The Journal. - The Global Scramble for Patriot Missiles

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

Since the start of the war in Iran, the U.S. and regional allies have relied on American-made Patriot missile systems to counteract Iran’s airstrikes. But WSJ’s Bojan Pancevski reports that production shortfalls are draining reserves. This urgent math problem is not only straining U.S defenses around the world, it’s also creating an existential crisis for another country seeking to defend itself: Ukraine. Ryan Knutson hosts. Further Listening: - Will Gas Prices Go Up Because of the Iran War? - Trump’s Shifting Reasons for War With Iran - What’s Next for Iran? Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since the war in Iran started, the U.S. has been running into an urgent problem. America and its allies are firing defense weapons faster than they can make them. Specifically, interceptor missiles that shoot down incoming airstrikes. The depletion is pretty rapid. How long it can last, and I think this is part of Iran's strategy, which is can they outlast us? You can't replace them overnight. You're not probably going to even be able to replace them this year. The U.S. and Israel are trying to wipe out Iran's missile capacity before they run out of missile interceptors.

Our colleague Boyan Panchevsky has been looking into the issue. There are only so many so-called interceptor missiles that you can buy on the market. And Arab allies of the United States found themselves burning through their stockpiles very quickly because the barrages coming in from Iran were extremely intense. In the first few days of the war, the U.S. and its allies fired hundreds of missile interceptors to repel Iranian attacks. That's led to a burn rate that's threatening to exhaust supplies. Problem is, it's not an issue of money, it's an issue of manufacturing. America is just not in the position to manufacture enough of these crucial missiles.

That's kind of mind-boggling. You know, it's a question of basically is the new economy of war? and I think the U.S. is lagging behind. The Department of Defense has said the U.S. does have enough weapons to achieve its goals in Iran. But the Persian Gulf isn't the only place that relies on these missiles. In fact, they're needed all over the world, especially in Ukraine. For Ukraine, that means that they will probably not have enough air defenses this year if this war in Iran continues.

that's, you know, if you do the math, that looks pretty bad for them. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Ryan Knudsen. It's Wednesday, March 11th. Coming up on the show, the U.S. munition shortage, and what it means for Iran, Ukraine, and the rest of the world. This episode is brought to you by Volkswagen.

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Before the war in Iran began, what was the state of the war between Russia and Ukraine? Basically, the war in Ukraine has been reduced to a stalemate. the like of which we'd see in the First World War. So basically the front line is frozen, so to speak. It's changed extremely little in the past two to three years. Since the front lines on the ground are frozen, the skies above Ukraine have become the most important battlefield in the war. Russia has been producing huge amounts of attack drones and missiles,

and this is the biggest problem for Ukraine. They're being bombarded pretty much every day in day out, And the targets of this bombardment are not necessarily military targets, but they are essentially critical nodes of the infrastructure that keeps the country running, heating, electricity, gas, oil, and stuff like that, which are extremely important for the civilian population. To defend against these attacks, Ukraine has relied on a highly specialized weapon system manufactured in the United States. It's called the Patriot Interceptor System.

The Patriot system was developed over half a century ago during the Cold War. And essentially it's able to detect an incoming rocket very early to engage it with this radar system and then it fires missiles towards it that shoot it down and prevent it from destroying its target. The Patriot system essentially fires missiles into incoming missiles. Experts describe this process as hitting a bullet with a bullet. The interceptor system, which includes the radar, the launcher, and the computers, is made by a defense company called Raytheon.

The actual Patriot missiles are made by Lockheed Martin. Both are U.S. companies. In Ukraine, Patriot missile interceptors form the backbone of the country's defenses. Throughout the war, Russia has been firing barrages of drones and ballistic missiles. According to Ukrainian and Western intelligence, Russia can manufacture around 80 ballistic missiles every month. ballistic missiles are the biggest, the most dangerous menace coming out of Russia. These are rockets, essentially, that fly high up in the atmosphere of the earth and then fall down at many times the speed of sound, and they're extremely difficult to intercept,

and they're extremely damaging when they hit a target. So it's practically impossible for Ukraine to defend itself from them unless they have enough Patriots missiles. Over the past year, Ukraine has become desperate for more Patriot Interceptor systems, and its allies in Europe have been buying more from the U.S. on its behalf. But the American companies that make these systems aren't making enough. In 2024, Germany ordered eight new Patriot systems for about $2 billion a piece, systems that plans to transfer to Ukraine.

