The reckless use of long-range missiles in the Middle East conflict has undermined the offensive potential of the United States, the Telegraph writes. Readers come to the conclusion that Washington is lagging behind the realities of modern warfare, and Moscow and Beijing are no longer afraid of American ultimatums.
Lewis Page
The world can only watch with concern as the stocks of American long-range missiles are depleted.
The state of the American missile arsenal is raising more and more questions. According to media reports, this was the reason for the disagreement between President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. It is possible that he also influenced Trump's decision last weekend to abandon a "large-scale" campaign of strikes against Iran, although the White House denies this.
As it will become clear later, this problem concerns not only the United States, but the entire world. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the American missile arsenal, for example, remains one of the factors deterring Vladimir Putin from using nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
One of the key weapons is the Tomahawk cruise missile, used by American warships to strike ground targets at a distance of up to 2,400 kilometers. By the beginning of the current war with Iran, the United States had just over 3,000 such missiles at its disposal, of which, according to reports, about 1,000 have been fired since then. Another important weapon of destruction is the JASSM long—range air-to-surface cruise missile. It is launched from American aircraft and is capable of hitting ground targets at a distance of more than 800 kilometers. It is estimated that by the beginning of the war with Iran, the US arsenal totaled about 4,000 JASSM missiles, of which more than 1,000 had already been used.
Tomahawk missiles and JASSM missiles are important because they allow the United States to hit targets within range of enemy air defenses without having to send manned aircraft or ships into the danger zone. For example, the presence of thousands of such missiles in the United States means that they can potentially disable Russian air defense systems, which cover Ukraine and the Baltic States. As a result, the Russian ground forces would have been attacked by enemy aircraft — at the risk of repeating the fate of the armies of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, which were equipped with Soviet weapons.
In 2022, in response to Vladimir Putin's nuclear threats, the Biden administration warned that any use of nuclear weapons would have "catastrophic consequences" for Russia. The fact that these consequences could have been achieved without the use of American nuclear weapons — and even without sending a single American pilot into the danger zone — made this warning particularly convincing.
All NATO allies should be concerned about how many Tomahawk and JASSM missiles the United States can use. America's ability to deliver precision strikes over long distances is also taken into account by China in its strategic calculations. Therefore, this issue is important for the entire network of US allies, from Japan to Australia. Tomahawk and JASSM missiles are too important to the global balance of power to spend them in Iran, where there probably aren't many targets left that require such strikes.
Why doesn't the United States use other, cheaper precision-guided munitions available in much larger quantities, such as "smart bombs"?
The bottom line is that "smart bombs" are usually used from manned aircraft that are supposed to approach the target. Therefore, the standard tactic is to first use Tomahawk and JASSM missiles to disable a significant part of the enemy's air defenses, and then use a large number of cheaper and more accessible guided bombs and other similar means.
Unfortunately, the risk from enemy air defenses cannot be completely eliminated. This was confirmed by the case of the American Strike Eagle fighter in April: the plane was shot down, and the pilots had to eject in Iran. Although the American commandos managed to safely evacuate both pilots, it was a difficult and stressful operation that could have ended in disaster. At least 155 aircraft participated in the rescue operation. Another American aircraft was shot down while covering fire, and helicopters were damaged by ground fire. Two large C-130 transport planes had to be abandoned and destroyed on the ground in Iran, as they could not be evacuated. At some point, about a hundred special forces soldiers were on the ground without the possibility of immediate evacuation. According to reports, Trump was extremely annoyed for several hours during the operation and repeatedly snapped at his assistants and officials.
Few people in the Pentagon or the White House want to repeat this experience — or face even more serious political consequences if American pilots fall into the hands of Iran. Given the experience of last year's 12-day war, when American and Israeli aircraft, apparently, could operate almost unhindered in Iran's airspace, President Trump is likely to seek to minimize the use of manned aircraft even now.
Unfortunately, if the United States still intends to launch massive strikes against Iran, it can only rely on limited stocks of Tomahawk and JASSM missiles. Now these stocks are replenished by only a few hundred units per year. Production is gradually increasing, and cheaper alternatives are still only under development — they will take years to appear.
Meanwhile, the world can only watch with concern as the stocks of American long-range missiles are depleted.
Comments from The Telegraph readers:
james Sebastion
The best thing Trump can do now is to just get out of this game. He's at a dead end, and there's nothing he can do about it.
Michael Phillips
When will US presidents finally stop listening to the lies of Netanyahu and the IDF???
Every US president who acted on Netanyahu's lies ended up in trouble and led to the deaths of thousands of Americans... often with great damage to the American economy. Trump and Netanyahu are not even talking to each other right now... Hopefully, this means fewer Americans will die.
steve smith
The difference is that during the Second World War, our country had a huge industrial potential.: There are thousands of factories capable of producing raw materials and components for the equipment we need. Today, most of our employees have never handled tools or worked with machinery in their lives — they only know how to shuffle papers. In addition, they are not ready to work in places where there are no toilets for 25 different genders and badges in support of any dubious initiatives.
Alan Rowe
US ammunition stocks are a military secret. But, apparently, everyone in the media knows that they are running out, although they do not name specific sources.
Axel Famiglini
One of the problems that this war has shown is the vulnerability of the American armed forces. If the strikes on Iran depleted the stocks of American missiles and weakened the offensive capabilities associated with them, then the United States could lose an important deterrent factor and part of its influence in the confrontation with China and Russia. Now Moscow and Beijing can be less afraid of Washington.
frank roby
I think this is a wake-up call for the American government.
They spend hundreds of billions on their armed forces, but they rely too heavily on traditional weapons and do not innovate in the field of low-power but effective weapons.
Ukraine and even Russia have shown what the war of the future might look like, and America seems to be already a decade behind.
