𝐁𝐞𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐂𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐖𝐚𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐭𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

A very interesting development indeed. The US - Iran war, which Israel had goaded the US to enter into, may have now severely affected the US and its allies within and outside of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). 

Please note that the following assertion may reflect more of my personal views, biases, and understanding of the conflict, which definitely contradict what mainstream and counter-mainstream media have been portraying. When the US started the bombing campaign against Iran on the pretext of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, the supporters of the war declared that it was the only option. The US also claimed they need to defend Israel from Iranian ballistic missiles and drone attacks, despite Israel firing the first shots. 

Israeli supporters point out that Iran had been harming Israel via its various proxies in the Middle East, including accusations that Iran was aware of Hamas' plan for the October 7th attack. But Tehran and its regional proxies claimed they too were caught off guard, which Israeli intelligence confirmed; while Tehran and Hizbollah may have known of any attacks, they were unaware that Hamas was going to operationalise the plans. Rather, pressing queries by Israelis' own press pointed to Israeli military intelligence's possible knowledge of the impending attack having frequently been buried under a multitude of other new emerging news. 

But let's get back to the primary story and the analysis. As a result of the US being goaded to defend Israel despite its firing the first shots of the war, the US had expended a significant portion of its stockpile of Patriot interceptors. The New York Times reported that globally, the Patriot interceptor missile stockpile may be less than 1,700 units. 

The US Pentagon has denied the revelation, but it does not require access to US top-secret information to gain the information. Quantitative intelligence analysis could provide clues to the information. An often unspoken analytical approach, sometimes described by analysts as operational mathematics, could be used to estimate the level of consumption. Basically, it is a combination of different intelligence disciplines with statistical analysis and stresses the resulting estimates against different assumptions.

Open source intelligence (OSINT) could easily gather information on the number of Patriot missile interceptors expended by the US, Israel, and Ukraine in the last few years to estimate the missile consumption, and project the number against known Patriot missile production levels. Missile debris from consumed missiles adds an additional dimension, as these often have parts identification plates indicating the components' production date, which could provide estimation to how fast the missiles are being consumed. 

Even if the US tries to deny the alleged depletion of missile stocks, they have already moved out Patriot launchers and presumably the Patriot missile stockpile from South Korea, and delayed delivery of locally produced Patriot missiles to JASDF - the Japanese licensed missiles being used to restock the US stockpile instead. Both countries face threats from China and North Korea (although some people would insist that Japan and South Korea are threats to China and North Korea, respectively- this is just a matter of perspective). 

Ukraine, which is facing an immediate threat in its current war against Russia, has now depleted its stock of Patriot interceptor missiles. To mitigate the need to obtain missiles from the US, the US had agreed for Ukraine to manufacture licensed Patriot missiles. However, Ukraine's plan is now in jeopardy as there have been reports that Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and other Patriot missile interceptor component manufacturers have raised their concerns that Ukraine may find better and cheaper ways to build the missiles, thus undercutting their profit margin. 

Similarly, CNN has reported estimates that the US has expended nearly 80% of the prewar stockpile of THAAD missile system interceptors. The Centre for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) estimated that the US would require at least three years of heightened production levels to return the level of THAAD missiles to the prewar stockpile level.

Both systems are just cogs in a much larger war machine. While these systems are defensive in nature, to expect the enemy to stop their attacks because they have finished up their supplies of ballistic missiles is a fool's errand, especially when these systems could have been deployed to defend key production infrastructure. 

Then again, when have human beings, an emotion-driven species, ever been logical?