But German officials say they haven't gotten them yet, and they have no idea when they'll arrive. As for the missiles themselves, last year, Lockheed Martin produced around 600 of its most advanced Patriot missiles. That works out to about 50 missiles a month. Ukraine says it needs around 60

missiles per month to keep up with Russia. So even if every new missile went to Ukraine, it still wouldn't be enough. What is causing these delays? Why aren't Raytheon and Lockheed Martin producing more if there's so much more demand? Trouble is the United States have not been commissioning these companies.

to produce enough of these missiles. And the military industrial complex in the United States works in a way that it's kind of reliant on government contracts, basically thrives on taxpayer money. And if there's no sort of prospect of long-term contracts, these companies don't tend to invest into expanding their production. And if the government doesn't order stuff, no many how many other orders they get from other companies,

countries, and they do get tons of orders at the moment, ever since the war started in Ukraine, they're not going to move until they get this kind of long-term, secure, safe contract. But wouldn't for these companies, though, I mean, even though they are government contracts, wouldn't these companies see that there's a lot more demand, and so therefore we should invest in our ability to make more? I mean, isn't this just capitalism? Well, you would have thought that would work like that, but apparently it doesn't in this particular case. It's an interesting kind of paradox. It's a bit of a conundrum. because the military-industrial complex, in a way,

is this kind of small boutique, very sophisticated-like manufacturing where, you know, it's difficult to increase production. Production of a single Patriot missile can cost millions of dollars and take months. They're made by hand, with components that come from all over the U.S. and from as far as Spain. And Lockheed told us that they are working hard to overcome these issues, that they have already expanded production manyfold, which is true. They are now at 600 a year, as we said, just over 600. And they were making a lot less than that two, three years ago.

Lockheed Martin says it's working to boost production of its Patriot Interceptors to 2000 a year by the end of 2030. For Ukraine, though, time is ticking. Raytheon's parent company RTX didn't return a request for comment about the missile launchers. Last week, President Trump met with the CEO. of Lockheed Martin, RTX, and other defense industry leaders at the White House. After the meeting, Trump posted on social media that the companies had agreed to, quote, quadruple production.

The situation in Ukraine was already dire, and that was before the war with Iran started. President Trump says the U.S. and Israel have launched major combat operations. Donald Trump says the objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent. threats from the Iranian regime. How did leaders in Ukraine react to the outbreak of war in Iran and what that might mean for its defense systems? Well, I mean, the president of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, held a cabinet meeting which was televised and issued a statement there saying that these patriot missiles are a matter of life

and death for Ukraine and they are absolutely concerned and they might not be receiving enough of them. So he very explicitly said what was going on. Then a day later, Zelensky said that United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi had fired a north of 800 patriot missiles in the first hours of the war. And he claimed that this is more than Ukraine had been able to procure since the start of the Russian invasion. The expectation is that the U.S. administration will help its Gulf allies who were obviously damaged and depleted by this conflict in Iran. It will be a scramble for everyone to get some, and there will be nowhere near enough for Ukraine. How would you describe the situation Ukraine finds itself in right now?

Well, they're in a very difficult position. They're in a pickle, you know. The problem is the product is not there on the market. So it's a very, very difficult situation for them to confront, because they will be facing a huge existential challenge, and there's no clarity as to how will they resolve that. Meanwhile, U.S. adversaries like Iran, Russia, and China are seeing a huge opportunity in America's production backlogs. That's next.

