TEHRAN – Iran has rapidly adapted its missile and drone tactics during the recent war with the United States, increasingly challenging American air defenses across West Asia as Washington's stockpile of Patriot interceptors comes under growing pressure, according to a report by The New York Times.

During five days of intense attacks last month, Iran launched waves of drones and missiles against U.S. forces stationed at three bases in Jordan. Using advanced missiles capable of suddenly changing course, Iran pummeled the bases' defensive systems, forcing the Americans to burn through scarce supplies of Patriot interceptors.

On July 17, an Iranian missile penetrated those defenses and struck prefabricated housing units at one of the bases, killing three U.S. soldiers and wounding more than 100 others. Pentagon officials later acknowledged that scores of other troops were injured and several aircraft were damaged in attacks in Jordan that week.

The strikes reveal a deadly confluence of two important trends: Iran has become a more skilled adversary as the war has progressed, learning how to evade U.S. air defenses as it widened the battlefield to include most of West Asia. Second, the Pentagon's supply of interceptors has quickly dwindled, with the weapons becoming more precious each day of the off-and-on war.

Citing two people briefed on U.S. stockpile levels, The New York Times reported that the Pentagon has used more than 1,500 Patriot interceptors during the war and has fewer than 1,700 remaining. The United States produced roughly 600 Patriot interceptors throughout 2025.

On one day during the deadly week last month, according to two U.S. officials, American forces in West Asia fired about 50 Patriot interceptors, each costing approximately $4 million.

The rapid depletion is occurring as Iranian forces study another war. In Ukraine, Russia has used combinations of ballistic and cruise missiles to distract Ukrainian air defenses, and then rushed in drones.

"The Iranians are making it more difficult on air defenses when you have a range of both missiles and drones coming in," said Seth G. Jones, the president of the defense and security department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "They have effectively leveraged the Russian tactic to make it more difficult to protect across locations in the Persian Gulf."

The Pentagon has continued to face a powerful adversary, which it has tried to minimize, in the months since major combat ended in early April. War secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters on April 8 that Iran's missile program was "functionally destroyed," that its launchers and missiles were "depleted and decimated and almost completely ineffective."

President Trump and his national security advisers assumed the fight would be short and would not jeopardize the Pentagon's stockpiles of Patriot interceptors, said Vali Nasr, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. 

But Tehran, he and other Iran experts say, had been waiting for this moment since the war began more than five months ago. During a 12-day war in June 2025, Iran's leaders had seen how quickly Israeli and American forces burned through ballistic missile interceptors to confront barrages of Iranian drones and missiles.

Iran's deadliest strikes against U.S. forces in Jordan targeted Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Azraq, a Jordanian military installation that the U.S. Air Force has increasingly used as a major hub for dozens of aircraft and several thousand service members. Many U.S. troops previously stationed in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates were moved before and during the war to bases like Muwaffaq Salti in Jordan that were farther from Iran and deemed safer from drone and ballistic attacks.

In the days immediately after the strike on July 17, American military commanders strengthened air defenses in Jordan and elsewhere in the region, said a senior U.S. military official, who declined to provide more details. U.S. military specialists studying drone and missile attacks in Ukraine have been working with Central Command for months, sharing lessons learned. Two of the three soldiers killed in Jordan were assigned to air defense units based in Germany.

In late July, Trump asked Hegseth about the dwindling American weapons supplies, U.S. officials said, confirming reporting by The Washington Post. The Pentagon has maintained publicly that it does not have a shortfall. 

Two weeks ago, Trump called off bombing raids against Iran after he claimed the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar had asked him to pursue diplomatic talks. With the United States running low on interceptors and Iran demonstrating that it could pierce those defenses, the threat of serious damage was very real, the New York Times wrote.

The Jordan attack was not the first time Iran adapted its tactics. In April, Iran shot down an American F-15E fighter jet over southern Iran with a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile. The crew said the F-15E's defensive countermeasures provided only half a second of warning before the $60 million jet was hit. 

American military officials concluded that drones fed three critical pieces of information to Iranian commanders: the aircraft's GPS location, speed and direction. Trump announced a "pause" in the fighting shortly after.

When Yemeni forces entered the war last month, experts said it signaled Iran's intention to force the United States and its allies to defend themselves from aerial attacks from all directions.  

Brigadier General Muhammad-Reza Naqdi, a senior advisor to the IRGC commander-in-chief, said Iran's production of ballistic missiles exceeds deployment rates. "We produce ballistic missiles at a rate exceeding the one at which they are deployed," Naqdi said. 

"In the drone sector too, our production capacity is far greater than the rate at which the aircraft are deployed."

He added that Iran could sustain retaliatory strikes even during prolonged engagement: "Even if the war lasts for several years, our ballistic missiles will continue to rain down on the enemy." 

Naqdi noted that the U.S. military budget is "one hundred times larger" than Iran's. He also said the IRGC has been tasked with developing the capability to conduct operations on enemy territory. 

"We must be capable of taking operations into enemy territory and conducting them on the enemy's soil, far from our own territory," he said.

In a separate interview with PBS, Naqdi said the U.S.-Israeli aggression against Iran has exposed the U.S. military as "weaker than what we perceived," stressing that Iran emerged victorious after defeating Washington's main objectives.

"In these five months, we have also seen how the American military is weaker than what we perceived," he said. 

Naqdi stressed that Iran has won the war, saying the longer it lasts, the more experience Iran gains. "Certainly, victory is on our side, after the defeat of America's two main objectives, the toppling of the leadership and the breaking up of Iran."

He said the U.S. response was marked by "confusion and bewilderment," stating that Washington lacked a clear strategy and repeatedly changed its objectives. 

He pointed to U.S. threats to invade Kharg Island and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as well as the mobilization of U.S. warships, saying Iran emerged victorious from each attempt. "Everything they tried, we can show how we were victorious."

He dismissed U.S. and Israeli efforts to count Iran's missiles, saying the country is capable of producing more missiles each day than it launches. "Even if this war lasts for years, until the last day, Iran's rockets will be launched," he said. 

He warned that even if Iran were to run out of missiles, the country would pose an even greater danger to the U.S. because of Washington's extensive economic interests around the world.