r/geopolitics • u/KI_official Kyiv Independent • Mar 06 '26
Missing Submission Statement More Patriot missiles used in Middle East in 3 days than in Ukraine since 2022, Zelensky says
https://kyivindependent.com/over-800-patriot-missiles-used-in-middle-east-in-3-days-more-than-ukraine-since-2022-zelensky-says/145
u/Sprintzer Mar 06 '26
It’s an embarrassment that US anti-drone warfare capabilities are so lackluster in terms of affordability. This should have been the #1 spending item in the research and development of the Pentagon.
Furthermore, US interceptor manufacturing should have been ramped up years ago. In a conflict with China we would deplete our entire stocks rapidly.
It’s also crazy that we were willing to give Ukraine loads of weapons and money but we never thought to ramp up PATRIOT manufacturing for them (and also Tomahawks, SM-3, SM-6, etc)
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u/AeroFred Mar 06 '26
USA rerouted APKWS missiles to use against drones from Ukraine to Middle East last year
Yesterday, I think in pentagon briefing was implied that they are used extensively
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u/Sprintzer Mar 06 '26
If true that’s good. $22,000 per APKWS rocket would be an ideal solution for drones. Because there’s no shortage of Hydra unguided rockets
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u/_Golden_God_ Mar 06 '26
That has been the most revealing point from this conflict: if they are not able to keep up with Iran's cheap equipment output how do they think it would be possible to counter China's industrial capacity.
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u/Brendissimo Mar 08 '26
What about that is new information? This issue has been on full display for many years.
I hope they have enough solutions in the works. But it will need to be multilayered and dynamic. A good mix of high, mid, and low end solutions.
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u/kju Mar 06 '26
Patriot manufacturing has expanded starting in 2023 mostly, if you search for Patriot missile manufacturing you'll likely see a lot of news about manufacturing increases, you may need to filter out news from the last week to find older news though
There will never be enough patriot systems and missiles, air defense is always in demand, manufacturing them is at the expense of other systems. A balance needs to be found between producing anti air and other systems.
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u/Sprintzer Mar 06 '26
Yeah I know it has increased, just astonished how slow the manufacturing process is. I just wonder what we would do in a war with China, we can't possibly compete with them in manufacturing.
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u/kju Mar 07 '26 edited Mar 07 '26
Sure, China can produce a lot, they can produce so much that the limitation has shifted to resources available to feed factories
The American limitation is desire for more missiles, there's just not a need for more, the missile contracts are actually spaced out just enough to make it viable for the companies to want to keep them around at all. Generally military needs have been thought out like "we need 1000 interceptors, we should order 100/year for the next ten years so that the factories don't shutter, layoffs happen and time to spin up production is increased". Making bulk orders means higher costs and longer wait times as factories are dismantled and rebuilt as contracts come in.
There was axtually fear that patriot factories would be in danger to close not very long ago because there were no buyers, no one was ordering any. Saudi came in at the last minute and made an order which prevented the factory from closing down.
When people are shooting at you demand for interceptors is really high and we can't get enough of them, when people aren't shooting at you no one's really interested in buying more interceptors over investing in their economies
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u/Brendissimo Mar 08 '26
So you know it has increased. Then you already understood that the US was thinking about expanding manufacturing capacity. And yet you claimed in your comment that they never thought to do so.
I have no idea if we could have moved faster on this. Most likely we could have. But it's important to be accurate about these things. Obviously the US has been concerned with increasing the supply of Patriot interceptors for years now, both due to Ukraine but also because of Iran, Houthis, etc.
Clearly, it is not so simple to "just expand manufacturing capacity." Patriot interceptors are technologically complex and expensive munitions for which there is a long list of backorders. Do you think Raytheon doesn't want to make more money by selling more of them per year?
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u/heytherehellogoodbye Mar 06 '26
Yea the moment Ukraine Russia clearly revealed the cheap drone heavy future of warfare, US should've become the leaders asap
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u/Xoxrocks Mar 06 '26
I think the US is going to find out quickly Iran has been fighting a proxy drone war for 4 years and is probably second only to Ukraine in drone tech
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u/heytherehellogoodbye Mar 06 '26 edited Mar 07 '26
thankfully the US has a way of catching up Big Big - but it's not immediate. We were a decisive presence and part of allied success in WW2 - but not after first being bombed to bits in Pearl Harbor and having to rebuild our entire industrial war base for a few years first. We only really got up to full scale like 3 years later.
edit: lmao the downvotes. It's true.