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some U.S. adversaries are keeping a close eye on the Patriot Interceptor missiles being used in the Persian Gulf, like China, for example. The Chinese are using their satellites to observe every patriot system in the area. and they're counting the missiles that are being fired. And it's a very simple mob. They know how many can be made, and they know how many are being expended. So when they do the mass,

they know the actual capacity of the United States to defend itself and its allies. And that's not a great thing if you want to deter someone like Russia or China. According to Boyan's reporting, U.S. adversaries have long understood that America isn't producing enough patriot missiles to replace its supply,

and they've been looking for ways to exploit it. For instance, if they can produce more attack weapons, more cheaply, then they can theoretically outlast U.S.-made defenses and eventually overtake them. It turns out if you make a missile, which is fairly precise and very, very fast, and has a strong warhead, then you're laughing. You know, the effect is the same. And if you mass-produce these weapons and you fire 10 rockets for the enemy's one rocket, then you will eventually prevail.

it doesn't matter how sophisticated the opponent is. If your unsophisticated weapons which do the job are available in sufficient quantities, then you are eventually going to prevail. It's a numbers game. And Boyan says this is exactly what Russia and Iran are doing. So basically, they're changing their doctrines to adapt to that reality of the kind of industrial decline,

if you will, in the state. Are Russia and Iran facing the same kind of munitions, shortages, though? It's interesting. Russia and Iran, despite the sanctions, despite the pressure, the military pressure they've had, they've been able to keep up industrial kind of production of weapons of all kinds, because they are basically militarized dictatorship. And their society's energies focused on strengthening the military. Russia and Iran have also started making weapons together. In 2023, the two countries entered a tech transfer deal that allows Russia to mass-produced drones that were first developed in Iran.

To counteract Iran's attacks, the U.S. has been forced to divert air defenses from around the Pacific to the Persian Gulf, air defenses that had been set up to deter potential attacks from China and North Korea. The U.S. has also sought other ways to counteract the munitions disadvantage. For instance, by trying to take out Iran's ability to fire any missiles at all. Here's defense secretary Pete Hegssef in a press conference last week. I mean, the best defense is a good offense. And so we're aggressively pushing into that airspace over that southern flank to ensure that we control it and we destroy anything that moves that would attempt to shoot us. Think of it as shooting the archer instead of the arrows.

That's where we want to be. In the war against Iran, that means the U.S. and Israel are racing to destroy Iran's missile stockpiles and its launch capabilities. But as for Ukraine, while the U.S. and Europe have supplied it with defensive weapons, they have had to destroy Iran's missile stockpiles. they haven't supported Ukraine's offensive capabilities out of concern that it could escalate the conflict even further. So now, Ukraine is in a situation where it's running out of defensive weapons without having neutralized the Russian threat. Even if the U.S. goes after the archer, so to speak,

and limits Iran's ability to shoot at the U.S. and its allies, that still doesn't solve the core manufacturing issues that we've been talking about, though. So what can the U.S. do about that? Well, I think if policymakers wanted, they could learn lessons from what's happening now, and they could put some pressure on the companies to start mass producing. They could give them bigger government contracts. They could also try to instigate a little more competition on that market.

The government will just need to decide how to instigate competition in that domain of the economy, in military manufacturing and innovation and how to create an ecosystem that actually works that keeps churning out innovative and cheaper products. We are in this era of asymmetric warfare where chips and whatever other elements

required to produce a weapon like that are readily available everywhere in the world. So small state actors and non-state actors are going to be able to produce them. So I think that would have to instigate a massive change in the way America is thinking is defense and offense. There's this narrative out there, I think, certainly in the U.S. and much of the world, that the United States has the biggest and most powerful and sophisticated military in the world, you know, and that its capabilities are limitless.

And yet, for all of its sophistication, it's almost like too sophisticated in some cases for its own good. That is absolutely true that the military mind of the United States is completely unrivaled and unprecedented. But it's also a kind of giant with feet of clay in some ways, because when it gets bogged down into a prolonged conflict with a peer enemy or with an enemy that has at least similar capacities, then it becomes very difficult. That's all for today. Wednesday, March 11th. The journal is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Drew Hinshaw. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.