The best missile defense is offsense: degrading the launchers, stockpiles and defense industrial base, with cheap stand-in munitions after SEAD, leveraging air and intelligence superiority. Expensive interceptors are only a stop-gap that buys you time for the offensive degradation. Expensive stand-off munitions, likewise, are a short-term stopgap until SEAD is complete.

Offense doesn't work at scale.

As the cost of drones goes to zero, the expected damage you take is roughly proportional to how much you have to lose. This means larger / richer economies cannot win these sorts of wars. To see what I mean, check out this desalination plant map:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/23/iran-threat-to...

It doesn't help if your commander in chief is incompetent and your invasion strategy involves treating desalination plants as legitimate military targets.

Of course, blowing up desalination plants in the middle east don't hurt the US all that much, but blowing up industrial supply chains does. We're something like 4 days away from a global chip manufacturing industry shut down (barring some logistic miracle, since we recently sold off our strategic helium reserves).

So what Iran did in the Gulf

Cheap drones overwhelming defenses until the billion dollar radars and airfields got hit.

Then methodically hit everything according to a plan that forces allied forces to retreat to reliable water sources.

Whatever one thinks of Iran, the way they're waging this war is a masterclass in strategy.