Iran war live: Trump weighs ‘massive attack’ on Iran
Mark Cancian, a former Pentagon official, has told Al Jazeera that the US has used so many arms in the Iran war that it may have left itself vulnerable elsewhere.
‘We looked at seven munitions that have been used heavily against Iran and that would be used in a war in the Western Pacific, and [the US has] used between a third and half of those munitions,’ he said.
Cancian, who worked on the Department of Defense’s budget strategy and war funding while at the Pentagon, said it could take two to five years for US stockpiles just to reach pre-Iran war levels.
That leaves a ‘window of vulnerability’ in the case that another conflict starts elsewhere, for example, in Taiwan. He also said the kinds of weapons that the US uses are changing.
The war has already cost the US $37.5 billion, and this week, Pete Hegseth, the US Secretary of War, said he needs an extra $70 billion to pay for the Iran war and wider military readiness.
‘What you see in warfare is a move towards a high-low mix. There’s ballistic missiles, cruise missiles at the high end, and the low end is cheap drones. It’s a mix and they’re complementary,’ Cancian, who is now a senior adviser at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said.
This drone arsenal includes sea drones—remote-controlled boats armed with significant amounts of explosives—which have reportedly been used by the US to attack coastal targets in Iran.
Footage released by the White House showed the use of sea attack drones against Iranian coastal facilities.[U.S. Department of Defense via Getty Images] (Getty)