Terminal High Altitude Area Defense

Looking at the Pentagon's fiscal 27 budget request gives an insight into where the military sees the greatest need.

Missile orders for this year are heavily concentrated in the long-range defensive interceptors, the CSM-3, the THAAD, and the Patriot.

Orders for the THAADs alone are up 2,200% from last year, and due to complex manufacturing processes, these orders will take about two years to translate into deliveries, although efforts to ramp up production are already underway.

But the war in Iran started.

The U.S. reached an agreement with Lockheed Martin to quadruple its THAAD production, followed soon after by an announcement to triple Patriot production.

On top of that, the U.S. has delayed foreign Patriot missiles from being delivered before domestic orders are fulfilled, prioritizing rebuilding our own Patriot supply as quickly as possible.

That's an interesting statistic there.

So we had this forward positioned forces with wildly insufficient air and missile defense.

The anecdote that I keep using is during the 12-day war with Iran, 12 days, not a 12-month war with China, the 12-day war with Iran in June of 2025, the United States of America, the United States Army fired one quarter of its entire inventory of THAAD interceptors in a 12-day war with Iran.

So hello.

So that's the scary news.

You would think that our military is unable to fight and win a conflict if we don't have four systems right now.

If we don't have Tomahawks, cruise missiles, right? If we don't have standoff weapons like a JASSM, right? Means we can fire from a distance, be safe, don't have to encounter anybody attacking you.

If we don't have Patriot batteries, and if we don't have, um, a THAAD, right, this, the, the, the, the higher level missile defense systems.

If we lack these four things, our $1 trillion military with one million plus active duty is unable to fight and win because of four systems.

The scandal from the American side would have been massive because, as you mentioned, they were short on ammunitions, especially when it comes to the offensive weapons.

talking about the cruise missiles and when it comes to the defensive arsenal when it comes to the Patriot PAK 2 and PAK 3 batteries and as well as the THAAD system.

Of course, they confessed later that they used like 40% of their reserves when it comes to ammunition and they have a problem with the manufacturing because it

turned out

That's the chess move right there.

They're quadrupling THAAD interceptor production from 96 to 400 units a year.

That's not just growth.

That's a strategic pivot for the defense sector.

The assessment is that these aircraft are resupplying American interceptor missiles already positioned in Israel.

That means the Patriot system and the system known as THAAD.

And these 10 aircraft, they were only part of a larger convoy.

Other planes in that same movement landed in Jordan, in Qatar, and in Saudi Arabia.

Israel and the United States are going to launch a major strike after the midterm elections.

We have sent more Patriot missiles, more THAADs, especially Patriot missiles from Texas to Israel.

We want to beef up Israel's defense as well.

That's how involved Israel is going to be in this strike, is we're sending Patriot missiles fresh off the presses to Israel, sending them right over there.

So they're an unmanned aircraft, like a very large drone, also known as hunter-killers.

So helicopters and command facilities, and then you've got the THAAD-related equipment.

These are all listed as the arsenal, the munition, and the equipment that were damaged in these attacks.

Okay.