이란-미국(이스라엘) 전쟁 12일. 지난 12일간 미국이 이란을 폭격하는데 쓴 돈은 25조원에 육박한다. 미국 전쟁 비용. 24조 8182억원이다. (165억 달러) 이는 한국 1년 국방예산의 38%에 해당한다. 뉴욕시장 맘다니가 공공주택 건설 비용 예산안이 100조원 가량 된다고 하던데, 연방정부가 25조원을 뉴욕시에 줬으면 어떠했겠는가?
트럼프는 이란의 6천 곳을 폭격했지만, 이란 사람들의 마음을 얻지 못했다. 전쟁 목표도 불분명했고, 초등학교 여학생들 160명을 오폭으로 죽였고, 바다에 빠져 죽은 사람들을 보고 '재미 fun'라고 비아냥거렸다.
무엇을 위한 전쟁인지 가늠이 되지 않는다.
한국에는 1발도 없는 토마호크, 미국은 그 토마호크 미사일을 약 400발 소모했다. 1발 가격이 30억 (200만~250만 달러)이니, 약 1.2조원어치를 썼다.
1년에 토마호크 미사일 생산량은 190발임. 현재 토마호크 재고량은 2700발이다.
호르무즈 해협이 막혀, 비료 공급에 차질이 생겼다. 미국 농부들만 비싼 비료를 사게 생겼다. 세계 질소 비료의 18%가 호르무즈 해협을 지난다.
80억 인구의 공공의 적이 되고 있는 트럼프와 네탄야후의 '명분 없는' 전쟁의 현실들 중에 하나다.
로이터 오늘 뉴스. (캐나다 미국 농부들 비료 값 올라. 공급 차질. 25~35% 부족. )
Fertilizer shortage due to Iran war alarming US and Canadian farmers
Fertilizer dealers could be 25-35% short of usual spring fertilizer supplies
Prices have surged since Iran war began
출처. CSIS 홈페이지
Iran War Cost Estimate Update: $11.3 Billion at Day 6, $16.5 Billion at Day 12
미국 전쟁 비용. 24조 8182억원이다. (165억 달러) 이는 한국 1년 국방예산의 38%에 해당한다.
토마호크 미사일을 400발 소모했다. 1발 가격이 30억 (200만~250만 달러)이니, 약 1.2조원어치를 썼다.
1년에 토마호크 미사일 생산량은 190발임. 현재 토마호크 재고량은 2700발임.
Commentary by Mark F. Cancian and Chris H. Park
Published March 13, 2026
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has reportedly informed Congress that the first six days (D+6) of the war cost $11.3 billion. This is broadly consistent with earlier reports that munitions expenditures in the first few days cost $5.6 billion, but it exceeds the previous CSIS estimate of the war’s first 100 hours. Even with the high usage implied by the cost estimate, the DOD does not appear to face immediate inventory concerns in conducting the current conflict. However, reduced inventories create risks, particularly in the western Pacific and Ukraine.
This update: (1) provides a plausible breakdown of the DOD’s $11.3 billion topline; (2) assesses the impact on munition inventories if the reported costs are accurate; (3) revises upward the estimated damage to U.S. bases in the region with available reporting and overhead photographs; and (4) estimates total war costs through the first 12 days using the latest DOD information.
As noted in the 100-hour estimates, the total cost for this war is highly sensitive to the mix of munitions used. After munitions use, combat losses and infrastructure damage ($1.4 billion through the first six days) comprise the next largest category. Daily costs have declined substantially since the first days of the war. Coalition air dominance has allowed the use of less expensive short-range munitions, while Iranian missile and drone launches have declined sharply.
On the DOD’s $11.3 Billion Estimate
In its reporting, the New York Times provided few details on the DOD estimate shared with Congress. The top line reportedly excludes the cost of “buildup of military hardware and personnel ahead of the first strikes” and appears to count only the operation’s unbudgeted costs. Subsequent reporting also indicates the $11.3 billion figure did not include any estimate of repairing facilities or replacing losses.
Also unclear is whether this estimate had been reviewed and cleared by the White House. The White House has so far remained silent about war costs. The Office of Management and Budget often disagrees with agencies about what to include. Table 1 estimates the breakdown of the reported $11.3 billion in unbudgeted costs during the first six days of the war.
CSIS applied its existing methodology to estimate the munitions usage implied by the reported war cost six days into the campaign. Table 2 presents the results. The technical note below and the previous CSIS commentary on the costs of the first 100 hours of the war detail the approach.
Remote Visualization
U.S. Munitions Stockpile After the First Six Days
Overall, the DOD does not appear to have an inventory problem in sustaining the current conflict because munitions use to date and expected future expenditures will not drive any inventories to zero. These expenditures, however, create risks in other theaters such as Ukraine and the western Pacific, as high-demand munitions are diverted to the current war with Iran. Production in FY 2026 will not fully cover usage to date and will therefore limit the hoped expansion of inventories. Table 3 summarizes this analysis.
