since surged as governments around the world scramble to strengthen their air defences.

In January, US defence contractor Lockheed Martin agreed to dramatically expand production of Patriot missiles, planning to increase output from around 600 annually in 2025 to about 2,000 per year. The expansion was partly driven by pressure from the administration of US President Donald Trump and requests from allied governments.

Yet industry officials say it will take years for new factories and supply chains to reach those levels of output.

“There’s a lot of confusion on that question, of what the priorities are going to be for Ukraine versus the Middle East,” said US Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat who has advocated strong support for Kyiv.

“Europeans are frustrated that we’re not more forthcoming in terms of our production capacity, and that the difficulty of ramping up production is used as an excuse for failing to provide more,” he said.

The uncertainty is already affecting strategic planning among Nato governments.

“It goes without saying that Ukraine will be affected as the US will prioritise national needs,” said an official from a Nato country, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions.

European officials say recent delays in weapons deliveries have already had tangible consequences. A German government representative said “sluggish” shipments of air defence equipment late last year contributed to the heavy damage inflicted on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure during Russian winter bombardments.

“The worry is that Trump will break agreements, withhold supplies, and that Putin will ruthlessly exploit this,” the official said.

At the same time, soaring demand for advanced American weapons has pushed prices sharply higher.

“Some prices of weapon systems are clearly doubled,” said another Nato official involved in procurement discussions. “That’s the ballpark and degree of price issues we are having.”

For European governments, the immediate challenge is securing enough air defence interceptors to sustain Ukraine’s shield against Russian missiles. But the broader worry is that the entire pipeline of military equipment could tighten if the Middle East conflict expands further.

To mitigate that risk, Nato allies last year created the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, known as PURL. The mechanism allows European countries to purchase American equipment — including Patriot interceptors — and then transfer it to Kyiv.

The programme became particularly important after the Trump administration halted direct US military aid to Ukraine last year, leaving European governments to finance many of the weapons deliveries themselves.

Some European leaders now argue that the solution lies in shifting more production to the continent.

Finland’s defence minister, Antti Häkkänen, said Europe must develop its own industrial capacity alongside the American supply chain.

“We have emphasised there has to be some kind of a European industry pillar, and Ukrainian pillar,” Häkkänen said, allowing parts of the production process to move closer to the battlefield and shorten delivery times.

For now, however, the reality is that Ukraine’s most advanced air defences remain dependent on American technology and American factories. As Washington diverts resources to confront Iran, European officials fear Kyiv may soon find itself competing for the very weapons that keep its skies — and its cities — safe.

 

Europe looks on in disbelief as US appropriates its weapons for Iran war

European and Asian allies fear that Washington’s diversion of weapons to the Iran war is draining US stockpiles and delaying deliveries of American munitions they had already purchased. / bne IntelliNews

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By Ben Aris in Berlin March 8, 2026

European allies are looking on in disbelief and growing concern as the US appropriates weapons they've paid for use in the Operation Epic Fury that started on February 28.

In the midst of the ReArm (video) Defence modernization program and on the hook to supply Ukraine through the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) program, the depleted European military is desperate for fresh supplies of US-made weapons.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is even more desperate. After surviving a winter campaign to freeze Ukraine into submission, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) is scraping the bottom of the barrel of the Patriot systems PAC-3 interceptor missiles a shortage of which has left Ukraine’s skies open. Last week Zelenskiy offered to swap its drone interceptor systems for Patriot ammo as the Middle East is well supplied with PAC-3 ammo, but the sophisticated and expensive systems are in effective against Iran’s swarms of drones that give it a large cost-to-kill ratio advantage in any sustained conflict.

The US has also depleted its stockpile of Patriot ammo and is now increasingly drawing on supplies in other theatres. As both the US and Europe were reluctant to sign off on the defence sector procurement contracts during the four-years of war in Ukraine, the defence sectors in both are unable to ramp up production now a fresh large-scale war has broken out.

European allies are increasingly concerned that the US military campaign against Iran is consuming munitions at a pace that could delay or disrupt deliveries of American weapons they have already purchased. The US reportedly burnt through five-years worth of Tomahawk missiles in just the first four days of the Iranian conflict and has already scaled back its volleys in an effort to preserve ammo. US President Donald Trump reportedly called the CEOs of the major arms producers into the White House last week and demanded they massively ramp up production, but was told it will be at least a year before production can accelerate due to the need for time-consuming investments.

Officials from nearly a dozen EU governments told Politico that the Pentagon’s decision to reroute weapons shipments to support operations in the Middle East has left partners concerned  that systems the White House demanded they during the Nato summit in the Hague may not arrive on schedule.

