For decades, Washington has been weaving the costliest shroud of steel in human history. Between the shadows of eleven carrier strike groups and a global web of outposts, the U.S. erected a fortress that seemed unassailable — a $1 trillion monument to military dominance. But as Operation Epic Fury enters its tenth day of relentless escalation this Tuesday, March 10, that investment is facing a brutal audit. The opening nine days of this conflict have revealed a searing truth: formidable machines are not necessarily durable ones, and sophisticated weapons are not necessarily sustainable ones.
The numbers are now on the table. Let us read them without flinching.
$891 million a day — and that is just the opening act
When the United States and Israel launched coordinated strikes on Iran on 1 March 2026, the financial clock started ticking at a rate that would have seemed implausible even to seasoned defence economists. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the first 100 hours of Operation Epic Fury cost Washington an estimated $3.7 billion — or $891.4 million per day. Of that sum, $3.5 billion was unbudgeted. The Pentagon spent money it had not been allocated, at a pace it cannot sustain without a supplemental appropriation from a Congress already anxious about a federal deficit approaching $2 trillion.
The cost breakdown is instructive. The single largest line item is munitions replenishment. CSIS estimates that the U.S. expended more than 2,000 munitions in the first 100 hours, and that restocking those weapons on a like-for-like basis would cost approximately $3.1 billion — with the replenishment bill rising by $758 million for every additional day of operations. A B-2 Spirit costs $2.1 billion per airframe to replace. A single Tomahawk runs to approximately $2 million. A THAAD interceptor costs $15 million. A Patriot PAC-3 costs $4 million. None of these are being manufactured fast enough to keep pace with consumption.
By Day 8, the Pentagon was already preparing a $50 billion supplemental budget request to replace Tomahawk and Patriot missiles, THAAD interceptors, and damaged equipment. War Secretary Pete Hegseth has publicly stated that the bombardment is “about to surge dramatically,” with more bomber sorties and more defensive capabilities to follow. If that surge materialises at a comparable burn rate, the financial pressure on Washington will become a domestic political liability of the first order.
Israel’s arithmetic: $3 billion a week — and a second front
Israel entered this conflict already carrying the financial weight of two and a half years of near-continuous warfare. The Bank of Israel has estimated total war-related costs since October 2023 at approximately $112 billion — a figure that encompasses direct military expenditure, civilian displacement, lost economic output, and the staggering cost of air defence operations during the June 2025 twelve-day conflict with Iran.
The current phase is more expensive still. Israel’s Finance Ministry warned on 4 March 2026 that under nationwide red-alert restrictions — schools closed, workplaces shuttered, reservists mobilised — the weekly cost to the economy was running at NIS 9.4 billion, or approximately $3 billion per week. Finance Ministry Finance Ministry Director General Ilan Rom addressed the IDF Home Front Command with a blunt warning, noting that “shutting down the economy on a broad scale carries heavy economic costs.” After two and a half years of an economy paying a “heavy price” for security, Rom is now pushing for a partial reopening as early as Thursday, signaling that the financial front is nearing a breaking point.
Then, on Day 7, Hezbollah broke its ceasefire. Israel is now fighting on two fronts simultaneously, with major operations in Lebanon ongoing since the Lebanese proxy group launched retaliatory rocket volleys at Israel. At least four people were killed in central Beirut after an Israeli strike hit a hotel building on 8 March. The second front does not merely add to the financial burden — it multiplies the operational strain on an IDF already committed to a sustained air campaign over Iran, ballistic missile production site strikes, and the destruction of more than 300 Iranian missile launchers, of which the IDF claims over 60 percent have been “neutralised.”
Israel’s defence spending, already at approximately 9 percent of GDP, is now projected to rise further. Long-term estimates suggest the total cost of this conflict could reach $159 billion over the next decade, factoring in reconstruction, veterans’ care, and the sustained elevated posture that any post-conflict security environment will demand.
The hidden bill: what Iran did to the network
The most consequential cost of this conflict is not the one that appears in any budget line. It is the cost of what Iran did, methodically and with evident premeditation, to the communications and sensor architecture that makes American military power cohere.
The New York Times, drawing on satellite imagery and verified video, reported on 3 March 2026 that Iranian strikes had damaged structures at or near communication and radar systems on at least seven U.S. military sites across five countries — Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. These were not random acts of retaliation. They were a systematic targeting of the C2 layer: the radomes, SATCOM terminals, and early-warning radars that allow the U.S. military to see, communicate, and coordinate as a single integrated system.
CNN’s investigation, updated on 6 March and supported by satellite imagery, confirmed that the AN/TPY-2 radar — the heart of the THAAD missile defence battery — had been struck and apparently destroyed at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, at THAAD sites near Al Ruwais and Al Sader in the UAE, and at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. The AN/TPY-2 costs just under $500 million per unit and, according to munitions specialist N.R. Jenzen-Jones of Armament Research Services, “cannot be easily replaced.” Bloomberg confirmed the additional loss of the AN/FPS-132 early-warning radar at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, valued at approximately $1.1 billion.
