Srinagar– The United States has spent an estimated $1 to $1.2 billion defending Israel during a 12-day missile war with Iran earlier this month — a staggering figure that has reignited debate in Washington over the long-term costs of America’s military commitments in the Middle East.
At the heart of the expenditure was the deployment of the U.S.’s elite THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system, which fired between 60 and 80 interceptors to shield Israeli cities from Iranian ballistic missile attacks. According to Military Watch Magazine each interceptor costs between $12 million and $15 million, making this one of the most expensive defensive operations in recent U.S. history.
While the U.S. government has long supported Israeli defense through military aid and joint systems like Iron Dome and Arrow, this episode marked a rare instance where American-operated missile defenses were directly used in live combat to protect Israeli territory — at significant cost to U.S. taxpayers.
“The numbers are shocking,” said a senior congressional aide familiar with defense appropriations. “We burned through over a billion dollars’ worth of interceptors in less than two weeks. That kind of burn rate raises serious questions about sustainability and priorities.”
Iran’s response to the attacks on its nuclear and military sites came fast and heavy. Ghadr. Emad. Kheibar Shekan. Then the Fattah. Hypersonic, deadly and hard to stop. These were not random rockets. These were long-range and high-precision messages aimed at Israel’s core.
While Israel’s Arrow and Barak-8 systems played some roles in interception, the bulk of high-altitude defense fell to the U.S.-operated THAAD batteries, which had been quietly stationed in Israel since early 2024.
Military analysts warn that the asymmetric cost dynamic — where cheap offensive missiles force expensive defensive responses — poses a growing challenge for U.S. strategy. Iran’s missile assault was described as “modest” in scale compared to its full arsenal, yet it still forced the U.S. to use up 15–20% of its global THAAD stockpile.
With only 50–60 THAAD interceptors produced annually, the 12-day conflict effectively erased more than a year’s worth of missile defense capacity — raising alarms about readiness elsewhere, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, where tensions with China and North Korea are rising.
“There’s no world where we can afford to spend a billion dollars every two weeks defending allies,” said one former Pentagon official. “We need to seriously rethink how we structure and fund missile defense — or risk being caught unprepared in a far bigger conflict.”
Despite the ceasefire announced by President Donald Trump on June 24, the financial and strategic aftershocks of the Israel-Iran war continue to ripple through Washington. With an eighth THAAD battery due online by late 2025, military planners face a critical question: Can America afford to keep using billion-dollar solutions against million-dollar threats? -(KO)
