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Amber Wang

Iran’s missile and drone stockpiles will last another two or three months as US-Israeli strikes continue, while the US military is also depleting its interceptors, Chinese analysts have noted.
However, how long the war lasts would depend less on stockpiles alone than on the effectiveness of new US deployments and President Donald Trump’s political calculus, one of them cautioned.
Iran has continued its attacks on Israel and on US assets across the Middle East since the conflict was triggered on February 28 by US-Israeli strikes targeting its top leadership.
But the pace of Iranian missile and drone launches appears to have eased since the early days.
Hu Bo, director of the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative, said Iran’s ballistic missile stockpile was likely to be down to its final 30 per cent, with probably fewer than 1,000 units left in its arsenal, as indicated by open-source intelligence.
But Iran had significant drone advantages, he noted.


“By contrast, Iran’s drones are easier to produce and deploy, suggesting a relatively ample stockpile. In the short term, drone supplies are unlikely to face significant constraints,” Hu said.
Israeli military estimates said that Iran held around 2,500 ballistic missiles at the war’s outset. While its total drone inventory remains unclear, the Pentagon reported on March 5 that Iran had already fired over 500 ballistic missiles and 2,000 drones in the present conflict.
Media reports indicate that Iran has deployed thousands of drones across the Middle East, sometimes to deadly effect. Six US service members were killed when an Iranian drone struck an operations centre at a civilian port in Kuwait.


These drones have also created a stark cost imbalance in the conflict.
Iran’s low-cost Shahed-136 drones, costing roughly US$20,000 to US$50,000 each, are being countered with US interceptors such as Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missiles, each costing several million dollars.
Hu noted that Iran’s daily ballistic missile launches had become relatively limited.
“At this rate, Iran could sustain its operations for the next two to three months if there is no internal shake-up. The [goal of the] US completely destroying Iran’s missile capability is unrealistic, given the remaining ones are hard to find or strictly guarded,” he said.
“For Iran, as long as it maintains some ability to retaliate, the conflict cannot be resolved quickly.”


The United States and Israel were also estimated to be running low on some key munitions, the analysts assessed, despite Trump’s claim earlier this month that the US had a “virtually unlimited” stockpile.
According to a Washington Post report last week, the Pentagon has been transferring parts of its THAAD system stationed in South Korea to the Middle East.
The US military’s total number of THAAD interceptors remains classified, but a media report last year said that it used up roughly a quarter of its high-end supply – more than 100 and possibly up to 150 – during the 12-day US-Israel war with Iran last June.
An American defence contractor earlier this year agreed to quadruple annual THAAD interceptor production, to 400 per year from the current 96.
The Pentagon had also requested more than US$200 billion from Congress to fund the war in Iran and urgently increase production of depleted critical weapons, The Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing a senior administration official.
Officials in the Trump administration estimate that the first six days of the war with Iran cost the US roughly US$11.3 billion.
A March 11 Semafor report said Israel had informed the US that it was running critically low on ballistic missile interceptors.
US precision-guided munitions and interceptors are also under strain, according to Hu. “This is why the US and Israeli forces are now focusing only on high-value targets.”
Analysts said that while the US had a stronger capacity and a greater variety of munitions to sustain its war, Iran’s core advantage was control over the Strait of Hormuz.
“[Iran] has other tools to control the strait besides drones and missiles, such as naval mines in particular [that are] able to persist for a long time,” said Yue Gang, a retired PLA colonel.
“The decisive factor for when the war will end is not ammunition, but political will – whether Trump wants to push the conflict to the bitter end.”


Trump previously said the war could last four or five weeks. Yue said he may have assessed this as the optimal time frame, but any longer and the situation would start to worsen.
Yang Shu, former dean of Central Asia studies at Lanzhou University, said: “The US has made a serious strategic mistake,” noting that it had underestimated Iran’s ability to withstand attack.
Systems like THAAD “cannot provide 100 per cent defence … [and] suffering even a single strike can cause significant losses”, Yang added.
Iran relied heavily on drones to strike US forces, he noted. Further, Iran’s military command had been decentralised to regional units and its bases widely dispersed – all complicating US targeting.
“Iran’s missiles and drones cannot be eliminated in the short term. Iran’s remaining naval mines and maritime capabilities also remain a persistent threat,” Yang said.


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Iran’s drones gaining edge as opponents burn through costly missiles, analysts note, as one labels the war a ‘serious mistake’ by US


Iran’s drones gaining edge as opponents burn through costly missiles, analysts note, as one labels the war a ‘serious mistake’ by US.


How long will US-Israel war on Iran last? Chinese analysts offer clues

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Iran’s drones gaining edge as opponents burn through costly missiles, analysts note, as one labels the war a ‘serious mistake’ by US

Iran’s drones gaining edge as opponents burn through costly missiles, analysts note, as one labels the war a ‘serious mistake’ by US