'Race against time': Can US's Patriot, THAAD missiles outlast Iran’s Shahed drone swarms? Top military commander warns...

A former top US military commander has warned that Washington could lose a critical "race against time" with Iran if American interceptor missile stocks begin to run dry. Speaking to The Times, James Alexander "Sandy" Winnefeld Jr. said that the outcome of the conflict could depend on a simple question: Which side runs out of weapons first? The former vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned that the US could run out of interceptor stocks in "a matter of days". What does it mean for the US-Israel joint military operation against Iran? All you need to know.

'A race against time'

Appearing on The Times’s The General & The Journalist podcast, Winnefeld, who happens to be the most senior figure yet to speak out critically about the war warned that the US was engaged in a "race against time".

Iran, he said, is relying heavily on cheap drones and missile barrages aimed at US bases and allied targets in the region. The United States, meanwhile, must rely on far more expensive air defence interceptors to shoot them down.

The imbalance, he suggested, could become a serious problem. "It’s the sophisticated air defence munitions that I would be worrying about right now — the Patriots, the AMRAAM missiles that are out there," he said.

"Do we have enough of those in a race against Iran’s inventory of Shahed drones and ballistic missiles? Who runs out first? It’s a race against time."

The cost of shooting down drones

According to the US’s Central Command (Centcom), till Wednesday (Mar 4), Iran had launched more than 500 missiles and 2,000 drones. This includes the Shahed drone, which, according to Winnefeld cost somewhere around $20,000 compared to the interceptors used to destroy them, such as the Patriot missile system, which can cost millions.

"There is also an economic disparity between shooting down a $20,000 Shahed drone with a $4 million missile," he noted.

"You start to run out very quickly," he said. "You’ll run out of those Patriots probably before Iran runs out of Shaheds."

Notably, before the war, Tehran was believed to possess roughly 4,000 short and long-range missiles along with tens of thousands of Shahed drones.

American stockpile dwindling

Reports suggest that the issue had already been raised inside the Pentagon by top US generals. During a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill Tuesday, top military officials led by the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Dan Caine, told lawmakers that Iran has been deploying large numbers of one-way attack drones in recent days. As per The Guardian, they warned that while US defences can destroy most of them, stopping every single drone may not be possible for the US military.

American stockpiles had already been strained in recent years. The US used large numbers of interceptors to defend Israel during last year's 12-day war with Iran and has also supplied significant weapons shipments to Ukraine.

White House pushes back

Despite the concerns, the Trump administration insists that US stockpiles remain strong. Trump wrote on social media earlier this week that American reserves of “medium and upper medium grade” munitions were “virtually unlimited,” dismissing reports of shortages.

At a press briefing on Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed that message.

“We have weapon stockpiles in places that many in this world don’t even know about,” she said, adding that the United States has more than enough weapons to sustain a prolonged conflict.

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