US Anti-Missile Consumption in Iran Means Ukraine War Over
Mountain Top Times reported that Trump cut a China ‘Art of the Deal’ before launching Operation Epic Fury. The Iran campaign has succeeded in every category, except America used up one fifth of its sophisticated anti-missile inventory in its first 3 days of the Iran operation. MMT suggests Trump plans to use this challenge to force Ukraine/Russia War settlement.
The overnight American price of oil spiked to $117 a barrel, before falling back to a gain $5 at $95 a barrel; while the price of natural gas spiked to $3.48/mmbtu, but fell back to an actual loss of -4 cents to $3.13/mmbtu.
Price recoveries followed reports G7 countries will release a quarter of their 1.2 billion barrel strategic oil reserves; plus U.S. production hit daily million barrel records of 13.8 for oil and 7.5 million for liquid gas condensates.
Furthermore, Monday there was about 40 million barrels of sanctioned Iranian, Russian, and Venezuelan crude floating in tankers near China.
President Trump knows he is winning ‘bigly’ when France just sent its Charles De Gaulle aircraft carrier with 35 Rafale Marine fighters to Cyprus. The goodwill gesture allowed the USS Gerald R. Ford that was sailing near Crete, to move through the Suez Canal and join the Iran air campaign.
The only negative according to Trump first-term National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, is the high cost and rapid consumption of America’s anti-missile interceptor inventory to counter Iranian forces.
U.S. forces and Middle East allies have responded [below] to 810 Iranian ballistic missiles launches and about 1,245 drones launches with an average of 2.5 interceptors per incoming ballistic missile and 1 per incoming drone to achieve an 85-95% success rate.
The table below details the estimated procurement unit costs for the four prominent U.S. anti-missile interceptors, based on fiscal year 2025-2026:
Interceptor Type
Cost
Procurement and Variants
Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)
$12.8 million
FY2025 figure: $12.77 million.
MIM-104 Patriot (PAC-3 MSE)
$3.7-5.5 million
Averaged $5.5 million in FY 2024, but $3.4-3.7 million in FY2025-26.
Standard Missile-3 (SM-3)
$9-36 million
Block IB ($9.7-18.2 million) and advanced Block IIA ($28-36 million).
Standard Missile-6 (SM-6)
$4-5 million
Block I/IA variants cost $9.57 million FY2024 cost $4-4.9 million FY2025-26.
Given the interceptor requirements, the U.S. and its Middle East allies consumed about 3,000 interceptors over the first nine days at a cost of about $18 billion, not counting the costs of land, naval and air crews.
The U.S. pre-conflict interceptor inventory was about 5,000 units, plus our Middle East allies Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain had an inventory of about 1,500. The good news is the Iranian daily missile and drone numbers are falling [above], but America and its allies have consumed over half of our combined inventory.
The Trump administration has doubled annual interceptor production to 4,000 units per year, but the United States has already signed hard money commitments to provide 4,900 to our Middle East allies.
The bottom line this math, is that despite the Trump administration agreeing in late January to deliver Ukraine Patriot launchers and interceptors, those deliveries will be pushed out for at least 24-36 months.
President Trump has accused Ukraine President Zelenskyy of preventing a resolution to the Ukraine/Russia conflict. Despite $175 billion in military and civilian support to Ukraine since 2022, President Trump blames Zelenskyy for being unwilling to negotiate a settlement.
Furthermore as reported in the Heartland Journal, Secretary of State Marco Rubio as a former Senator had been battled Ukraine fraud for years.
After Elon Musk’s DOGE discovered USAID had back-channeled $61 billion of aid to Ukraine, a Senate investigation found systematic “classified” stamping on routine disbursements to obscure audits.
About $1.2 billion of Ukraine aid was funneled to unvetted NGOs, some linked to oligarchs who siphoned funds into luxury real estate and offshore accounts. A $45 million grant to an NGO for “agricultural resilience,” was a front for Kyiv-based firm’s private jet fleet.
The Mountain Top Times believes that Trump now has a viable reason to cut-off the Ukraine.