Bloomberg reports:

When the first cruise missiles began detonating inside Iran, the strikes had all the hallmarks of previous successful US military campaigns — unstoppable, overwhelming force delivered without warning.

But as the conflict extends toward a third week, the US war effort is showing unexpected signs of strain against an adversary whose military budget is smaller than the GDP of Vermont — but which has an arsenal of missiles and drones unlike anything the US has ever faced.

US forces have been forced to dig deep into inventories of expensive, hard-to-replace interceptors to counter the Iranian barrage. Even with the Pentagon saying Iran’s attacks are down more than 80%, hard-to-spot anti-aircraft missiles have prevented the total aerial dominance Washington is accustomed to.

“The United States led the long-range precision strike revolution, and this is the first war where we’re seeing the adversary have that kind of capability,” said Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center. “It’s putting stress on the system that we haven’t seen before.”

Tehran is still hitting valuable military installations and energy infrastructure across the Mideast daily, part of its strategy to raise oil prices to economically punishing levels. A strike in the United Arab Emirates near one of the world’s biggest oil refineries halted operations there Tuesday. The following day, the UK navy said three commercial ships had been struck by “projectiles” in the Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf. President Donald Trump has warned Iran against placing mines in the strait after reports that it had done so.

Iran spent years building its missile and drone arsenals, spreading them around the country and concealing them. Some of its sophisticated ballistic missiles — perfected with designs and technology from China, Russia and North Korea — have broken through US allies’ defenses across the region. Low-cost Shahed-136 drones have forced the US and its allies to use protection systems designed primarily to combat more advanced weapons.

The US Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain has been struck by several ballistic missiles and Shaheds, a rare and expensive early warning radar in Qatar was destroyed, and the radar for a $300 million THAAD battery — the most advanced ground-based mobile missile defense system in the US inventory — was hit in Jordan.

“It’s a race to see will our inventories get low before the Iranian missile inventories get low,” said Mark Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

US officials insist that’s a contest Iran can’t win, but every day that Tehran’s weapons continue to threaten populations, military bases and oil installations across the Middle East, they ratchet up the political pressure on the White House. Leaders around the world are rushing to ensure oil supplies, with the International Energy Agency announcing the largest release of oil reserves in its history.

Before the war, Iran had about 2,500 ballistic missiles, with ranges from a few hundred kilometers to more than 2,000. So far, it’s fired about 700. That arsenal could be exhausted in a matter of weeks, according to people familiar with the matter, but strikes with Shaheds could continue indefinitely, as the weapons don’t need much launch infrastructure and can be manufactured more easily than complex ballistic missiles.

Estimates of Iran’s Shahed inventory vary widely. More than 2,100 Shaheds have been fired so far, according to Bloomberg reporting. US and Israeli air strikes have reduced the country’s ability to produce more, but stockpiles remain and manufacturing them requires no complex components. A senior European official said strikes have disrupted the organization and coordination needed for large-scale manufacturing.

Still, the weapons are basically a fiberglass body with a motor, basic guidance, and explosives, meaning they can be assembled at a speedboat-repair facility, for example, according to a person familiar with Iranian drone manufacturing.

Although they are commonly referred to as drones, Shaheds are small, slow cruise missiles that are easy targets if they’re spotted.

But they are also cheap, with cost estimates running from $20,000 to $50,000. The high-tech Patriot PAC-3, which Ukraine has used to great effect against Russian attacks, costs about $4 million apiece. [Continue reading…]