Japanese Media: US-Iran Conflict Exposes US Military Air Defense Blind Spots

Reference News Network March 20 Report According to Japan's "Daily News" website on March 16, conflicts have erupted between the United States and Iran in the Middle East, with the U.S. military using a large number of expensive "Patriot" interceptors, which has drawn widespread attention within the United States. In response to Iran's attacks using low-cost drones, the U.S. military has utilized "Patriot" missiles for interception, but this interception method has proven to be cost-ineffective. As a result, the U.S. military is currently accelerating the deployment of drones.

Reports indicate that, according to Bloomberg on March 10, following the outbreak of this conflict, Iran has launched over 2,100 drone attacks, with at least 680 ballistic missiles fired. The U.S. military and its Gulf allies have launched over 1,000 "Patriot" missiles for interception.

The "Shahed" series of drones deployed by Iran are classified as suicide attack drones, with an estimated cost of about $20,000 per unit. In contrast, a single "Patriot" missile costs approximately $4 million, which is 200 times the cost of these drones.

The production capacity of "Patriot" missiles is also facing bottlenecks. It is estimated that U.S. manufacturers can currently produce 650 "Patriot" missiles per year. Although the U.S. plans to increase the annual production of "Patriot" missiles to over 2,000 by 2030, if Iran continues to use drones and missiles for attacks, the U.S. military will face a serious shortage of "Patriot" missiles.

Katarzyna Bondar, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), analyzed that Iran is using swarm drone attacks to deplete its opponent's air defense systems, thereby creating conditions for subsequent precise strikes on key military facilities using ballistic and cruise missiles. Therefore, the U.S. cannot rely solely on traditional air defense missile systems.

In addition, the U.S. military has launched over 400 "Tomahawk" cruise missiles in this conflict, accounting for about one-tenth of its total inventory. The Trump administration has increased this year's "Tomahawk" cruise missile order from 350 to 1,000, but the annual order volume in previous years has typically been around 100, and it remains unclear whether defense contractors can deliver on time.

As a countermeasure, the U.S. military is accelerating the deployment of drones. U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll revealed in an interview with Bloomberg that the military will expedite the introduction of the interceptor drone "SkyTiger." It is reported that the U.S. military has currently deployed 10,000 "SkyTiger" drones to the Middle East, with a unit cost of about $15,000. If the U.S. military uses such drones to intercept Iran's "Shahed" drones, the cost-effectiveness of operations is expected to improve significantly.

In addition to the "SkyTiger," the U.S. military has also deployed the "Low-Cost Unmanned Combat Aerial System" (LUCAS) drone in actual combat for the first time. LUCAS is a domestically developed attack drone modeled after the "Shahed" drone. U.S. Central Command Commander Brad Cooper has highly praised its combat effectiveness, stating that this type of drone has "achieved significant operational results."

However, University of Pennsylvania professor Michael Horowitz and Georgetown University senior research analyst Lauren Kahn pointed out in an article in "Foreign Affairs" that while the U.S. is a global leader in the research and deployment of advanced weapons, it has fallen behind Iran, Russia, and Ukraine in the field of low-cost drones, stating that "what the U.S. military needs is not just high-performance, high-cost weaponry." (Translated by Ma Xiaoyun)