Math is Hard
Losing while maintaining your budget limit is no way to defend America
"Iran’s April mass drone and missile strike against Israel cost at most $100 million, but U.S. and Israeli interception efforts cost more than $2 billion." That’s not a sustainable or winning cost curve.
On the surface, a 20:1 cost comparison does look unsustainable. Especially if you just count Iran versus Israel, where Israel's GDP is only 10% greater than Iran's.
But America's GDP is 58 times larger than Iran's. In this case the expense seems sustainable. But certainly, the sustainability ratio will decline tremendously against China, or even Russia. So it is good to have a better cost equation.
Yet that's not the only part of the equation. What's the cost of the targets successfully defended? Others have pointed this out, but if the target is expensive you have to figure what you'd lose in order to preserve some fraction of the $2 billion in defensive missiles fired (or fuel used to send up aircraft to shoot at them). Losing a $10 billion facility to save several million dollars worth of defensive missiles is not a winning cost curve, either.
And what is the value of keeping the intended target intact for the rest of the war to avoid inefficiently defending it? If the target is vital for the war effort even if not hugely expensive, but will be eliminated as an asset for many months or years, that's an equation buster, no?
The ability to produce enough missiles to replace expended missiles rapidly enough to continue the defensive effort is an issue separate from the cost. That's really the problem, no?
One part of the solution is to further expand the equation. Don't get stuck in the rut of thinking producing more air defense missiles than the enemy can produce the missiles we need to shoot down is the entire scope of the equation. There are more variables:
Long-range Ukrainian surface-to-surface missiles that destroy Russian missile launchers or aircraft on the ground eliminate the need for many Patriots that don't have to shoot down weapons never launched at Ukraine.
Fighter planes that shoot down enemy planes that launch missiles or glide bombs stop many future strikes.
Anything that slows the volume, rate, and effectiveness of enemy aerial attacks is air defense.
Sure, cheaper weapons are important. But ultimately, war is about winning and not about cost-effective use of troops, materiel, and other assets. Losing is far worse than spending “too much” to win.
NOTE: The image was made with Bing.