Over 90% of Iranian projectiles shot down, yet a perilous disparity is taking shape

(SeaPRwire) –   EXCLUSIVE: While U.S., Israeli and allied forces continue to stop the vast majority of Iranian missiles and drones, a new report and expert analysis expose a rising concern behind the apparent success: the expense and long-term viability of the defense itself.

According to a report obtained by Digital from the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), over 90% of Iranian projectiles have been shot down during the war, enabled by a multi-layered regional air defense network developed through years of cooperation.

However, underlying this achievement is a growing disparity that could influence the war’s next stage.

The report identifies a key pattern: Iran’s cheapest weapons are causing the most disruption and exhausting expensive U.S. and Israeli interceptor missiles.

The existing air defense framework, which combines U.S., Israeli and Arab systems, has demonstrated strong effectiveness against incoming threats. Coordinated early warning networks, shared radar coverage and forward-deployed assets have enabled multiple nations to collaborate in neutralizing Iranian missiles and drones.

During a Wednesday press briefing, press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated, “More than 9,000 enemy targets have been struck to date … Iran’s ballistic missile attacks and drone attacks are down by roughly 90%,” she said, adding that U.S. forces have also destroyed more than 140 Iranian naval vessels, including nearly 50 mine layers.

JINSA’s report notes that a pre-war influx of U.S. assets, including Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries, Patriot systems, two carrier strike groups and approximately 200 fighter jets, helped absorb Iran’s initial attacks and sustain high interception rates.

Yet Ari Cicurel, associate director of foreign policy at JINSA and the report’s author, cautioned that concentrating solely on interception percentages overlooks the larger context.

“Overall high missile and drone interception rates have been important but only tell part of the story,” Cicurel told Digital. “Iran came into this war with a deliberate plan to dismantle the architecture that makes those intercepts possible. It has struck energy infrastructure to upset markets and used cluster munitions to achieve higher hit rates.”

Danny Citrinowicz, a Middle East and national security specialist at the Institute for National Security Studies and a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, identified this imbalance as the core issue.

“There needs to be a change in the equation,” he told Digital. “The Iranians are launching drones that cost around $30,000, and we are using missiles that cost millions of dollars to intercept them. That gap is a very problematic one.”

He noted the same problem extends to ballistic missiles.

“Building a missile in Iran may cost a few hundred thousand dollars, while the interceptor costs millions, especially when we talk about systems like Arrow,” he said. “It’s easier and quicker to produce missiles than it is to build interceptors. That’s not a secret.”

This cost disparity is fueling a wider worry: interceptor exhaustion.

The JINSA report cautions that regional stockpiles are already stretched thin. Several Gulf states have consumed a substantial share of their interceptor supplies, with estimates indicating Bahrain may have fired up to 87% of its Patriot missiles, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have depleted roughly 75%, and Qatar has used about 40%.

Israel is also experiencing escalating strain. While authorities haven’t publicly verified stockpile numbers, the report points to evidence of rationing, such as choosing not to engage certain cluster-munition threats to preserve more sophisticated interceptors.

Citrinowicz observed that these pressures become more severe as the conflict persists.

“We are now several weeks into the war, and even if the salvos are limited, the issue of interceptors becomes more significant over time,” he said.

Iran has adjusted its tactics in response, transitioning from massive barrages to smaller, more regular strikes intended to sustain continuous pressure while steadily sapping defensive resources.

These ongoing attacks, even when modest in scale, compel defenders to stay on high alert and keep using interceptors, hastening the drain on already limited reserves.

The report stresses that drones create a particular challenge relative to ballistic missiles.

Unlike missiles, which depend on large launchers and produce detectable signatures, drones can be deployed from mobile platforms and operate at low altitudes that evade radar detection.

For example, a Shahed-136 weighs about 200 kilograms and launches from a slanted rail fixed to a pickup truck, enabling the crew to rapidly relocate afterward. This streamlined launch method allows Iran to distribute, hide and fire more easily under pressure, the report noted.

Iran has also integrated lessons from the Ukraine war, fielding more sophisticated drones, including fiber-optic guided models that resist electronic jamming, and speedier versions with jet propulsion.

These enhancements make interception more difficult and boost the probability of successful hits, even against generally effective defense networks.

Despite these obstacles, the report maintains that the defensive framework has not collapsed.

“The architecture has held, but the trajectory is moving in the wrong direction,” Cicurel said. “Reversing it requires moving assets to where the pressure is greatest, hunting Iranian launchers and drones more aggressively, and convoying ships through the Gulf.”

Even with strong interception rates, the wider repercussions of the attacks are becoming apparent.

Iranian assaults on energy infrastructure and commercial shipping have pushed oil prices upward and interrupted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, proving that air defense by itself cannot avert economic and strategic fallout.

The developing situation depicts not a failing defense, but a system under mounting pressure.

As long as Iran can manufacture inexpensive drones and missiles more rapidly than the U.S., Israel and their allies can produce interceptors, the equilibrium could slowly tilt.

“As long as the war continues,” Citrinowicz said, “the key question will be whether Iran can produce missiles faster than we can produce interceptors.”