For years, the working assumption in US defense planning was straightforward and alarming: a conflict with Iran would unleash thousands of ballistic missiles and drones that would overwhelm American air defenses, cripple Gulf bases, and force Washington to fight from a position of severe operational degradation. General Frank McKenzie, who led US Central Command from 2019 to 2022, warned in his memoir that the volume of Iranian strikes “would overwhelm air and missile defenses and reach their targets.” That assumption has been tested for forty days — and the results were substantially better than expected. The question now is what those results mean for the next potential war, and who is drawing the right lessons from them.
In the first five days of Operation Epic Fury, Iran launched approximately 550 ballistic missiles and 1,500 drones against Gulf targets, plus 128 ballistic missiles and 1,100 drones against Israel. The IDF reported that 70% of Iran’s ballistic missile launchers were disabled by Day 16. Gulf states reported interception rates ranging from 80% to 90% — rates that align with the best Ukraine has achieved. The UAE appears to have fared even better: of 262 ballistic missiles and 1,475 drones launched at it in the first ten days, only two missiles and 90 drones actually struck the country. The Iran war has resulted in the highest level of regional conflict since Desert Storm, with more than a dozen countries targeted by Iranian drone or missile barrages — and the intense missile defense operations offer valuable lessons for Indo-Pacific countries that could face similar threats in future conflicts involving China.
A Costly Victory — With a Critical Caveat
Before drawing optimistic conclusions, the stockpile problem demands clear-eyed attention. In the first four days of Operation Epic Fury, US Patriot batteries defending the Gulf states fired 943 interceptors. To put that in perspective, Lockheed Martin produced only 650 PAC-3 MSE interceptors across 2025–2026 combined. While the Pentagon finalized a deal in early 2026 to triple production to 2,000 units annually, that capacity will not be fully online until 2030.
The Royal United Services Institute assessment indicates that replenishment timelines for high-end interceptors such as Israel’s Arrow-3 and the United States’ THAAD are measured in years rather than months. A March 2026 Payne Institute report warned that the U.S. fired 198 THAAD interceptors in the first 16 days of the conflict — approximately 40% of the entire global inventory. While Lockheed Martin is moving to quadruple THAAD production from 96 to 400 per year, current stocks are dangerously low.
The US military has fired off at least 850 Tomahawk missiles in the Iran campaign as of April 1. This represents nearly 30% of the estimated 3,000 missiles in the total U.S. arsenal. In fiscal 2026, the U.S. produced only 58 Tomahawks; the Navy has since requested a 1,200% increase in procurement for 2027 to replace these losses, but the physical missiles will take years to reach the fleet. According to the Atlantic Council, 29% to 43% of all known THAAD batteries are now deployed to the Middle East — assets that have been physically moved away from the Indo-Pacific theater.
China Is Not Iran
The tactical lessons from the Gulf are real, but applying them directly to a Taiwan scenario requires acknowledging how different China’s arsenal is. The People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force fields 1,300 medium and intermediate-range ballistic missiles of the Dongfeng series. Furthermore, China has successfully deployed the DF-27, a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV). In late 2025, the DF-27A was tested at speeds of Mach 8.6, traveling 2,100 kilometers in just 12 minutes.
Iran never had anything approaching that combination. Tehran’s arsenal of Shahed drones cost between $100,000 and $300,000 each to produce, whereas U.S. interceptors cost between $4 million and $5 million per shot. China’s DF-27 travels at extreme speeds and can maneuver through re-entry — placing it far beyond what Gulf air defense systems faced. Pentagon simulations showed Chinese strikes combining long-range anti-ship ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and hypersonic glide vehicles frequently neutralizing US carrier groups early in the scenarios.
The Intelligence Advantage — and Its Limits
What made the Iran campaign genuinely impressive was the “decapitation campaign” — killing 40 senior military figures in the first minute of the February 28 attack. Israel has been collecting human and technical intelligence on Iran for decades, and the US refined its kill-chain process during twenty years of operations in the Middle East.
Ukrainian President Zelensky dispatched 200 military specialists to the Gulf states to share expertise in countering drones cost-effectively. Given Iranian drone technology has been deployed in Russia’s own Shahed variants, this cross-theater knowledge transfer is a genuine strategic dividend. However, the same intelligence depth does not exist against China. Beijing’s counterintelligence apparatus is far more sophisticated, its military leadership more dispersed, and its anti-access capabilities more layered.
The Replenishment Race
It is more imperative than ever that the United States immediately allocates resources to restock interceptors. The U.S. and Japan are jointly ramping up production of the SM-3 Block IIA, but the total inventory of sea-based SM-3s remains at approximately 330 missiles — a number easily overwhelmed by a massive Chinese salvo.
Taiwan is assembling what it claims will be “the world’s highest density of anti-ship missiles” by the end of 2026, while Japan began deploying its new Type 25 anti-ship cruise missile in March. These are positive developments, but they do not address the interceptor depletion problem on the timeline that matters. Deterrence is measured in magazine depth — and magazine depth is what attritional warfare consumes. The drone attrition trap cannot be allowed to erode Pacific deterrence before a conflict even begins.
Original analysis inspired by Carter Malkasian from Foreign Affairs. Additional research and verification conducted through multiple sources.
