The U.S. Army reportedly fired over 150 Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile interceptors to help defend Israel during its 12-day war with Iran earlier this year. If accurate, this would represent roughly a quarter of all THAAD interceptors ordered and/or set to be ordered by the U.S. military to date, according to Pentagon budget documents. Questions about the effectiveness of ship-launched Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors have also emerged from the U.S. Navy’s employment of around 80 of them during the recent Israel-Iran conflict.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the U.S. military expenditures of THAAD and SM-3 interceptors, citing unnamed U.S. officials. American forces also employed ground-based Patriot surface-to-air missile systems and ship-launched SM-2 and SM-6 missiles during the Israel-Iran war in June. Israel’s own extensive air and missile defense capabilities were also heavily engaged during that conflict.
“Operating alongside Israeli systems, THAAD operators burned through munitions at a furious clip, firing more than 150 missiles to shoot down the waves of Iranian ballistic missiles, according to U.S. officials,” per the Journal‘s story. “That is nearly a quarter of the interceptors ever purchased by the Pentagon.”
The U.S. military’s 2026 Fiscal Year budget request, which was rolled out in June, says the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has received funding for 646 THAAD interceptors to date, though it has not taken delivery of all of those missiles. That total also doesn’t include U.S.-facilitated orders for foreign customers. Some number of U.S. interceptors have been expended during test and training activities over the years, as well. MDA is asking for funds to buy 25 more, at a cost of around $15.5 million each, in the next fiscal cycle. The agency’s proposed budget also notes it expects to receive 12 more THAAD interceptors paid for with money included in a reconciliation funding bill, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law earlier this month.
MDA manages the THAAD program, though the actual units that are equipped with the system are operated by the Army. When the conflict between Israel and Iran first erupted, the Army had seven operational THAAD batteries, two of which were reportedly forward-deployed in Israel. During the fighting, manufacturer Lockheed Martin announced it had delivered “the Minimum Engagement Package” for a long-planned eighth battery. A typical THAAD battery consists of between six and nine road-mobile launchers, each of which can be loaded with up to either interceptors at a time, as well as an AN/TPY-2 radar and other supporting assets.
“The demand [for THAAD] was so staggering that at one point, the Pentagon considered a plan to divert interceptors purchased by Saudi Arabia to the systems in Israel, one official said,” the Journal‘s report adds. “The discussions were sensitive, because the kingdom’s cities and oil installations were also considered at risk during the conflict.”
U.S. authorities first announced the approval of a massive prospective sale of THAAD systems, as well as interceptors and other ancillary items, valued at just over $15 billion, to Saudi Arabia in 2017. The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Defense announced the formal inauguration of the country’s first THAAD battery just earlier this month.
THAAD is also in service with the armed forces of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In 2022, the UAE became the first country to employ the system against a real-world threat in the form of a ballistic missile launched by Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen.
U.S. Navy “warships also went through interceptors at an alarming rate, the acting chief of naval operations, Adm. James Kilby, said on Capitol Hill in June. During the 12-day war, the ships shot about 80 SM-3s at Iranian threats, according to a U.S. official,” the Journal reported. “There also are concerns in the Pentagon that the SM-3s, first used in combat last year, also to counter an Iranian attack, didn’t destroy as many targets as expected, according to two defense officials. The military now is carefully looking through each launch to better understand what happened. A Navy officer involved in the process said it is premature to judge SM-3 engagements.”
Concerns about the U.S. military’s relatively limited inventory of SM-3s had already emerged after those missiles were used to help protect Israel from Iranian missile attacks last year. In May, the manufacturer of those interceptors, Raytheon, received a new contract worth $1 billion to produce additional Block IB variants. MDA, which also manages the SM-3 program, had previously moved to stop buying Block IBs entirely in favor of more capable but also much more expensive Block IIA versions of the missile. The unit price for the Block IB is around $12.5 million, while the price tag on a single Block IIA is currently around $37 million.
When it comes to the SM-3’s combat performance, more context would be necessary to assess what issues the interceptors may have encountered. However, it is worth noting that Iran employed a number of ballistic missile types for the first time in combat during the war in June, including ones with features claimed to be designed to defeat missile defenses, as well as ones with cluster munition payloads.
The Wall Street Journal‘s story further highlights how the expenditures of SM-3s and other ship-launched interceptors underscore the U.S. Navy’s continued and increasingly worrisome lack of any operational means of reloading the vertical launch system cells on its warships at sea. Currently, Navy warships have to return to a friendly port, which may be days or weeks away from their operating area, to rearm. This creates vulnerabilities for the ships in question, which have to make those transits with what could be very limited available munitions for self-defense, and presents issues when it comes to overall operational capacity and flexibility.
The Navy is now pushing to develop and field an at-sea reloading capability, and just recently conducted another test in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Virginia as part of a large-scale exercise earlier this month. In general, slotting canisterized missiles into launch cells on ships at sea, which are bobbing up and down and rocking from side to side, even in relatively calm waters, is a complex affair.
All of this speaks to growing concerns within the U.S. military about how commitments in the Middle East, as well as ongoing support to Ukraine in its fight against Russia, are eating into stocks of air defense interceptors and other critical munitions. The ability, or lack thereof, of the U.S. industrial base to bolster munitions stockpiles and sustain those deliveries during a major conflict has also become increasingly worrisome in recent years. THAAD and SM-3 interceptors would be in even greater demand during a high-end fight against China in the Pacific. The threat of Chinese ballistic missiles is only growing by the day.
With all this in mind, it is worth pointing out that, based on the Pentagon’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal, it could take the U.S. military four years just to secure the funding to replace all the THAAD interceptors reportedly fired in June. There would be a years-long lag between the placement of any orders and actual deliveries, as well. As an example, MDA is expecting to begin receiving its 13th lot of THAAD interceptors in early 2027, five years after the contract award for those missiles.
Lockheed Martin is in discussions now with the U.S. military about expanding THAAD interceptor production capacity to up to 100 missiles per year, according to The Wall Street Journal, but that would take time to implement, as well.
Whatever steps the U.S. military may take going forward to assure it has adequate inventories of key munitions, the Journal‘s report today points to current stockpiles of THAAD interceptors, in particular, being worryingly unsustainable.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com
