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Speaker 1: the supply of weapons in the Iran war and how
Speaker 1: that might affect what happens next. If you like the episode,
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Speaker 1: Since the start of the war, the US and Israel
Speaker 1: have been attacking sites across Iran. In response to Ihran
Speaker 1: has fired hundreds of missiles and drones at targets around
Speaker 1: the Middle East, from its neighbors in the Gulf, but
Speaker 1: also reaching as far as Cyprus and Turkey. As the
Speaker 1: shock of the opening days of the conflict gives way
Speaker 1: to a more sustained campaign, some key questions are emerging,
Speaker 1: like who could run out of weapons first, and when.
Speaker 3: There's really a race on to figure out who expends
Speaker 3: their ammunitions first and fastest. I don't believe that the
Speaker 3: US entered this fight going okay, we only have enough
Speaker 3: missiles for one week, two weeks, three weeks, or even
Speaker 3: four weeks.
Speaker 1: I think it's really about the tempo of taking out
Speaker 1: the Iranian capacities for dromes and ballistic missiles.
Speaker 3: But if you look at the basic math before the war,
Speaker 3: I certainly favored Iran and just share numbers. The question
Speaker 3: becomes how effective is it being at degrading those capabilities.
Speaker 1: Here's why the around war could hinge on missile math.
Speaker 1: Becha Wasser leads our defense research at Bloomberg Economics and
Speaker 1: she joins US now for more. Becca, First of all,
Speaker 1: what do we know about Iran's stockpile of missiles and
Speaker 1: how many they may have left?
Speaker 3: So nobody knows exactly how many they have left right now.
Speaker 3: But I think the most important thing is it's not
Speaker 3: just about the missile numbers. It's about whether they can
Speaker 3: add actually use those missiles. And the United States has
Speaker 3: really focused on degrading Iran's missile program, going after the
Speaker 3: missile launchers and making it so those missiles that Iran
Speaker 3: does still have they can't fire them. But that being said,
Speaker 3: prior to the Twelve Day War, Iran had approximately two
Speaker 3: thousand to three thousand ballistic missiles and it fired at
Speaker 3: least five hundred of those. It spent some time reconstituting
Speaker 3: prior to this current conflict, so they probably have a
Speaker 3: sizeable amount. And it's worth noting that they've got missiles
Speaker 3: of different ranges, short range missiles that they've used to
Speaker 3: strike the Gulf States, medium range missiles that they've used
Speaker 3: in places like Jordan and Israel, as well as some
Speaker 3: long range missiles that we haven't really seen play such
Speaker 3: a large role in this fight. They also have a
Speaker 3: number of drones and cruise missiles, and those also come
Speaker 3: into play.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk a little bit more about the drone
Speaker 1: which are of course cheaper and faster to produce. What
Speaker 1: do we know about the capacity that Iran has in
Speaker 1: that area.
Speaker 3: So Iran as by my account, fired over three thousand
Speaker 3: drones at the Gulf States alone at this juncture in
Speaker 3: time in the conflict. As you said, they're cheap, they're
Speaker 3: roughly you know, twenty to fifty thousand dollars. They've used
Speaker 3: them to great effect to create a number of economic
Speaker 3: costs as well as psychological costs on the Golf States
Speaker 3: and the global economy. They've managed to fire these at
Speaker 3: a pretty consistent rate, and part of that is because
Speaker 3: they can't rely on their missiles as much, so they've
Speaker 3: tried to make up for that with their use of drones.
Speaker 3: We imagine that right now there is still some drone capacity,
Speaker 3: drone production capacity that Iran still has, but a lot
Speaker 3: of the US and Israeli strikes have also tried to
Speaker 3: go after some of the drone storage locations and production facilities,
Speaker 3: really going after the heart of their drone and missile
Speaker 3: programs and making it so that they can't replenish and
Speaker 3: they can't reconstitute either during the conflict or into the future.
Speaker 1: So that speaks to I suppose the possibility of them
Speaker 1: being able to replenish those stocks too. What about the
Speaker 1: pace of attacks that we've seen, though there's been some
Speaker 1: change in cadence as we've moved into the second week
Speaker 1: of this war, what does that tell us about the
Speaker 1: strategy that Iran appears to be adopting.
Speaker 3: So, by my calculations, Iran's missile and drone attacks are
Speaker 3: down approximately eighty three percent from the start of the conflict,
Speaker 3: and there's a few different reasons for this. The first
Speaker 3: is those initial salvos were quite large. They were intended
Speaker 3: to overwhelm. They were intended to overwhelm air defenses, to
Speaker 3: extract costs, and to try and make it so that
Speaker 3: the Gulf States in particular didn't become partied to the fight.
