Iran War Spurs Pacific Allies to Harden Defenses vs China
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- The Iran war has triggered the heaviest use of US Patriot and THAAD missile defense systems since 1991's Operation Desert Storm, with Iranian strikes on THAAD radars (each worth $300 million) forcing redeployment of THAAD batteries from South Korea to the Middle East.
- The US military has committed nearly its entire inventory of JASSM-ER cruise missiles, valued at $1.5 million each, to the Iran campaign — with Pacific stockpiles hit hardest — while the Atlantic Council estimates 29% to 43% of all known THAAD batteries are now engaged against Iranian ballistic missiles.
- Ukraine has dispatched 200 military specialists to the Gulf states to share low-cost drone-countermeasure expertise, with Iran's Shahed drone technology now deployed nearly daily by Russia in Ukraine.
- Japan has surveyed nearly 1,500 additional facilities for conversion into missile shelters on top of its existing 61,142 designated shelters, and in March 2025 unveiled plans to evacuate 110,000 residents from the Sakishima island chain near Taiwan, including Okinawa, host to the majority of US troops in Japan.
- South Korea, which operates roughly 19,000 shelters, is constructing its first nuclear-blast-resistant bunker as the Pentagon pushes US Forces Korea toward a broader role in a Taiwan contingency.
- China's PLARF fields 1,300 medium-range, 500 intermediate-range, and 400–550 intercontinental ballistic missiles with over 850 launchers — including the hypersonic DF-17, the carrier-killing DF-21/DF-26, and the nuclear-capable DF-41 with a 12,000+ km range threatening Guam — and could potentially launch 500 to 1,000 missiles per day.
- The cost asymmetry of intercepting inexpensive Iranian drones with $3 million Patriot missiles has become a key wake-up call, while the US invests billions in the Enhanced Integrated Air and Missile Defense System for Guam and ramps up joint SM-3 Block IIA production with Japan.
Why it matters: The Iran war is simultaneously burning through the very missile defense stockpiles — THAAD batteries, JASSM-ER cruise missiles — that the US would need against China, while Pacific allies (Japan surveying 1,500 new shelters, South Korea building its first nuclear-resistant bunker, Taiwan's 4,600 Taipei shelters) are scrambling to build the civil defense infrastructure that would determine civilian survival if China's PLARF unleashed a barrage far larger than anything Iran has fielded.
