It was pointed out on the 26th (local time) that the fight against time due to the "lack of weapons" lies behind U.S. President Donald Trump's negotiations with Iran.
The British daily Telegraph reported on the same day, citing a report by the Royal Joint Military Research Institute (RUSI), a British think tank, that the U.S. is suffering from a shortage of key offensive and defense weapons about four weeks after the start of the war. The Telegraph analyzed that this put President Trump in a situation where he had to prepare an exit from the war within a month.
According to RUSI analysis, the U.S. military used more than 11,000 rounds of ammunition during the first 16 days of the war. In terms of cost, it amounts to 26 billion U.S. dollars.
In the course of the process, the stockpile of core U.S. forces including THAAD, surface-to-surface missile ATACMS and Prism for next-generation precision strike missile (PrSM) decreased rapidly. As many as 198 rounds were used during the first 16 days of the war, and the Navy's 431 SM-2, SM-3, SM-6 surface-to-air missiles and 402 Patriot missiles were also used. The RUSI predicted that the core U.S. weapons could be exhausted within a month at the current pace.
The lack of weapons also leads to concerns over a vacuum in the U.S. defense network. Some experts pointed out that in the end, the use of a conventional bomb, the so-called "bump bomb," could be inevitable instead of precision-guided weapons.
Armin Pafferger, CEO of German defense company Reinmetal, warned that "the U.S., Middle East and Europe are almost out of air defense missiles," adding, "If the war continues for another month, there will be few available missiles left."
It is estimated that it is virtually impossible for the U.S. military to replenish its weapons stocks in a short period of time. The RUSI estimated that it would take at least five years to reclaim about 535 Tomahawk missiles used in the war. The U.S. Department of Defense requested an additional budget of $200 billion (about W300 trillion) to cover the cost of the war, but "this cannot speed up complex weapons production. This is especially true when China is monopolizing rare-earth minerals needed to restore the U.S. arsenal," the Telegraph pointed out.
The Telegraph said, "In the early days of the war, some experts believed that the U.S. interceptor missile stockpile would be virtually no variable because it would quickly destroy Iran's ability to attack. However, this turned out to be inaccurate."
Meanwhile, Iran has not yet shown its latest high-tech missile Qasem Bashir, which was unveiled in May last year, raising various possibilities, including that it was already destroyed or that it was not yet operable in practice, and that it was saving it to use it when the enemy's interceptor missile ran out, the Financial Times reported.
Reporter Jo Moon-hee moony@kyunghyang.com
“The ground war in Iraq lasted eight years.
If a ground war were to begin in Iran, it’s impossible to gauge how long it might continue.
Can Trump really afford to sacrifice his support at home?”