With more missiles everywhere, everyone needs more to knock them down

(Originally published July 1 in “What in the World“) The U.S. Army ordered up 870 more Patriot missiles for $4.5 billion.

Each of the missiles, the latest PAC-3 models, costs $4 million. Do the math, and you’re left with more than $1 billion of additional costs for parts and labor for their manufacturer. While RTX (the company formerly known as Raytheon) makes the Patriot battery, Lockheed Martin makes the missiles they fire. The PAC-3 differs from previous models in that it uses “hit-to-kill” technology: whereas older Patriots blew up very close to incoming missiles and thus destroyed them, the PAC-3 is so accurate it bangs right into the approaching target, meaning it requires less explosive force.

One potential target are North Korean missiles. Pyongyang fired one, maybe two, ballistic missile Monday morning into its long-time enemy, the ocean. It said the launches were to protest military exercises over the weekend between the United States, Japan, and South Korea. Those militaries have already finished up those drills and are off to Hawaii to take part in the 29-nation Rimpac exercises, which run throughout the month of July.

Fresh from signing a mutual defense treaty with Russia, North Korea claimed last week to have successfully tested a multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle, or MIRV—basically a ballistic missile that releases several nuclear bombs that can each hit a separate target. But South Korea said the test had failed.

Ukraine is also in desperate need of Patriots as Russia steps up its bombardment of Ukrainian cities. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is still urging U.S President Joe Biden to lift restrictions on using long-range American Atacms to hit targets across the border inside Russia.

While Biden has agreed to let Ukraine use other U.S.-supplied weapons to strike targets in Russia, he has maintained his prohibition on using the Atacms. Zelensky wants to use them to strike Russian airbases that are out of range of the other missiles fired by his U.S.-made Himars and M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, or Mlrs.

The U.S. is also re-routing deliveries of new Patriots to its other allies to Ukraine to help it fend off the Russian assault.

The mutual defense treaty with Pyongyang was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s way of responding to Biden’s 10-year security agreement with Ukraine. Putin has also vowed to retaliate against moves by the U.S. and its European allies to let Kyiv use their weapons against targets inside Russia, suggesting he might aim missiles at targets inside members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. On Friday, he reiterated that threat, saying Russia planned to manufacture new intermediate-range nuclear missiles and might then aim that at U.S. allies in Europe or the Pacific.

U.S. diplomats, meanwhile, are scurrying to talk Israel and Hezbollah from launching a new war in southern Lebanon. Both sides have been stepping up retaliatory strikes in recent weeks, as Hezbollah fires rockets into northern Israel to support Hamas in Gaza, Israel responds with air strikes, Hezbollah counters with more rockets, and so on, and so on. With Israel now mopping up in Gaza, it has directed more firepower against Hezbollah. The U.S. fears a war in southern Lebanon would draw Iran directly into the conflict, as it appeared to have done in April when Tehran launched a massive wave of drones and missiles against Israel.