Race to the Bottom: Who's Winning the Missile War in the Middle East?

TEL hunting, interceptor availability, and implications for Ukraine

Picture: U.S. Central Command via X

In the early hours of 28 February 2026, Operation Epic Fury commenced with large-scale U.S. and Israeli air strikes against Iranian military, command, missile, and infrastructure targets.

Since then, the United States and Israel have conducted extensive operations against Iran, while Iran has retaliated with missile strikes against U.S. bases, Israel, and regional neighbours. This post offers an initial assessment of the missile war, which has defined the early stages of this conflict, in terms of missile and interceptor availability and its implications for Ukraine.

The race to the bottom

The central military dynamic between Israel and the United States on the one hand and Iran on the other can be understood as a race to the bottom. Iran is seeking to deplete regional missile defence arsenals while inflicting damage. In contrast, the United States and Israel are attempting to locate and destroy Iranian transporter erector launchers (TELs) before they can fire, while also degrading command and control and Iranian missile production capacity.

“TEL hunting”, as this mission is commonly described, has historically proven extremely difficult. Efforts during Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom produced limited results. Israel’s air campaign against Iran last year arguably marked the first instance of an air interdiction campaign successfully targeting enemy TELs at scale.

That success now appears to be repeating itself, with dozens of videos published by U.S. and Israeli official channels showing the destruction of Iranian mobile launchers. The Israeli Air Force has stated that it alone has destroyed over 300 missile launchers since the beginning of the war. Successful counter-TEL operations are likely enabled, to a large degree, by pre-war intelligence on TEL storage bases and dispersal routes, and by the presumed large number of medium- and high-altitude UAVs operating above Iran with near impunity, providing continuous surveillance.

Iranian ballistic missile strikes

As expected, Iran has responded with missile and long-range drone attacks against U.S. bases in the region, Israel, and regional neighbours, particularly Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Targets have included military and civilian infrastructure, as well as population centres.

Although much remains obscured by the fog of war, compared to the 12-Day War and earlier missile exchanges between Iran and Israel, Iran’s ballistic missile launches have appeared more unevenly spaced, significantly smaller in scale, and less coordinated. This likely reflects the effects of the ongoing U.S. and Israeli strike campaign, which has degraded not only TEL availability but also command and control, complicating theater-wide coordination of missile operations.

As a result, Iran has presumably had to rely more heavily on increasingly small units operating under forward-delegated authority and executing pre-authorized strike plans, while at times acting on their own initiative.

In total, Iran probably launched around 600 to 700 ballistic missiles in this war so far, which is comparatively limited. During the 12-Day War, Iran appears to have expended roughly 500 to 600 ballistic missiles. However, in that conflict, Iran relied entirely on medium-range ballistic missiles needed to strike Israel and did not employ short-range ballistic missiles. Given that, in the present conflict, short-range ballistic missiles are a viable means of striking regional U.S. allies, and that the confrontation is arguably more existential from a regime-survival perspective, one would, in principle, expect incentives for more extensive use.

In addition, during the 12-Day War, Iran regularly managed to launch salvos of 40 to 50 ballistic missiles at a time, including several days into the war. Current video footage of interceptor launches, for example, during a strike on Doha, Qatar, late in the evening of 28 February, suggests that double-digit ballistic missile salvos have still occurred, though likely not at the previously observed scale, and have remained the exception.

Indeed, since 1 March — i.e., within 24 hours of the beginning of the confrontation —, Iranian ballistic missile usage appears to have decreased sharply. The UAE, which has received the brunt of Iranian ballistic missile attacks and has been relatively transparent about the number of missiles launched at its territory, reported 165 ballistic missiles during the first two days. In the subsequent three days (at the time of writing, 4 March), the UAE reported only 9, 12, and 3 ballistic missile launches against its territory, respectively. Long-range drone launches are reportedly similarly decreasing.

Regional missile defense

Whether the United States and regional allies can outlast Iran until its ballistic missile capabilities are sufficiently degraded depends to a large extent on allied interceptor depth.

How many interceptors the Gulf states deployed at the beginning of the conflict, and how many interceptors the United States brought to the theater in defense of regional bases and allied infrastructure, remains classified. However, reasonable estimates can be made based on how many interceptors the Gulf states were authorized to purchase in the years prior to that.

