The Trump administration is fast-tracking $23 billion in air defenses and counter-drone systems to Gulf states and U.S. forces.
The Trump administration is racing to ship air defenses, radars and counter-drone systems to Arab states and U.S. forces in the Gulf, hoping to beef up their ability to defend against persistent and accurate Iranian missile and drone attacks.
The movement of weapons and equipment -- including the fast-tracking of $23 billion in future arms sales -- signals concerns within the Pentagon that Iran remains capable of devastating attacks as allied supplies of missile interceptors run down and drones continue to slip through.
Three weeks into the war, the U.S. now needs to shore up the region's defenses as it works to wear down Iran's capabilities and Israel hunts the country's leadership. Arab governments have repeatedly asked for more defensive equipment without much in return, people familiar with the matter said.
The U.S. and Israel by midweek had bombed more than 16,000 targets in Iran, including missile launchers and drone depots. While the volume of Iran's missile and drone attacks has dropped sharply since the opening days of the war, and Gulf states like the U.A.E. have said their defenses are adequate, Tehran has been able to maintain its barrages at lower levels and continues to score direct hits on sensitive targets.
This week Iran hit refineries in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and did damage to Qatar's Ras Laffan liquefied natural gas facilities that will take years to repair, according to the country's energy minister.
Iran has taken out a number of U.S. and allied missile defense radars and early warning systems, complicating detection of incoming attacks. Iran is also getting help from Russia in targeting American positions throughout the Gulf. Moscow has expanded its cooperation with Iran by sharing satellite imagery and improved drone technology to improve the effectiveness of its attacks.
The competition between air-defense systems and Iran's arsenal of drones and missiles is at the center of the war. Tehran, lacking a conventional air force or navy that can compete with the U.S. and Israel's advanced militaries, has adopted a strategy of escalating the fighting across a wide front of economic and military targets to re-establish deterrence and create pressure to stop the onslaught.
The U.S. and Israel are trying to attack Iranian drone and missile crews before they can get off their shots. Jets circling the skies above may give them only minutes to emerge from hiding and fire before they risk getting struck.
The U.S. is now flooding the Middle East with counter-drone systems to blunt attacks from Iran's Shaheds, U.S. officials said. The Iranian drones have struck everything from expensive radar systems and embassy buildings to energy infrastructure, airports and commercial ships.
The systems sent to the Middle East include drones designed to take out other drones by crashing into them or detonating nearby, like the Merops drones that have been battle-tested in Ukraine. The U.S. is also deploying larger systems that launch interceptors from vehicles and aircraft to take out the drones, one of the officials said.
Some of the equipment is being shipped by the Pentagon to U.S. forces deployed in the region. The rest is part of $23 billion in weapons sales to the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Jordan approved Thursday.
The 11 separate arms deals together amount to one of the largest U.S. weapons transfers of the last decade, even bigger than other large arms deals in the recent years of war in the Middle East.
The package includes a $1.2 billion sale of hundreds of Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles, or Amraams, to the U.A.E. that are intended for immediate delivery, according to U.S. officials familiar with the arrangement. The missiles can be used to shoot down drones.
The package for the U.A.E. also includes $5.6 billion in PAC-3 air defense missiles and $4.5 billion in Thaad radar equipment, as well as the $2 billion sale of an antidrone system that uses radar, electronic warfare systems, and guns to detect and down incoming drones. There is also $8 billion in air-defense equipment for Kuwait.
The U.A.E. Foreign Affairs Ministry said the country has advanced, multilayered air defenses capable of protecting the country.
The State Department said it was invoking an emergency rule under U.S. arms control law that enables the administration to bypass the congressional review that usually governs major foreign arms deals. Still, much of the equipment isn't available for immediate delivery.
Supplies of missile interceptors in particular have been worn down by years of war in Ukraine and the Middle East. The fighting has revealed an alarming gap in advanced equipment that can take a long time to manufacture.
Many of the weapons in the sales announced by the administration will be delivered years in the future, officials said. While the U.S. isn't at immediate risk of running out of air defense interceptors, U.S. partners in the region could struggle with their own supplies, said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former senior U.S. official working on war funding and military procurement.
"In this war, the only thing that counts is what exists today," Cancian said. "The Gulf countries have used a lot of their inventory."
Iran's ongoing missile and drone strikes on its Gulf neighbors and Israel have heightened concerns that it is playing a long game, attempting to outlast the U.S. and its allies in the region. Iran's Shahed drones in particular cost just tens of thousands of dollars each and can be manufactured at scale. Factories for the drones are relatively easy to rebuild, military analysts said.
"As we said and have always said, clearly they came into this fight with a lot of weapons,"said Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a Pentagon press briefing Thursday.