“The first six days of war in Iran cost U.S. taxpayers at least $11.3 billion in munitions alone, according to Pentagon estimates reviewed by lawmakers, and experts say the ongoing cost could increase exponentially. That total does not include the cost of operating and maintaining the military force engaged in the war or battle damage sustained from Iran’s attacks.
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While initial cost estimates of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were around $50 to $60 billion, they ended up costing a combined $8 trillion, according to analysis by Costs of War.”
W Bush focusing on fighting insurgencies while China was rising, led to the US not having the military industrial base and stockpiles of certain munitions. If the US uses too many munitions fighting Iran, it will be greatly weakened for a fight against China. This also weakens US deterrence against China.
However, if Iran is in too much chaos to pump oil, or if it is friendly enough with the US that in the event of a China-US war it would not sell oil to China, that would be a huge advantage in starving China of oil in the event of a war.
“In addition to easing weapons transfers, the agreement will open Saudi Arabia as a location to store U.S. weapons, and make the country eligible to bid on Pentagon maintenance and repair contracts and purchase depleted uranium ammunition.”
“The Pentagon has halted shipments of some air defense missiles and other precision munitions to Ukraine due to worries that U.S. weapons stockpiles have fallen too low.
The decision was driven by the Pentagon’s policy chief, Elbridge Colby, and was made after a review of Pentagon munitions stockpiles, leading to concerns that the total number of artillery rounds, air defense missiles and precision munitions was sinking, according to three people familiar with the issue.”
One aspect of the Israel-Iran war is supply of missiles and missile interceptors. The U.S. and Israel have limited interceptors and build them slowly. Iran has a variety of weapons, but only have two-thirds of their ballistic missiles left (most of the gone one-third being destroyed on the ground).