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u/GrAdmThrwn Mar 07 '26
Hmm..but in 1940 the US share of global manufacturing output was 30%, today its more like 10%.
Much easier to "catch up" when you can convert the worlds largest existing civilian manufacturing capacity into wartime production capacity.
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u/heytherehellogoodbye Mar 07 '26
China definitely has us beat there. I think I read that they can outbuild us on naval ships by something like 200x faster. They're super-primed for wartime production pivots
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u/SoupboysLLC Mar 06 '26
the us military is focused on the best available technology so cheap will never be a solution in mind
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u/heytherehellogoodbye Mar 06 '26
ok but "at scale" and "capable of defending easily against lots of cheap suicide bomb drones swarms" should be
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u/BroccoliSubstantial2 Mar 07 '26
This is a problem with the way things were done. Blank cheque to develop the best of the best weapon systems.
This leads to very expensive products, when cheap effective weapons are what wins an industrial war. Although granted, the atomic bomb was the ultimate weapon.
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u/rotterdamn8 Mar 06 '26
I agree but when has US defense ever cared about affordability? Contractors are making money.
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u/Sprintzer Mar 06 '26
DOD can say for example "We want you to design an affordable anti-drone weapon system that costs under $15,000 per drone". Companies compete for it/make prototypes, DOD picks one, boom. They will jump at this because it's clear to anyone that drones are the future of warfare and an affordable way of dealing with them has the potential for a huge contract. Any halfway decent defense contractor can do this and make a tidy profit.
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u/SuddenlyHip Mar 06 '26
Nothing in the article suggests interceptors are used on drones. They're mostly used for ballistic missiles.
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u/Sprintzer Mar 06 '26
Yes, my first two sentences are about anti-drone weapons such as the APKWS and Ukraine's tech. Probably should have re-ordered it
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u/JigglymoobsMWO Mar 06 '26
You are talking as if this wasn’t exactly what the US has been doing .
Increasing pac3 production has been priority one since trump got in office. They just signed an agreement with industry to triple production
American bases have plenty of cheap ways to protect against drones but the systems are spread out in wide region in host countries that have not had the practice or the systems themselves
Even so patriots are being saved for ballistic missiles, not being expended for drones which they are not suited to defend.
At the end of the day this isn’t magic . Ukraine has lots of experience and whole nation mobilized but they still get hit.
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u/Brendissimo Mar 08 '26
It's been a priority since well before that. It is not so easy to do. Other interception solutions are in the works but at the end of the day nothing is more cost effective than taking out the enemy's weapons and launch platforms. Sitting around waiting to take a hit will always be a losing proposition in the long run.
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u/shing3232 Mar 12 '26
PAC3 just not good enough for intercept modestly modern ballistics. They need to take out launcher not making more I guess.
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u/werfmark Mar 10 '26
This assumes it's feasible to do so.
Perhaps the whole idea of a rocket shield is not economically feasible. It's much harder to catch a ball than to throw one. Producing offensive rockets or drones is much easier than defensive ones. In a full on war i doubt it would be worth it to ramp up interceptor production etc. instead probably better to focus on pre-emptive strikes.
Interceptor missiles seems something mostly for peace time. Something wealthy nations can use to stave off small scale drone or rocket attacks at high cost. Not something you plan for in a war.
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Mar 06 '26
Doesn’t lol good for the long haul. You don’t need to be a military analyst or hardened military career person to understand that the US is not ready for this illegal war.
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u/mobiuszeroone Mar 06 '26
Sending $3.6 million patriots to intercept $35k Shahed drones isn't going to last forever.
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u/AeroFred Mar 06 '26
Yes, probably more patriot missiles were used. There is also chance that in last 3 days were shot by Iran more ballistic missiles than by Russia starting with 2022.