“It shouldn’t be a secret to anyone that the munitions that have been and will be fired are the ones that everybody needs to acquire in large numbers,” one northern European official told Politico.

Many European governments are also scrapping the bottom of the barrel as well by supplying Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. They fear that delays in US deliveries could weaken their ability to deter Moscow just as peace talks move into a final round following a Moscow meeting on December 3 that agreed on an outline 27-point peace plan (27PPP).

Asian allies have expressed similar concerns after Washington proposed to transfer the air defence THAAD systems from US bases in Asian to the Middle East and undermine military readiness in the Indo-Pacific, where China and North Korea remain major security threats.

“It is very frustrating, the words are not matching the deeds,” said an Eastern European official. “It is pretty clear to everyone that the US will put their own, Taiwan’s, Israel’s, and hemisphere priorities before Europe.”

Pentagon officials have privately warned that the US military is expending “an enormous amount” of munitions in the war, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth admitted over the weekend that the Pentagon had underestimated the effectiveness of Iran’s drones, which bne IntelliNews military analyst Patricia Marins described as “cheap cruise missiles.”

A congressional aide told Politico, the US was using precision strike missiles and advanced air defence interceptors in “scary high” numbers, including Tomahawk land-attack missiles, Patriot PAC-3 interceptors and ship-launched air defence systems fired by the US Navy.

The EU was already struggling to up its production and has descended into a petty fight over spending. Following the approval of the €90bn EU loan in December, of which two thirds will be dedicated to defence spending, French President Emmanuel Macron has blocked the distribution of the loan, saying the money should be spent on European-made arms, not of the purchase of US-made munitions. Furthermore, the loan is currently tied up by a Hungarian veto, in retaliation for being cut off from supplies of Russian gas via the Druzhba pipeline that was damaged by a drone strike in January.

In Washington, some lawmakers have also raised alarm about stockpiles. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned that the US military is “not prepared” to deter Russia and China simultaneously because of shortages in key munitions, Politico reports.

Trump has dismissed the concerns of over the shortage of munitions, saying the US as “unlimited” supplies.

Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, speaking in the Verkhovna Rada last month, said that since last summer, 75% of all front-line missiles and 90% of air defence missiles have been delivered to Ukraine via the PURL mechanism for the procurement of American weapons.

"We understand deliveries should be even faster, and we are constantly working to ensure that resources arrive through both PURL and other channels", Rutte told the deputies.

This year, an addition $15bn of spending on US arms was planned as part of Bankova’s war strategy through the PURL initiative.

In February, the following countries have already contributed: $500mn jointly from the UK, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden; $100mn from Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, and other allies. Last year, partners nearly fully funded ten military assistance packages totalling about $4.3bn.

Kiel Institute data shows that just six countries — Germany, UK, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands — account for the bulk of Europe's military aid to Ukraine. Scandinavia alone accounts for just 8% of Europe's GDP, but has supplied a third (33%) of this weapons funding.

However, despite a significant uptick in European defence spending in 2025, Europe has not managed to offset the fall in US support since Trump took office and halted all direct supplies of munitions and money and both weapons supplies fell last year as a result.

 

BONNER: The strategic vacuum at the heart of Operation Epic Fury

BONNER: The strategic vacuum at the heart of Operation Epic Fury / bne IntelliNews

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By Michael Bonner bnm Tehran bureau March 6, 2026

No plan survives first contact with the enemy. That popular quotation is really a paraphrase of a somewhat more verbose statement by Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder in 1871. It’s obviously true: events, like individuals and groups, are unpredictable and even well-executed plans have unforeseen and unforeseeable consequences. But what happens when there is apparently no plan?

Operation Epic Fury, the American and Israeli attack on Iran, is answering that question. Air supremacy was established in a matter of hours. The upper echelons of the government and military were rapidly slain along with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. All signs point to reiterated slaughter of their replacements indefinitely, as well as degradation of missile caches, launchers and other military installations.

Iran’s plan, if it has one, seems to revolve around creating as much chaos and confusion as possible.

The regime reacted by opening fire with drones and missiles not only on Israel but on their immediate neighbours also. More than 500 Iranian ballistic missiles and 2,000 drones have been flung across the Middle East. Not all have been aimed at American or Israeli military targets. A disproportionate number fell on civilian buildings and infrastructure in the UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain. Nato defences shot down a missile apparently aimed at Turkey.

This seems to be what Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi implied by ‘Decentralized Mosaic Defense’. Whatever he meant by that, the indiscriminate missile and drone salvos look like a breakdown in command and control. Araghchi seemed to confirm that in an interview with Al Jazeera. Units were acting, he said, in an "independent and somewhat isolated" way, "based on general instructions given to them in advance".

Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have vowed to attack all ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the energy choke point in the Persian Gulf. And yet, Foreign Minister Araghchi claimed that Iran had no intention of closing the Strait. Shipping traffic there has practically ground to halt as a result of this apparent confusion.

The remnants of Iranian leadership may judge that inflicting damage throughout the region and making the Strait unusable will raise the cost of the war. Spreading the pain may be a way of pressurising America to back down. Such a judgements are dangerous and likely to backfire. Iranian aggression now threatens to unite the Gulf states with Israel and America, and may also invite a response from Nato if Turkey feels sufficiently menaced.

However, curtailing the war would not salvage the Iranian Regime. ‘Survival is victory’ is an oft-recurring trope applied to desperate, cornered regimes, but it is mistaken in this case. All the problems which provoked public protest at the end of 2025 are still there. In fact, currency devaluation, hyperinflation, mismanagement of water resources, and the collapse of agriculture are all worse now. The massacre of Iranian protesters earlier this year has further undermined the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic.

This brings us to American and Israeli aims. Destroying the Iranian regime’s military capabilities, including its ballistic missile arsenal, air defences, and nuclear facilities, are obvious goals which have been stated publicly many times. But then what?

US President Donald Trump has spoken vaguely of "regime change". He has also said that he would personally choose the next leader of Iran and that Iranian patriots should "take back" their country. In contrast, US Secretary of State for War, Pete Hegseth has disavowed regime change altogether while also insisted that the regime "sure did change".

We would naturally expect American public communications to leave room for strategic ambiguity and surprise. Recent alarming news about possible Kurdish and Baluch militants marching on Tehran may belong to the same pattern of misdirection and deception. But what is the end state supposed to look like? How will victory be recognised?

The Islamic Republic may well not recover from the murder of the Ayatollah and his circle — but only insofar as joint-rule by clerics and sadistic thugs will disappear and only the thugs will be left in charge. Then there will be a game of whack-a-mole, in which one cohort of Iranian leaders after another are murdered — a process which will only end when Americans grow tired of it. Or perhaps a senior Iranian general may sue for peace and try to make a deal with Trump.

A popular uprising against the Islamic Republic would certainly be the most desirable outcome. But no such thing seems likely to happen until senior members of the regime and the armed forces or paramilitary groups defect, stand down, or join forces with the people. And if such an outcome materialises, it may well owe more to good luck than any strategic plan. We will know soon enough.

Michael Bonner is a historian of Iran, Senior Fellow of the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy, and author of In Defense of Civilization: How Our Past Can Renew Our Present. He holds a doctorate in Iranian history from the University of Oxford and is a contributing editor at the Dorchester Review.

MARINS: Iran's low cost-to-kill missile capacity gives it the upper hand in a long war
US and Iranian forces face a growing war of attrition as missile stockpiles, drone production and the cost of interception reshape the balance of the conflict. / bne IntelliNews
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By Patricia Marins in Rio de Janeiro March 6, 2026


Speculation is swirling over who will run out of missiles first: the US or Iran? The US has fired off five years’ worth of Tomahawk missiles in the first week of the war with Iran and announced a wind-down of the intensity of the attacks on March 5 to allow for a longer fight.

At the same time, Iran has released hundreds of missiles a day in the first few days of the conflict that began on February 28, but has also scaled back its assault in the last two days as its supplies also come under pressure.

Who can outlast the other and produce more missiles and drones in the meantime? One of the major asymmetries in this equation is each combatant's ability to produce new munitions. The US can only produce 100-200 Tomahawks a year at enormous expense, whereas Iran can mass-produce some 50,000 cheap drones a year at factories and has unknown quantities hidden.

Iran has been manufacturing missiles with ranges exceeding 300 km for nearly 40 years and has produced missiles capable of reaching Israel for at least 25 years.

In 1988, the Naze'at-10 reached speeds up to Mach 4 with a range of 130 km. That same year, the Shahab-1 was introduced, with a range of up to 300 km and re-entry speeds exceeding Mach 5. This was followed by the Shahab-2, which had a range of 500 km by the mid-1990s.

Iran’s retaliation over the past three days has exceeded the scale of the 12-day conflict in June 2025. In just three days, Iran has launched over 450 missiles and nearly 1,100 drones.

On the second day, Iran used fragmentation warheads with submunition dispersal during re-entry, a feature of advanced systems and new to the conflicts between Iran and Israel.