The total bill for infrastructure losses in the first four days of Iranian counter-strikes exceeds $2 billion — before a single replacement order has been placed. By Day 7, Iran had also struck the CIA’s station in Saudi Arabia, putting it “completely out of action,” according to The War Zone. An Iranian drone attack on Dubai’s international airport appeared to target the air traffic control tower — a blow to both military air defence architecture and civilian aviation simultaneously.
This is the doctrine that Iran has been developing for thirty years. Not to match American firepower — that was never the point — but to identify the connective tissue of American military power and sever it, base by base, in five countries simultaneously. The result is not a defeated military. It is a temporarily blinded one, with interceptors it cannot guide and networks it must rebuild.
The Hormuz factor: when the war becomes a global crisis
As we enter the tenth day of the conflict, the Strait of Hormuz — the jugular vein of the global energy market — is experiencing what The War Zone describes as “a heart attack of sorts.” With Iran’s Revolutionary Guards threatening to “set ablaze” any vessel in the channel, the flow of a fifth of the world’s oil and LNG has effectively seized up.
The numbers coming out of Wall Street are staggering. Goldman Sachs warned on March 8 that oil prices could breach $100 per barrel within days and reach $150 per barrel by month’s end. The supply shock is now estimated to be 17 times larger than the peak impact of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. While oil sat at $60 at the start of the year, it has already surged past $94 on weekend markets.
The crisis is moving from the sea to the shore. Qatar’s Energy Minister, Saad Al-Kaabi, cautioned that Gulf energy exporters may be forced to shut down production within weeks, as storage limits are reached. The White House’s proposed countermeasures — emergency reserves and insurance subsidies — were dismissed by CSIS senior fellow Clayton Seigle as insufficient: none of these measures would offset the loss of 20 million barrels of oil per day.
A sustained oil price above $100 per barrel would accelerate U.S. inflation, slow growth, and erode the domestic political support that any extended military campaign requires. For Israel, which imports virtually all of its energy, the secondary effects compound an already strained fiscal position. With the economy running on a red-alert deficit and the energy lifeline under threat, the “Iron Dome” of Israeli finance may be the first to show cracks, long before the military theater reaches a conclusion.
The China dimension: calculation over impotence
While the G7 calls emergency meetings, Beijing’s conspicuous absence at the table tells the real story. China finds itself in a structural contradiction: a blockade hurts its energy supply, yet reopening the Strait would mean bailing out a U.S. military operation it has publicly condemned.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s rhetoric on March 8 focused on the humanitarian toll, warning that “the Middle East is engulfed in flames.” But beneath the diplomatic concern lies a colder reality. As Evan Feigenbaum of the Carnegie Endowment noted in his March 2 analysis, Beijing’s restraint is not impotence — it is a deliberate calculation. China’s refusal to act as a traditional security provider is a matter of strategic design. By letting Washington get bogged down in an Iranian quagmire, Beijing gains strategic breathing room in the Pacific without firing a single shot. The sighting of a Chinese bulk carrier transiting the Strait this week, flag prominently displayed, was the ultimate signal: Beijing will negotiate selective passage for itself rather than take sides for the world.
Can they sustain this? The hard audit
For the United States, the question is not financial, but industrial and political. While a $1 trillion budget provides a fiscal cushion, the reality on the ground is one of “allied improvisation.” With THAAD inventories depleted and production gaps stretching to 2027, Washington is already forced to lean on South Korean missiles to plug gaps in the Gulf.
Domestically, the clock is ticking. With 56% of Americans opposing the campaign and the S&P 500 now pricing in stagflation, the “blank check” for Operation Epic Fury is starting to bounce. As oil crosses $103, the political mandate is narrowing faster than the military’s mission is expanding.
For Israel, the strain is existential. Managing three fronts while defense spending consumes 9% of GDP is a feat of endurance that cannot last indefinitely. The Finance Ministry’s warning is clear: a small economy cannot survive in a state of permanent “red alert.”
The bottom line
Ten days in, the war has defied every neat projection. With Iran’s leadership fractured — Khamenei reportedly dead and the IRGC increasingly calling the shots — the CIA’s pre-war warning looms large: favorable regime change is “unlikely,” regardless of the military force applied.
Washington and Jerusalem can afford this war — for now. But when Goldman Sachs warns of $150 oil, and the Strait of Hormuz is reduced to a trickle, the financial ledger becomes the least of their problems. The true price of this hegemony isn’t measured in dollars, but in the rapid erosion of the very stability it was meant to protect.
The question remains: At what cumulative price, and toward what defined end?