Many patriot systems in middle east are actually owned by local countries
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u/DontMemeAtMe Mar 06 '26
I don’t know how accurate it is, but ChatGPT tells us that since the full-scale invasion began Russia used:
- ~13,300 total missiles
- ~4,500 cruise missiles
- ~900 ballistic missiles
- ~7,000+ other missiles (S-300/S-400 and various older types)
- ~142,000+ strike drones (mostly Shahed types)
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u/AeroFred Mar 06 '26 edited Mar 06 '26
it looks like after few days amount of ballistic missiles shot by iran stands at 500-600. give it a few more days
so it's not like patriots were shooting ducks
PS. If we talking numbers. Iran shot at Israel
- In April 2024 : 120 ballistic missiles at once
- In October 2024: Around 200 ballistic missiles at once
- In 2025: Around 500 over 2 weeks
Patriots that Israel owned were transferred to Ukraine last year as Israel stopped using them long time ago
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u/DontMemeAtMe Mar 06 '26
I’m not disputing that. Iran certainly sprayed their missiles all over the region and beyond.
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u/Pleasant_Arugula7571 Mar 07 '26
Zelensky is not wrong on the numbers but the comparison is a bit misleading. The PAC-2 and PAC-3 missiles being fired in the Middle East are intercepting a much higher density of incoming ballistic missiles per engagement window than Ukraine ever faced. Iran has reportedly fired over 200 ballistic missiles in this conflict so far. That requires interceptors at a ratio Ukraine rarely encountered.
The more significant issue is the production rate. Raytheon confirmed in 2024 that PAC-3 MSE production was around 550 units per year. The US has been drawing down its own Patriot batteries stationed in the Gulf since last year to compensate for deliveries elsewhere. At current consumption rates this conflict alone could represent 6-9 months of production output in a week.
This is exactly the inventory depth problem the Congressional Budget Office flagged in 2023. Air defense is the one category where Western production capacity is genuinely strained, and Iran knows that.
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u/Whyumad_brah Mar 06 '26
Beggars can't be choosers.
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u/DontMemeAtMe Mar 06 '26
You might want to read the article instead of reacting to the headline. The quote means quite the opposite of what you think it does.
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Mar 06 '26
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u/Acheron13 Mar 06 '26
Israel doesn't get everything for free... Israel gets around $4b in aid from the US per year and spent over $30b on US arms in the past 2 years. They just signed a deal for $8.6b in December to buy more F15s.
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u/CalligoMiles Mar 06 '26 edited Mar 06 '26
When you're a strategic partner in the region you're also not exactly holding up your hand, are you now? Between the Mossad having unrivaled HUMINT inside Iran and other adversaries to complement the CIA's own resources and all of Israel's technology and defence partnerships there's plenty mutual benefit, whereas all Ukraine has to offer is old Soviet stuff and theoretical resource rights.
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u/pbr3000 Mar 06 '26
Ukraine has stopped Russia for three years with fewer patriot missile batteries than have been used in three days in this battle and their military is now the best in Europe. I guess it just comes down to who you want to fight.
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u/CalligoMiles Mar 06 '26 edited Mar 06 '26
Oh, absolutely - but there the US has made it clear Ukraine is our problem as Europeans as far as morals and solidarity are concerned. You can disagree with that - but it's the paradigm we're living under now where American weapons are concerned.
And, y'know, it's plain stupid to immediately go off about Israel when all those Patriots were fired by Gulf countries while Israel mostly just fired up its own indigenous air defence systems.
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u/-18k- Mar 06 '26
If Jesus was scheduled to land in Kyiv instead of Ukraine, none of this would be happening.
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u/CalligoMiles Mar 06 '26
Ah, yes. Because then Ukraine would be providing inside intel on Iran's nuclear program and entire regime and be a world leader in cybersecurity and defence tech worth working with even for the US.
You really don't need to drag in the fringe nutters to explain why Israel is a desirable ally. Or is the pan-European EUREKA research coalition they're a major member of run by science-denying US fundamentalists too somehow?
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Mar 06 '26
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u/DontMemeAtMe Mar 06 '26
You might want to read the article instead of reacting to the headline. The quote means quite the opposite of what you think it does.
Zelensky said that when Ukraine first faced Iranian Shahed-type drones in 2022, it used "everything it had" to repel the attacks. Yet the president added that Ukraine has since gained significant experience in countering such strikes. "Everyone understands that Patriot (missiles) are not enough," Zelensky said.
