According to a Tuesday report by the Guardian newspaper, the US military’s arsenal of missiles for the MIM-104 Patriot air defense system is “so low” that there are concerns “it could jeopardize potential US military operations.”

It would be easy to point fingers, which officials have done, at Ukraine and suggest that the American stockpiles are depleted due to the military aid packages sent by the Biden administration. However, the UK’s paper of record warned that the conflicts in the Middle East are where the United States has significantly burned through its munitions.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) has only 25 percent of the ordnance needed for “all of the Pentagon’s military plans,” according to The Guardian. However, despite the shortage, President Donald Trump has remained open to the idea of supplying Ukraine with additional air defense systems as Russia ramps up its drone and missile strikes. Sources have claimed that the MIM-104 Patriot Air Defense System has a 95 percent “intercept success rate” in its more than 250 combat engagements; however, this number cannot be independently verified.

How Many Patriot Systems Does the United States Have?

The MIM-104 Patriot was developed in the 1970s to counter Soviet missiles. The mobile interceptor surface-to-air missile (SAM) system is a long-range, all-weather, all-altitude platform that is more than a single unit.........

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