While the United States, Israel, and regional partners have successfully intercepted over 90% of Iranian missiles and drones, a shortage of interceptors along with Tehran’s use of cluster munitions may threaten the war’s progression, according to a newly published report by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.
The report, published by JINSA’s Gemunder Center for Defense and Strategy under the title “The Eroding Shield: Air Defenses Against Iran,” found that while the investment in preparation and cooperation before the war greatly helped protect the region against Iranian attacks, Iran’s strategy has continued to evolve to account for newly discovered shortages in the US’s multi-layered air defenses.
While the interception rate has been largely considered successful, thanks in part to the additional US THAAD batteries, Patriot systems, carrier strike groups, and 200 fighter aircraft, which were deployed before the war, Tehran has prioritized destroying the architecture that enables that aerial defense.
Since the onset of the war, the Islamic regime has carried out strikes on major radar systems, satellite dishes, and their communications links to interceptor batteries, which have eroded the detection and warning network required for effective air defense. The attacks exposed the sensor layer as the most vulnerable aspect of the multi-layer defense.
Iran has launched over 3,000 drones at Gulf states and approximately 1000 ballistic missiles. With only 3 to 10 minutes, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE have a fraction of the time Israel has to respond, necessitating that they use their full defenses against every threat.
The radar and communications networks that feed tracking data to Patriot, THAAD, and guided-missile destroyers are essential for determining the timing and trajectory of incoming aerial threats. As these systems are both costly and difficult to replace, their destruction or dismantling by Iran could severely undermine the defensive network, reducing response time and forcing defenders to expend greater resources to achieve successful interceptions.
Iran struck the AN/FPS-132 early-warning radar at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the US AN/TPY-2 radar at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, and struck a radar base tied to missile defense in the United Arab Emirates. Since several bases and batteries in the region have been damaged, regional partners must now expend defenses to protect the remaining radars, JINSA noted.
The US doesn’t have enough batteries and interceptors to sustain defense across the region for a long war, JINSA warned. Air defense doctrines typically include firing multiple interceptors at a single incoming threat, so interceptors deplete faster than missiles or drones.
Iranian Shahed drones are key for regime attacks
The regime’s success in these attacks is likely because the sensors are designed to detect high-altitude threats, leaving them vulnerable to the comparatively cheap and abundant low-altitude Iranian Shahed drones. The drones have proven more successful for the regime than its missiles, achieving twice as many hits at a fraction of the cost.
Shahed drones, costing around $50,000-$70,000, are significantly cheaper than ballistic missiles, which can cost several million dollars, but are also more adaptive. Drones can be launched while mounted on trucks, which are easier to relocate than launchers, making it easier to conceal. and so less vulnerable to Israeli and US strikes than launchers.
Learning from the Russian invasion, JINSA noted that the regime has incorporated tactical innovations in the drones, deploying fiber-optic guided drones that are immune to electronic warfare jamming, first-person-view drones for precision strikes against point targets, and drones that fly below the detection floor of existing counter radars. Some drones now also rely on jet engines, which allows them to move faster than earlier variants of the Shahed.
While drones have been successful at degrading the region’s layered defenses, the Islamic regime has frequently fired ballistic missiles armed with cluster munitions at the Jewish state, in significantly larger numbers than those seen in the 12 Day War in June. More than half of the missiles fired at Israel have been cluster munition-packed ballistic missiles, which pose a significant danger to civilians even when the attack is intercepted.
The ballistic missiles, often with warheads packed with 24-80 submunitions, have proven a unique challenge for defense systems. Despite violating international law, the regime head readily launched the missiles, which fly at a high altitude and can scatter explosives over several miles.
Even those successfully intercepted pose a risk of dropping munitions, interceptors have the unique challenge of needing to hit the missile before they re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere, which forces Israel to more heavily rely on Arrow-3 interceptors, which conduct exo-atmospheric interceptions.
There are reports, JINSA noted, that the IDF was choosing not to intercept some ballistic missiles to conserve interceptors, because the submunitions posed a bigger risk than the missile.
Iran, understanding the complexity in intercepting the cluster munitions and the decision not to intercept them all, has increased the number of these attacks, JINSA claimed. Over the first two weeks of the war, only 3% of ballistic missiles fired at Israel hit populated areas, but from March 13 to 22, the average hit rate against Israel rose to roughly 27%, driven largely by cluster strikes on Israel.
Iran launched over 430 ballistic missiles on the first day of the war, but the number reduced to an average of less than 30 per day over the second week of the war.
The number of Medium-range ballistic missiles also dropped from 73 on the first day to single digits in most waves since March 10, the report noted, adding that such a drop could likely be attributed to the US and Israeli strikes on launchers, crew, and support equipment.
The number of launchers remaining in Iran is thought to have fallen from 300 on March 3 to only 160 by March 11.
While the number of attacks has significantly fallen, the overwhelmed airspace early into the war created the opportunity for operational risk, JINSA stressed. US, Israeli, and Gulf forces are being forced to defend against missiles and drones in crowded airspace where friendly aircraft, interceptors, and incoming threats move at the same time and create the opportunity for mistakes. On March 1, such risks materialized when Kuwaiti air defenses shot down three US 11 F-15E Strike Eagles during a period of heavy Iranian fire.
The fall in the number of ballistic missile launches has come as the Gulf states and Israel have reportedly begun warning of a shortage of interceptors. The UAE. and Kuwait may have already burned through roughly 75% of their Patriot stocks, according to JINSA’s analysis of each nation’s pre-war stockpiles and potential interceptor use. Based on this evaluation, Bahrain has possibly expended 87% and Qatar 40%.
While there may be shortages of the necessary air defense equipment, JINSA noted that this increased the pressure to keep attacking Iran now as opposed to giving it time to recuperate as it did after June. Continuing the war may be necessary to prevent a worse stockpile imbalance later, even as prolonged operations continue to drain defenses, the organization warned.
Providing some reprieve from the shortage is the fact that, unlike in previous wars with Israel, the regime has targeted more than a dozen countries. The dispersed fire has meant that the regime hasn’t successfully overwhelmed a country’s defenses or exhausted its interceptors.
JINSA reported that it suspected Tehran’s strategy in dispersing may have been the result of its pre-war plan for a mosaic doctrine of decentralized command-and-control to push decision-making towards lower-level commanders.
This doctrine is likely the result of Israel’s success in eliminating much of Tehran’s senior leadership in Operation Rising Lion. However, Iran is likely changing its strategy to recentralize, JINSA reported, interpreting the recent attacks on southern Israel as retaliation for the attack on the South Pars natural gas field.
To deal with the strategic realities and limitations of this conflict, JINSA recommended that the US acquire additional airborne early warning aircraft, that CENTCOM redeploy batteries and interceptors within the region based on defensive performance, the Defense Department evaluate transferring interceptor stocks from other combatant commands to CENTCOM, and Washington pressure allies to provide more material support.