In modern conflicts, the cost of operating an advanced air force can easily exceed hundreds of millions per day, especially when cutting-edge fighters, mid-air refueling and precision-guided munitions are involved. Added to this is that some key systems, such as strategic radars or early warning aircraft, require years to manufacture and have no immediate substitutes. In this context, there are wars in which attrition is not measured only in territory, but in how long that pace can be sustained before the accounts stop adding up.
In Iran, for example, they had been shot.
A show of force. The United States’ Operation Epic Fury on Iran began with the idea of a rapid and controlled campaign, but very soon its true face was revealed after episodes such as the last downing of the F-15E and the complex rescue operation that followed, where the United States has had to deploy multiple means and assume additional losses, even destroying its own equipment to avoid its capture.
These types of incidents have shown from the beginning that the conflict was far from surgical and that the level of operational risk was much higher than expected. As the days progressed, the narrative of technological superiority began to collide with the reality of a saturated, chaotic and increasingly expensive environment to sustain.
Military wear. The accumulated figures show significant attrition on key platforms, from fighters such as the F-15E or A-10 to critical assets such as early warning aircraft and tankers, in addition to dozens of downed drones. Especially worrying for the Americans has been the impact on support systems such as advanced radars or command infrastructures, the loss of which not only has a high economic cost, but also weakens future operational capacity in other strategic scenarios.
Plus: Added to this are errors such as episodes of friendly fire and the vulnerability of apparently secure bases, which reinforces the idea that the campaign not only consumes resources, but also erodes capabilities that are difficult to replace.
The number that explains everything. However, the real turning point is not only on the battlefield, but in the accounts: the war has reached a spending rate close to 1 billion dollars a day in air operations alone, an absurdity that shoots the total cost above 280 billion dollars in just 40 days.
Added to this are tens of billions in ammunition, damage to bases, losses of aircraft and a devastating impact on key energy infrastructures in the Gulf, which have paralyzed part of the global supply and raised the bill even further. The result is an extraordinarily expensive and useless war, possibly the most economically, because in a few weeks a level of expenditure and destruction has been reached that in other conflicts took years, and that is unprecedented. Not only that. A war that, despite all this deployment, has not achieved any of its strategic objectives, becoming an extreme example of imbalance between investment and results.
Overflowing the military field. The impact is not limited to the military: attacks on refineries, gas plants, export terminals and industrial centers have turned the conflict into a regional economic crisis with global effects, from energy to inflation.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has amplified the damage, affecting a substantial part of the world’s oil and gas supply, while sectors such as aluminum, logistics and transportation have suffered multibillion-dollar losses. In parallel, the need to repair critical infrastructure and replace scarce equipment adds additional pressure that extends the cost far beyond the conflict itself.
The ceasefire: more economics than strategy. In this context, the ultimatum issued by Trump ensuring that he was going to end an entire civilization and his subsequent reversal a few hours before the deadline take on a new meaning: more than a purely strategic decision, the ceasefire seems to be understood as a response to an unbearable and unsustainable dynamic.
International pressure, nervousness in the markets and fear of a total escalation coincided with a reality that was difficult to ignore: each additional day of war multiplied an already overwhelmed cost without bringing victory closer. Thus, the last-minute pause has not only prevented a further escalation, but has also exposed the logic that has ended up prevailing: in this war, the problem was not how to win, but how much more could one continue paying for not doing so.
Imagen | The White House, Egyosint
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