‘Alarming Depletion’: U.S. Patriot Interceptor Arsenal Falls to Just 25 Percent of Minimum Requirements

The United States has heavily depleted its stockpiles of surface-to-air missiles for the MIM-104 Patriot long range air defence system, which have fallen to just 25 percent of the volume deemed necessary by the Pentagon. Severe depletion has been assessed by a number of Western sources to have been a primary factor in the Trump administration’s recent decision to suspend supplies to Ukraine, as the Pentagon’s global munitions tracker showed that the stockpiles of a number of critical munitions had been below minimum levels for several years, since the Biden administration tremendously escalated military aid to Ukraine in 2022. The munitions tracker is a system relied on by the U.S. Armed Forcescalculate the minimum levels of munitions required to carry out operational plans. The London-based Guardian which was first to report the state of the arsenal referred to it as an “alarming depletion,” reflecting a broad consensus among Western assessments.

Reports regarding the state of the Patriot missile arsenal follows confirmation from theArmy Requirements Oversight Council Memorandum that planned procurements of the new Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (PAC-3 MSE) surface-to-air missile had been quadrupled from 3,376 to 13,773 missiles. This increase is expected tocost the Army an additional $40.2 billion, with each PAC-3 MSE costing an average of $3.871 million. Shortages of interceptors were exacerbated by an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps ballistic missile strike on a U.S. Air Force facility, Al Udeid Airbase in Qatar, on June 23, which saw Patriot systems launch dozens of interceptors to shoot down the incoming barrage. This represented the largest ever single expenditure of Patriot interceptors. The primary cause of shortages, however, has been the deliveries of the systems on a large scale to Ukraine, where they have suffered rapid attrition particularly to ballistic missile attacks.