Remote Visualization
Ship-Launched Missiles
Navy destroyers and submarines in the region are striking ground targets with Tomahawk missiles. The destroyers also launch the Standard Missile family of missiles for air defense. Ship-launched missiles introduce a unique constraint because ships need to return to port once missiles are depleted. They cannot be reloaded at sea.
Tomahawk: Using 319 Tomahawks would nearly empty the missile magazines of the U.S. Navy ships in the region. The authors previously estimated that the Navy had about 3,100 Tomahawks available, including those aboard ships. Estimated expenditures in the first six days of Operation Epic Fury would take the inventory down to about 2,700. In FY 2026, 190 Tomahawks are slated for delivery. Of these, 64 are intended to go to the Army and 16 to the Marine Corps.
Standard Missiles: SM-3s are used against ballistic missiles. SM-6s are used against cruise missiles and drones, as well as against ballistic missiles in their terminal phase. Budget documents indicate deliveries of 76 SM-3s (45 Block IB, 31 Block IIA) and 125 SM-6s in FY 2026.
Air- and Ground-Launched Missiles
In-theater magazine depth does not pose a concern for air- and ground-launched missiles. Cargo aircraft can resupply bases in theater, while replenishment ships can deliver munitions to aircraft carriers.
Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSMs): Although other exquisite munitions exist in the Air Force inventory, JASSMs are likely the main air-launched, long-range missiles used in this war. There are other expensive Air Force munitions, but these are unlikely to have been used in Epic Fury. JASSM inventories are large (approximately 3,500) because of sizable Air Force purchases in the last decade.
MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missile (PrSM): These are medium-range munitions launched from Army vehicles. ATACMS production ended in 2007, although a life-extension program kept the inventory functional. The current inventory is about 1,000. ATACMS’s successor, the PrSM, began production in 2022; 60 have been delivered, with 70 more to be delivered in FY 2026.
Patriot: These have received the most attention because they are needed in both Ukraine and the western Pacific. CSIS previously calculated the Patriot inventory to be about 2,000—1,600 of which were the most modern PAC-3 MSE, and the others were older versions. The Army anticipates the delivery of 172 Patriot missiles this fiscal year. Demand will continue to be high in the Middle East as the Iranians continue their ballistic missile attacks. Allies and partners, particularly those in the Gulf region, will need their own resupply.
Terminal High-Altitude Aerial Defense (THAAD): There have been no new deliveries of THAAD interceptors since August 2023. Deliveries are set to resume by April 2027. A previous CSIS analysis estimated 534 interceptors to be in the U.S. inventory prior to the Twelve-Day War in June 2025, during which “more than 150” were reportedly
Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW), and Standoff Land Attack Missile-Expanded Response (SLAM-ER): These are short- to medium-range, air-launched ground-attack munitions with large inventories.
Low-cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS): This is an American clone of the Iranian Shahed drones. LUCAS has a long range and is inexpensive, though numbers are limited because the system entered service in 2025.
Equipment and Infrastructure Damage
At the time of the publication of CSIS’s 100-hour cost estimate, there were many unconfirmed reports of U.S. losses and damages. Three F-15s and one KC-135 remain the only U.S. equipment losses officially confirmed by U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). Overhead photographs have since become available, which enable some preliminary assessments of damage to U.S. bases. Details remain highly limited. The cost could be significantly higher depending on what equipment was inside the facilities that were struck. In our estimate, the satellite communication systems (“golf balls”) are the primary cost driver. CSIS awaits further information from the DOD. The aggregate cost estimate below includes the reported loss of at least one THAAD AN/TPY-2 radar and 11 Reaper drones.
Remote Visualization
The War Since the Sixth Day: Estimating Costs at Day 12
The DOD continues to release limited information about ongoing operations, making cost estimation difficult. The various, competing public reports on DOD-estimated war costs provide useful signals but lack the detail needed to develop a high-confidence estimate.
The costs of the war are not evenly distributed. The first several days were much more expensive than the subsequent days. U.S. forces appear to have heavily used high-end ground-attack munitions initially—as laid out in Table 2. CSIS’s 100-hour estimate was low, as the intense early use of air defense and exquisite strike munitions and the extent of the infrastructure damage exceeded initial assumptions. The use of high-cost ground attack munitions decreased when the U.S. coalition gained air superiority, which allowed the use of much less expensive munitions.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine indicated that U.S. forces had approached a “point of munitions transition” by the fourth day of Operation Epic Fury. Thus, the United States continues to fight with precision-guided munitions but predominantly with less expensive, shorter-range weapons that are more abundant in stockpiles. Hegseth reported that only 1 percent of munitions used by Day 14 were stand-off. CSIS’s 100-hour estimate placed the munitions transition point earlier in the campaign than subsequent DOD releases suggest.
