Is Israel running out of interceptors to take down Iran's missiles?
If the United States chooses to replenish Israel's missile interceptors, it would mean drawing from other stockpiles, since Congress wouldn't have time to surge U.S. defense production of more, according to Brandan Buck, a research fellow at the Cato Institute. That could include siphoning off interceptors marked off for delivery to Ukraine, to Taiwan in a possible future conflict, or from the U.S.'s own national stock, Buck said.
"If they truly do run out... that's going to put us in a position in which we have to make some serious decisions," Buck said.
"It's going to put the U.S. and Israel in a bit of a bind," he added.
The U.S. could also position some naval ships off the coast to "augment some of their capacity," according to Buck.
The USS Nimitz, a massive aircraft carrier, is en route to the region and will arrive in less than a week, USA TODAY previously reported. It will join the USS Carl Vinson, which moved to the Middle East in April.
When Iran launched a volley of ballistic missiles at Israel in October, the U.S. helped to intercept its attacks using interceptors fired from two other U.S. warships.
The U.S. spends $3.4 billion to bolster Israel's missile defense every year, including $1.3 billion for its Iron Dome, according to the State Department.
Iran could still have thousands of missiles in its arsenal
Israel keeps information about its missile interceptor stockpiles tightly under wraps. Its military said on June 16 that it had taken out a third of Iran's missile launchers.
Israel says its missile defense success rate stands at greater than 90% against Iran's attacks in the ongoing aerial war. Still, some have evaded Israel's defenses, including the missile that struck a hospital in southern Israel on Thursday.
It's also unclear exactly how many missiles Iran has left. The Pentagon estimated in 2021 that Iran just under 3,000 missiles of different ranges. Since Israel attacked Iran on June 12 through June 16, Iran had fired around 370 missiles, meaning thousands could remain.
Israel's multilayered air defense system is designed to take down incoming missives from a variety of ranges.
The Iron Dome intercepts missiles and rockets fired from a short range of up to around 45 miles, and David's Sling intercepts cruise missiles and rockets at a range of up to about 125 miles.
The longer-range missiles fired by Iran are picked up by the Israeli-made Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 systems, which intercept ballistic missiles at a range of up to around 60 miles and 1,500 miles, respectively.
In October, the United States sent Israel a THAAD system - capable of intercepting missiles inside and outside of the atmosphere - including American personnel to operate it. According to news reports, the United States sent a second THAAD to Israel in April, although the Pentagon has not publicly confirmed the transfer.
The U.S. Army has just seven THAAD batteries in total - it will get an eighth later this summer.
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The proliferation of those kinds of resources have spilled into the mainstream and have given the average person the knowhow to access the types of instructions on popular apps that were once only available on dark web archives. Whether it's downloading blueprints for and creating a 3D-printed gun, professionally tracking down targets, cooking up a bomb recipe or looking up ways to evade law enforcement once an act has been committed, a number of public attacks show so-called 'lone wolves' using internet resources to plot their crimes. For example, police say Vance Boelter, 57, charged with killing Democratic state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband at their home in Minnesota earlier this month, used a number of data brokering websites to amass not only a hitlist of 'mostly or all Democrats' but their home addresses, too. 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Fisher-Birch continued: 'According to police, Luigi Mangione used a partially 3D-printed pistol to kill UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.' Mangione, who has amassed a cult-like following among anti-corporatists after the Manhattan assassination of Thompson in December, also allegedly managed to evade a manhunt for days with a stunning amount of counter-surveillance tradecraft – something other known attackers have achieved. Still, to this day, the masked and hooded suspect seen planting pipe bombs at the RNC and DNC offices in Washington DC the night before the 6 January 2021 insurrection on Capitol Hill has yet to be caught. In the past, multiple law enforcement sources remarked how the surveillance footage shows the would-be bomber wearing the same prescribed disguise and gloves featured in terrorism manuals circulated on the far right. 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'We have nothing to add to previous statements about the events you mention,' said a spokesperson in an email. After Boelter was caught, a federal agent in Minnesota called his alleged murders 'an appalling act of political violence that has no place in our country'.