The table above provides an estimate of ballistic missile interceptor stocks that the Gulf states were authorized to purchase prior to the beginning of the war. Note that this estimate represents a theoretical maximum. There is no guarantee that states will purchase the maximum authorized quantities from the United States. Indeed, often it is less, possibly around 50 to 80 percent.

That said, given that the Gulf states have considered the Iranian ballistic missile threat one of the primary, if not the primary, threat scenarios, it is easy to imagine they may have invested accordingly and procured large shares of authorized ballistic missile defense equipment.

As noted above, according to official UAE information, the country detected 165 Iranian ballistic missiles during the first two days of the war. Assuming that each detected ballistic missile was engaged, and an average of 2.5 interceptors were allocated per projectile, this implies an interceptor use of roughly 410. The UAE likely did not bear the full burden of these engagements, however, as the United States also deploys Patriot fire units on its territory. If the UAE accounted for roughly half of the allocated interceptors, depletion over the first two days would amount to around 200 interceptors. Depending on whether the UAE purchased 50 to 100 percent of the interceptors it was authorized to acquire, this would correspond to roughly 20 to 40 percent of its stockpile.

This example illustrates that concerns about the availability of ballistic missile defence interceptors were entirely justified. Had the intensity of Iranian ballistic missile attacks observed during the first two days continued at the same pace, Emirati interceptor inventories would likely have been severely depleted within a few days to a week. The same logic applies to the other Gulf states.

However, given that the intensity of Iranian ballistic missile attacks appears to have declined sharply, very likely due to TEL attrition, the situation now appears far less alarming. While it may still be premature to dismiss Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities entirely, the Gulf states — with the possible exception of Bahrain, given its comparatively small arsenal — have reason to expect that they can endure the conflict without approaching interceptor exhaustion. Even Bahrain will likely remain in a manageable position, assuming continued U.S. support and missile defense deployments on its territory.

Indeed, rather than ballistic missiles, long-range drones have exposed capability gaps in the defense postures of the Gulf states. Neither the Gulf states nor the United States deploy optimized interceptor systems in sufficient numbers, relying instead on manned aircraft to intercept incoming Shahed-type drones. Nevertheless, individual drones have repeatedly penetrated defenses and struck military and symbolic targets, including the U.S. embassy in Riyadh, which overall does not reflect well on U.S. and allied militaries.

Implications for Ukraine

The primary implications for Ukraine are twofold.

First, demand for Patriot interceptors will increase as the Gulf states seek to replenish their arsenals after the war. This will most likely not affect existing delivery contracts unless U.S. decision-makers intervene directly to reallocate production slots. Still, it will increase competition for limited production slots for Patriot PAC-3 MSE and PAC-2 GEM-T interceptors.

Both Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are expanding their production lines. Lockheed Martin, in particular, is attempting to surge capacity, with plans to increase PAC-3 MSE production from roughly 600 to 2,000 interceptors per year by 2030. Raytheon is expanding PAC-2 GEM-T production from about 300 units annually to around 420 by 2027, supported by a new licensed production facility in Schrobenhausen, Germany, operated by MBDA Germany.

Even so, unless the supply increase outpaces the surge in demand, acquiring Patriot interceptors will not become easier, including for Ukraine. With several European, Asian, and Middle Eastern customers, as well as the United States itself, competing for limited production slots, it is unlikely that interceptor lead times will decrease in the near term. At present, these are estimated at 1.5 to 2.5 years.

Second, the war in the Middle East exposes a capability gap in the arsenals of the Gulf states in the area of long-range drone defense. Reporting suggests that the Gulf states had already begun trying to address this gap in the years before the war, drawing lessons from Ukraine’s experience against Russia and noticing Iran’s diverse long-range drone arsenal. Yet procurement cycles proved too slow to close the capability gap in time.

After the war, whose outcome remains uncertain, Gulf states will likely move quickly to close this capability gap. Ukrainian companies may be well-positioned to offer battle-tested counter-drone technologies to Gulf customers. At the same time, they will likely face intense competition from European missile defense startups, as well as from established European and American primes seeking to offer their own drone defense systems to Middle Eastern buyers.