The Global Scramble for Patriot Missiles

**Ryan Knutson** (0:05)
Since the war in Iran started, the US 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.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:21)
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?

**SPEAKER_3** (0:30)
You can't replace them overnight. You're not probably gonna even be able to replace them this year. The US and Israel are trying to wipe out Iran's missile capacity before they run out of missile interceptors.

**Ryan Knutson** (0:42)
Our colleague Bojan Pancevski has been looking into the issue.

**Bojan Pancevski** (0:46)
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.

**Ryan Knutson** (1:06)
In the first few days of the war, the US 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.

**Bojan Pancevski** (1:17)
The 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. So it's a question of basically, is the new economy of war?
And I think the US is lagging behind.

**Ryan Knutson** (1:39)
The Department of Defense has said the US 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.

**Bojan Pancevski** (1:55)
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's, it looks pretty bad for them, yeah.

**Ryan Knutson** (2:12)
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Ryan Knutson. It's Wednesday, March 11th. Coming up on the show, the US munitions shortage and what it means for Iran, Ukraine and the rest of the world.

**SPEAKER_6** (2:42)
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**SPEAKER_7** (3:10)
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**Ryan Knutson** (3:44)
Before the war in Iran began, what was the state of the war between Russia and Ukraine?

**Bojan Pancevski** (3:50)
Basically, the war in Ukraine has been reduced to a stalemate, the like of which we'd seen in the First World War. It's basically the front line is frozen, so to speak. It's changed extremely little in the past two to three years.

**Ryan Knutson** (4:05)
Since the front lines on the ground are frozen, the skies above Ukraine have become the most important battlefield in the war.

**Bojan Pancevski** (4:11)
Russia has been producing huge amounts of attack drones and missiles, and this is the biggest problem for Ukraine. They are being bombarded pretty much every day, 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.

**Ryan Knutson** (4:42)
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.

**Bojan Pancevski** (4:58)
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.

**Ryan Knutson** (5:23)
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 US 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.