EXCLUSIVE: As continue to intercept the vast majority of Iranian missiles and drones, a new report and expert analysis reveal a growing concern behind the headline success: the cost and sustainability of the defense itself.
More than 90% of Iranian projectiles have been intercepted during the war, according to a report obtained by Fox News Digital from the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), thanks to a layered regional air defense system built during years of coordination.
But beneath that success lies a widening imbalance that could shape the next phase of the conflict.
The report highlights a critical trend: Irans least expensive weapons are proving the most disruptive and are draining costly U.S. and Israeli interceptors.
The current air defense architecture, integrating U.S., Israeli and Arab systems, has proven highly effective at stopping incoming threats. Early warning systems, shared radar coverage and pre-positioned assets have allowed multiple countries to work together to defeat Iranian missiles and drones.
During a press briefing on Wednesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “More than 9,000 enemy targets have been struck to date ⦠Iran’s ballistic missile attacks and drone attacks are down by roughly 90%,” she said, adding that U.S. forces have also destroyed more than 140 Iranian naval vessels, including nearly 50 mine layers.
A surge of U.S. assets before the war, including Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), batteries, , two carrier strike groups and roughly 200 fighter aircraft, helped absorb Irans opening salvos and maintain high interception rates, according to JINSA’s report.
But Ari Cicurel, associate director of foreign policy at JINSA and author of the report, said focusing only on interception percentages misses the bigger picture.
“Overall high missile and drone interception rates have been important but only tell part of the story,” Cicurel told Fox News Digital. “Iran came into this war with a deliberate plan to dismantle the architecture that makes those intercepts possible. It has struck to upset markets and used cluster munitions to achieve higher hit rates.”
Danny Citrinowicz, a Middle East and national security expert at Institute for National Security Studies and a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, said that imbalance is at the heart of the problem.Â
“There needs to be a change in the equation,” he told Fox News Digital. “The Iranians are launching , and we are using missiles that cost millions of dollars to intercept them. That gap is a very problematic one.”
He added that the same dynamic applies to ballistic missiles.
“Building a missile in Iran may cost a few hundred thousand dollars, while the interceptor costs millions, especially when we talk about systems like Arrow,” he said. “Its easier and quicker to produce missiles than it is to build interceptors. Thats not a secret.”
This cost imbalance is feeding into a broader concern: interceptor depletion.
The JINSA report warns that stockpiles across the region are already under strain. Some Gulf states have used a significant portion of their interceptor inventories, with estimates suggesting Bahrain may have expended up to 87% of its Patriot missiles, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have used roughly 75% and Qatar has used roughly 40%.Â
facing mounting pressure. While officials have not publicly confirmed stockpile levels, the report notes signs of rationing, including decisions not to intercept certain cluster-munition threats in order to conserve more advanced interceptors.
Citrinowicz said that dynamics become more acute the longer the war continues.
“We are now , and even if the salvos are limited, the issue of interceptors becomes more significant over time,”