To illustrate the magnitude of the change, a single Tomahawk missile costs around $3.5 million, whereas a BLU-110 bomb fitted with the JDAM guidance kit costs less than $100,000. Both accurately deliver 1,000-pound payloads.
The United States and its coalition partners also had to defend against attacks by large numbers of Iranian ballistic missiles and drones. These attacks declined by around 90 percent by Day 5, requiring many fewer interceptions. Nearly all of the casualties and damage to bases appear to have occurred during the first few days when attacks were heaviest. Damage to bases appears to have nearly stopped, with a concomitant decline in casualties. Here, our previous calculation gave coalition partners more credit for shooting down Iranian missiles and drones. DOD estimates reported following publication of the original estimate imply a far greater U.S. burden for air defense.
Keeping the assumptions about the U.S.-allied split in air defense and assuming more than 90 percent of munitions used after Day 5—“point of munitions transition”—to be low-cost weapons, Operation Epic Fury is estimated to have cost $16.5 billion by its twelfth day. This number includes the cost of operations—both budgeted and unbudgeted—and damages. War costs will increase by about half a billion dollars a day, unless one side significantly changes its activities or an outside event alters the war substantially. Figure 1 illustrates the daily cost of this war, showing the huge cost impact of the munitions shift, while Figure 2 illustrates the cumulative sum.
Remote Visualization
Remote Visualization
Looking Ahead
Total expenditures are large enough for the administration to ask Congress for additional funds. The internal trade-offs to cover war costs within the existing budget would be very difficult. In theory, Congress could redirect some of the $153 billion from the reconciliation bill toward Operation Epic Fury, but that would undermine the concept behind the increase: to build capability, not pay existing bills.
These estimates will not be the final word on war costs. The war, of course, continues, and surprises will occur. Further, these estimates do not include provisions for resupplying Israel, higher fuel costs across the DOD, or increased domestic security—all of which are likely to be included in a final government-wide tally. In addition, there will be future veterans’ benefits for injured service members, though these are not customarily recognized in current budgets.
Technical Note on the Calculations
This technical note provides additional details on the CSIS calculations. The starting point was the DOD’s officially released data. These provided the number of targets struck, the number of Iranian missile and drone attacks, and information to build the U.S. order of battle. News reports, known U.S. capacity, and past campaigns helped fill the gaps.
For Strike Munitions: Interpolating from CENTCOM updates, U.S. forces struck over 2,500 targets by the sixth day of the war. The calculations assumed 1.3 munitions per target based on past U.S. bombing campaigns fought entirely with precision munitions. This means that even for precision munitions, the ratio is not quite one target to one munition. It further assumes that 70 to 80 percent of munitions expended in the first three days of the campaign are exquisite and “mid-tier” ones to strike targets at standoff range.
For Air Defense Munitions: Estimates began with Admiral Cooper’s March 3 update, which reported more than 2,000 drone and 500 ballistic missile launches in less than 100 hours of the war. Cooper’s March 5 briefing and General Caine’s March 10 briefing indicated that launches had declined sharply—
by 83 percent for drone launches and 90 percent for ballistic missiles. These declines were driven by coalition attacks on launchers and inventories. More frequent updates from the Gulf states gave a sense of the trends of Iranian launch capacity in interpolating between the U.S. updates. The calculation assumed that the United States was responsible for shooting down half of incoming drones and ballistic missiles. A “shoot-look-shoot” shot doctrine was assumed for most U.S. air defenders. Coalition partners, by intercepting the remaining drones and ballistic missiles, greatly decreased U.S. costs.
For Cost of Replacing Munitions: FY 2026 budget documents provided the weapons costs. Munition costs assume a like-for-like replacement with items in production (e.g., SM-3 Block IIA for Block IB expended).
For the Cost of Operations and Support: Operating costs are based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, with an addition above the base amount to account for costs of a higher operational tempo.
CSIS continues to refine its methodology to account for additional information as it becomes available.
Mark F. Cancian (Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, ret.) is a senior adviser with the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Chris H. Park is a research associate for the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at CSIS.
The authors are grateful for the expeditious work by Madison Bruno and Julia Huh in editing and formatting this article.
If you are interested in learning more about this topic, explore CSIS’s Executive Education courses Meeting China’s Military Challenge and Inside DOD’s FY 2027 Budget.
전쟁 비용.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/iran-war-cost-estimate-update-113-billion-day-6-165-billion-day-12
Iran War Cost Estimate Update: $11.3 Billion at Day 6, $16.5 Billion at Day 12
This update uses the DOD-reported $11.3 billion war cost to calculate the impact on munition inventories. It also estimates the cost of combat losses and damage to bases ($1.7 billion) and the total cost over 12 days of Epic Fury ($16.5 billion).
www.csis.org