Speaker 3: Since then, we've seen continued use of those drone attacks,
Speaker 3: and part of them is because of the attrition that
Speaker 3: Iran has taken to some of its missile launchers and
Speaker 3: trying to continue to use what it can. But even
Speaker 3: though drones don't require dedicated launchers, you still have to
Speaker 3: move them out into the open. You need to position
Speaker 3: them and be able to get them off the ground,
Speaker 3: and that means that they are viable targets for both
Speaker 3: US and Israel to strike. So that has also degraded
Speaker 3: some of the tempo that we've seen in those attacks. Really,
Speaker 3: what I think we're seeing right now is a shift
Speaker 3: to what I would term an attritional approach from Iran,
Speaker 3: where they're in it for the long haul and they're
Speaker 3: trying to impose costs slowly over time, and all they
Speaker 3: need to do is just keep up the pace of
Speaker 3: attacks and make it so that there are attacks every
Speaker 3: single day rather than have intense attacks every single day.
Speaker 3: We've also seen them have a shift in targeting, where
Speaker 3: they're targeting has seemingly gotten better Rather than these large
Speaker 3: salvos of both drones and missiles, we see drones being
Speaker 3: able to cause some damage to critical infrastructure, including oil infrastructure,
Speaker 3: AI data centers, population centers, as well as really critical
Speaker 3: military hardware like radars needed for air defense. So we're
Speaker 3: seeing the start of a cost and position strategy. That
Speaker 3: means that Iran's probably also trying to preserve some capabilities
Speaker 3: in case of a long war.
Speaker 1: What about the weapons that the US and it's partners
Speaker 1: are using to defend against Iran's attacks, and of course
Speaker 1: the continuing strikes on the US and Israeli sides as well,
Speaker 1: stretched to those stockpiles and how quickly could they be replaced?
Speaker 3: So I think it's worth making a difference between air
Speaker 3: defense interceptors and some of the offensive missiles that the
Speaker 3: US and Israel are using. The offensive missiles, while yes,
Speaker 3: there are limited stockpiles for some of those higher end
Speaker 3: long range capabilities, they do exist in greater members and
Speaker 3: I think that it's very likely that the United States
Speaker 3: and Israel could sustain the conflict over time without having
Speaker 3: to dip too far into their stockpiles. Although there may
Speaker 3: be some pulling of missiles and munitions from one theater,
Speaker 3: say Europe or the Indo Pacific, to the Middle East.
Speaker 3: Air defense interceptors are a little bit harder because they're
Speaker 3: so in demand. There's never enough air defense to go around,
Speaker 3: and there's air defense for the US, and then there's
Speaker 3: also the air defense interceptors that it sells to the
Speaker 3: Gulf States and other regional allies. So when you have that,
Speaker 3: there is this stress and strain on the US defense
Speaker 3: industrial base to produce more, and they're trying to quickly
Speaker 3: ramp up production. There's a new push to quadruple production
Speaker 3: of really critical interceptors, but that's not going to happen
Speaker 3: until twenty thirty and you're moving from producing say ninety
Speaker 3: six bad interceptors per year to close to four hundhre
Speaker 3: in the twenty thirties, so replenishment is not going to
Speaker 3: be quick.
Speaker 1: All of that being said, if the fighting then continues
Speaker 1: at this intensity, what is likely to become the most
Speaker 1: limiting factor?
Speaker 3: First, I think the most limiting factor is not the
Speaker 3: one that you can count. It's not missiles and munitions
Speaker 3: it's not going to be things like force readiness. It's
Speaker 3: going to actually be political will. The ability to wage war,
Speaker 3: and frankly, the ability to terminate war is so based
Speaker 3: on political will, and it's going to require leaders who
Speaker 3: are able to do that, and that is something that
Speaker 3: we can't quite quantify, and I think we're already starting
Speaker 3: to see shifts in that direction. We're starting to see
Speaker 3: President Donald Trump say that the war is going to
Speaker 3: end soon and he can end it whenever he wants.
Speaker 3: At the same time that he's saying the US can
Speaker 3: sustain this conflict for as long as it takes. So,
Speaker 3: when it comes down to it, what we should be
Speaker 3: looking at, it's not just the math, it's also the
Speaker 3: political part.
Speaker 1: Okay, Becca Wasser, leading our defense research at Bloomberg Economics.
Speaker 1: Thank you For more explanations like this from our team
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