Tomahawk Missiles and the price of defense: the imbalance emerging behind high interception rates

Just after dawn in Kuwait, a government building sits scarred in the aftermath of an Iranian drone strike—an image that collapses air-defense percentages into concrete and broken glass. The wider war’s math can look reassuring on briefings, but the human reality is less tidy, and it is now being debated in the shadow of tomahawk missiles and the high-cost interceptors used to keep missiles and drones from landing.

What does “more than 90% intercepted” really mean in this war?

U. S., Israeli and allied forces have continued to intercept the vast majority of Iranian missiles and drones during the war, using what a new report describes as a layered regional air defense system built through years of coordination. The report—produced by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA)—puts the share of Iranian projectiles intercepted at more than 90%, crediting early warning systems, shared radar coverage, and pre-positioned assets that allow multiple countries to work together against incoming threats.

At a press briefing on Wednesday (ET), White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “More than 9, 000 enemy targets have been struck to date … Iran’s ballistic missile attacks and drone attacks are down by roughly 90%. ” Leavitt added that U. S. forces have also destroyed more than 140 Iranian naval vessels, including nearly 50 mine layers.

Why are experts warning about a “dangerous imbalance” even with strong defenses?

The same JINSA report and expert commentary point to a concern that sits beneath the headline success: cost and sustainability. The report highlights a trend in which Iran’s least expensive weapons are proving the most disruptive, draining costly U. S. and Israeli interceptors in the process. In other words, the tactical scorecard can look good while the economic equation worsens.

Ari Cicurel, associate director of foreign policy at JINSA and author of the report, cautioned that focusing only on interception percentages misses a bigger picture. “Overall high missile and drone interception rates have been important but only tell part of the story, ” Cicurel said. He described a deliberate Iranian approach aimed at dismantling the architecture that makes intercepts possible, including strikes on energy infrastructure intended to upset markets and the use of cluster munitions to achieve higher hit rates.

The worry is not framed as a single system failing, but as a grinding mismatch—cheap attacks that force expensive responses. That imbalance, analysts argue, could shape what comes next, even as the air-defense architecture continues to block most incoming threats.

What is being done to sustain the defense—and what question remains?

The current regional air-defense architecture integrates U. S., Israeli, and Arab systems, combining early warning and shared radar coverage with pre-positioned assets. The JINSA report describes a surge of U. S. assets before the war, including Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries, Patriot systems, two carrier strike groups, and roughly 200 fighter aircraft, helping absorb Iran’s opening salvos and maintain high interception rates.

U. S. Central Command has released footage showing strikes on Iranian mobile missile launchers, signaling a focus not only on intercepting incoming fire but also on targeting launch capability. Yet the debate raised by the report and the experts is about durability: how long a defense built on costly interceptors can keep pace with repeated waves of cheaper drones and missiles.

Danny Citrinowicz, a Middle East and national security expert at the Institute for National Security Studies and a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, argued that “there needs to be a change in the equation, ” describing the cost gap between Iranian drones and the missiles used to stop them.

Back in Kuwait, the damaged building stands as a reminder that even a high interception rate does not translate into zero impact. The emerging question for policymakers and commanders—alongside the broader arsenal that includes tomahawk missiles—is whether today’s defensive success can remain financially and operationally sustainable if the imbalance continues to widen.

Image caption (alt text): A Kuwaiti government building after an Iranian drone strike, as concerns rise over the sustainability of defenses alongside tomahawk missiles.