In the last two days, AP and the Washington Post have each run stories on the shortages of Patriot missiles brought on by the U.S. war on Iran. According to the AP story, the U.S. military is experiencing a “beyond critical” shortage of advanced missile interceptors in Europe brought on by the war in Iran. NATO could be in a similar position to Patriot-starved Ukraine and be forced “to take punch after punch in the mouth” in the event of a Russian attack on Europe, a U.S. defense official told AP. In Europe, the American military “definitely” does not have enough Patriots to stop any possible sustained ballistic missile attack and would have “very limited” capability to defend against a single ballistic missile strike or a stray Russian missile that goes off course, the U.S. official said.
The Washington Post in a report, posted on Wednesday evening, focuses on Asia, where it says US allies have been left short of Patriot missiles due to delivery delays caused by the war on Iran. They “fear that the prolonged war with Iran could undermine U.S. readiness for a conflict with China as it continues to step up military pressure across the region,” the Post reports. “South Korea and other U.S. partners in Asia, including Japan and Taiwan, rely on Washington as the dominant supplier of major conventional weapons and are reckoning with years-long backlogs. The Middle East conflict has intensified those strains, consuming and reallocating munitions that could be critical in a war with China. Officials in both Taiwan and Japan expect delays in deliveries of Patriot PAC-3 missiles due to the US war in Iran.
While both reports are focused on the dwindling supply of Patriots, both also mention shortages of other missiles, including ATACMS and the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) surface to surface missiles fired from HIMARS launchers and Tomahawk cruise missiles.