These submunition-loaded warheads are typically used on missiles with ranges over 1,000 km, such as the Shahab-3, Ghadr, Emad, Khorramshahr, and Sejjil. They can disperse 20 to 1,500 submunitions during or after re-entry. Israel has little defence against this type of munition.

Iranian launches will be hard to stop fully, with possible periods of reduced missile activity interspersed with heavier drone use.

If the US couldn’t halt launches from Yemen or Iraq, why expect success against Iran? They underestimated Iran and now risk humiliation with depleted interceptors, while Iran retains most of its launch capability.

This is the core of the cat-and-mouse game: US and Israeli drones patrol at high altitude, using Search and Rescue (SAR) and other sensor technology to detect heat or smoke from launches, mapping sites for bombings. Iran must then clear tunnels and patrol those areas to restart operations, now with higher risks.

However, Iran is three times larger than Ukraine, and Russia has not fully suppressed Ukrainian drone launches or aircraft operations in a much smaller territory. It is unrealistic to expect total suppression in Iran, though the scale could be reduced, leading Iran to rely more heavily on drones.

Cost-to-kill ratio

The US-Israeli allies began Operation "Epic Fury" with the classic "shock and awe" strategy – use overwhelming force to score a quick knockdown. The decapitation of the Islamic Republic was achieved with the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on March 1, along with two dozen other senior figures. The intense bombardment of Iranian assets and positions is ongoing, but that first blitzkrieg phase may already be coming to an end.

Patriot missile supplies are limited, and although it maintains a very high interception rate, its $4mn price tag compared to the $30,000 cost of a Shahed drone yields a cost-to-kill ratio of 130:1.

The asymmetry is a strategic trap that works to Iran’s advantage. The barrage of Iranian missiles and drones in the first few days inflicted limited damage on the US and Israeli forces; however, they didn't need to do any damage. By launching massive swarms of low-cost "kamikaze" drones, Iran is not just aiming for physical targets but is systematically emptying Western missile magazines. For every $1mn Iran spends on a drone swarm, the US and its allies must spend upwards of $100mn to stop it.

From a standing start, Ukraine has built up a drone production capacity that can churn out 4mn drones in 2025 and rising and has the capacity to make 8mn if more investment were provided by allies. This year, Bankova hopes to raise total production to 7mn.

However, Ukraine’s drones are smaller-scale and less powerful, primarily used on the battlefield against Russian infantry. Iran specialises in larger long-range attack drones (such as the Shahed-136/238), which are closer to cruise missiles than the small FPV drones used on the battlefield in Ukraine and so more effective in the current conflict where there no US boots on the ground.

Iran’s production of Shahed drones is estimated at around 400 per day, but the lower production rate is due to their larger size, longer range, and greater sophistication. The Iranian version is perfectly suited to the conflict it is now engaged in.

While Ukraine has had to learn on the job, Iran has been working on its drone industry since missile production and development was excluded from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal by the Obama administration to get the deal across the line.

As a result, Iran enjoys a significant cost-to-kill ratio advantage: a Tomahawk cruise missile costs $1.5mn-$2mn per missile, whereas a long-range Iranian missile costs about $20,000-$50,000 each, as written here previously in Bne IntelliNews.

The Tomahawks are at least 30-times more expensive than an Iranian drone. Iran’s drone production ratio per year to the US Tomahawk is even bigger: 750-times greater.

These differences mean that Trump’s call for the conflict be over in a month are not just a desirable political goal, they are a military imperative.

The US and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) allies are reportedly already running low on interceptor ammo and there is talk of relocating air defence systems from the Indo-Pacific theatre to the Middle East.

The US is scrambling to "bend the cost curve" through initiatives like Replicator 2, which aims to mass-produce cheap, "attritable" interceptors, but these efforts are still playing catch-up to a rapidly evolving battlefield.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has also offered to step in with recently developed Ukrainian-made interceptor drones, but he is demanding a quid pro quo and expects Patriot missile ammo in exchange.

While the Pentagon has begun testing systems like the $35,000 LUCAS drone—a reverse-engineered clone of the Shahed—and Ukraine is successfully deploying $2,500 interceptor drones like the Octopus, Western procurement remains bogged down by decades of focus on high-end, exquisite technology, and the US has not launched mass production of any of these systems.

The Pentagon didn’t do its homework and launched Operation Epic Fury using the tactics from the last war, before it was ready to fight a modern drone-based war of attrition conflict.

“The US forces remain structurally unprepared for a sustained drone war where the winner isn't the one with the best technology, but the one who can afford to keep the lights on the longest,” Yuriy Boyechko, CEO of Hope For Ukraine.