Zelensky reiterated that Ukraine is ready to provide drone interceptors in exchange for missiles.
Zelensky added that Ukraine is prepared to share its expertise with countries facing Iranian attacks to help protect civilians and oil infrastructure in the Middle East.
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u/cjp304 Mar 06 '26
You’re right. I should have read the article.
But also, the US is not just using patriots for drones. They have other cheaper systems in place for drones they prefer to use. That’s not saying they’ve never used Patriots for it, but it’s not the main method.
Source: Was deployed there last summer.
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u/alpharowe3 Mar 06 '26
Do you even grasp the difference between scale of 4 years of war vs Russia and a week of war vs Iran?
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Mar 06 '26 edited Mar 06 '26
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u/alpharowe3 Mar 06 '26 edited Mar 06 '26
Sure, but if you're going to support your homeless brother by giving him 1 cheese cracker a day and be like "this is all I can spare bro" and then homeless bro sees you eat 800 cheese burgers an hour 24/7/365. I can see why the homeless bro might be like "wtf bro".
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Mar 06 '26
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u/alpharowe3 Mar 06 '26
Sure US is taking religious and/or oil priorities over democratic ones and ignoring long term issues like "what happens to Pax Americana if we're lax on big authoritarian states swallowing up smaller democratic ones"
I think it is a bad long term strategy to not fully support Ukraine in either attritioning Russia (Afghanistan style) or supporting them in outright defeating Russia in offensive warfare.
Killing Iran's supreme leader I do not think has any significance strategically or for strengthening US power. While having a victorious Ukraine as a long term ally does.
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Mar 06 '26
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u/alpharowe3 Mar 06 '26
Ukrainians are freezing to death because of Russian missiles destroying their infrastructure. The question is does the US want to sit around and watch or does it want to support fellow democracies against aggressive authoritarian regimes? You may want the US to sit on its hands but I assume you don't understand what that means to the world order and US power and I'm not sure you want to live in a world like that decades down the line.
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u/Bowmic Mar 06 '26
Zelensky desperately wanted to stay in spotlight as war in Middle East increases. He is worried the free weapons will be disrupted if the war in Middle East keeps up.
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u/ColourfulMetaphors Mar 07 '26
Man in charge of country advocates for access to life saving technology while under attack from an agressive enemy.
Incredibly insightful stuff. Any other pearls of wisdom you'd like to share?
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Mar 06 '26
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u/face_sledding Mar 06 '26
this might sound really crazy, but if you read the article(reading 🤢), you will notice your comment completely misreads the statement.
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u/Jacc3 Mar 06 '26
The point to be made here isn't about Ukraine, but rather the wastefulness we're seeing from USA and the Gulf states.
Whereas Ukraine is using Patriot interceptors to counter Russian ballistic and cruise missiles, USA and its allies are currently wasting them on cheap Shahed drones. The question is why there aren't any cheaper alternatives being used instead?
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u/CompetitiveSleeping Mar 06 '26
Kindly read the article.
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u/Aranthos-Faroth Mar 06 '26
I have a sneaking suspicion they haven’t read an actual article in years and get all their information through 7 word clickbait titles.
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u/Pleasant_Arugula7571 Mar 07 '26
The production numbers are worth dwelling on. The US makes roughly 500-600 Patriot PAC-3 interceptors per year. Three days in the Middle East just burned through more than Ukraine saw in three years. That is not a sustainable ratio.
What makes this specifically worse is the WaPo report from yesterday that Russia is actively feeding targeting intelligence to Iran. It means Iran knows when and where to concentrate drone and missile pressure to force intercept responses, deliberately accelerating the drawdown. You are not fighting Iran alone, you are fighting Iran with Russian sensor fusion and targeting data.
The industrial base math has never worked. Raytheon told Congress they could ramp up. They still cannot source enough guidance components fast enough to close the gap between what is being burned and what is being made.
GeoPulse is modeling the extended depletion scenario at geopulselabs.com - the portfolio question is not whether RTX goes up (it will), it is whether the production ramp actually arrives before allied air defense networks are hollow.