00:00Now to Sean Bell, a retired Air Vice Marshal and military analyst who's speaking to us from a UK Royal
00:07Air Force Base.
00:08Sean, welcome back. Good to see you.
00:10The accountancy of war, the stocks of military hardware, as we've been hearing, how much is being deployed, how much
00:17remains is critical in this, isn't it?
00:21Good afternoon, Jamie. No, it is. But I think we don't always put the price at the forefront of this.
00:27I think part of it is that a bit like let's look at the air defense missiles that America is
00:32using.
00:33We're focusing a lot on the attack. But if you look at the defense, Patriot missiles is a really good
00:37example.
00:38They cost about four million dollars a time. But it's not so much the cost, it's the availability.
00:43There's less than, you know, a thousand of those available, about twelve hundred, I think, available in stock.
00:48But if you look at the rate of utilization at the moment compared to the rate of production, they're being
00:54consumed much quicker than the industry can provide them.
00:56And of course, on current projections, America would run out of those if they were carried on the current rate
01:02in about ten weeks of the war.
01:04At the same time, Iran would still have about 70,000 of its Shaheed drones left.
01:09The danger is we've got some very high tech weapons, very capable, but they are far overmatched what Iran has.
01:15But Iran has in quantity what America has in quality.
01:20Let's talk about time, then.
01:22How big a challenge would it be to replace those stockpiles in terms of how long it takes to manufacture
01:30new equipment, new munitions?
01:33Yeah, so one of the issues has been, let's take Patriot again, because there's about four million dollars a time.
01:39But you need two of those generally to shoot down one missile.
01:42Only one you need to fire, but their probability of kill is not always 100%, so you need two.
01:48At the moment, my understanding is they're being produced at around 17 a week.
01:52If you imagine the production is far less than the utilization.
01:56And although Donald Trump says that he's met with defense industries to quadruple the number of missiles that are being
02:03produced,
02:04just imagine all the subcontractors, the subcomponents.
02:07They won't be producing more missiles in the next few days or weeks or months.
02:11It'll probably take years before that happens.
02:13Therefore, it's almost certain that America will not have the appetite to continue conducting the war the way it is
02:19at the moment,
02:19beyond the six to eight week point.
02:21It's a real challenge that although you've got an American superpower in place that absolutely dominates Iran,
02:28Iran is able to use a number of other asymmetric capabilities to counter that American might.
02:33Can we talk about then how long perhaps American voters will tolerate the costs?
02:39Does anyone in the military worry about that?
02:44Well, Jamie, I know it sounds a bit odd, but I think the primary focus of the military will be
02:49on achieving the objectives of the war.
02:51It's not entirely clear what they are because President Trump keeps moving around.
02:55And the other thing will be the preservation of life.
02:57It won't just be me who was very moved as those six American servicemen were repatriated.
03:03And watching President Trump, who has no speaking role, he can be very much around the sound bites and around
03:10gesture politics.
03:12But actually, he was clearly moved that our politicians are the ones who send us to war.
03:17It is the military that fight those wars.
03:20Generally, they do in a fantastically professional way.
03:22But it's them who fight our nation's enemies, it's them who stand on the wall, and it's them who occasionally
03:27have to make the ultimate sacrifice.
03:29And I think that's their ultimate focus of the military, is being as professional as they can, but making sure
03:34we minimize any casualties along the way.
03:37Historically, wars often cost more than initially projected.
03:39I mean, are there parallels, do you think, with Iraq or Afghanistan in terms of how much the financial costs
03:47could get out of hand?
03:49Or it's simply the story of unforeseen costs, isn't it?
03:53I think you're right, Jamie.
03:55I think it's the unforeseen costs.
03:56I mean, we invest in defence, all nations.
03:59Defence is an insurance policy against an uncertain future.
04:02And you pay your premiums accordingly.
04:04You know, in the UK and in Europe, largely ever since the Cold War, the threat has been significantly less,
04:10and we've spent less on defence.
04:12With the Russians' invasion of Ukraine, it's been a stark reminder.
04:15Everybody's now increasing defence spending.
04:18But ultimately, the more you spend on technology, the more you avoid the need to simply mass armies and end
04:24up with a brutal, attritional war on the battlefield.
04:26That's the one thing that happened in World War II.
04:2870 million people died.
04:30That's the last thing that anybody in the West wants to do.
04:32We need to invest in defence.
04:34We need to invest in technology.
04:36And that's what the British government and the European governments are now looking to do in the near term.
04:40Sean, good to talk to you.
04:41Thank you for that.
04:42Sean Bell, the retired air vice marshal and military analyst, speaking to us from RAF Bryson-Orton.
Comments