The United States’ strategic bomber fleet and critical military infrastructure remain acutely vulnerable to coordinated drone assaults akin to Ukraine’s unprecedented 1 June attacks on Russian airfields, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The assessment follows Kyiv’s Operation Spiderweb penetrating deep into Russian territory, striking air bases with drones concealed within transport trucks.
The US faces threats beyond ballistic missiles, from drones and surveillance balloons to submarine-launched cruise missiles. Moreover, US officials are concerned about the concentration of shrinking strategic bomber fleet, now about one-third the size of the Cold War, in limited facilities, echoing vulnerabilities identified in a recent Hudson Institute report.
The sobering analysis coincides with White House confirmation that President Donald Trump will shortly sign executive orders addressing emergent asymmetric threats. Press Secretary Caroline Levitt stated measures would focus on preventing attacks similar to Ukraine’s strike on Russia’s airfields.
Ukraine’s operation – eighteen months in planning – saw drones smuggled inside wooden mobile homes, with roofs opening remotely for simultaneous launches against military airfields in Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan, and Amur regions.
This aligns with Trump’s planned $175-billion Golden Dome missile defence initiative, incorporating land, sea, and space-based technologies alongside directed-energy weapons like those deployed by Israel.
“Isn’t in Ukraine’s favour”
Amidst US vulnerability debates, Politico delivered a sobering assessment of Ukraine’s own defensive prospects. Despite Kyiv’s audacious deep-strike success, Russia retains overwhelming quantitative superiority in missile production that threatens to exhaust Ukrainian air defences.
The military trend is still in the Kremlin’s favor, with or without harsher economic sanctions.
Russia’s planned 2025 production of approximately 3,000 long-range missiles, including 750 Iskander ballistic missiles and over 560 Kh-101 cruise missiles, dwarfs Ukraine’s finite interceptor inventory. Current intelligence suggests fewer than 200 operational Patriot missiles remain in Ukrainian stocks, with batteries frequently requiring two interceptors to destroy a single incoming ballistic projectile.
With just eight Patriot systems deployed – typically only six functional simultaneously – and Lockheed Martin producing only about 600 missiles annually, resupply cannot match attrition, Politico reports.
Even if Trump were to replenish the stock, or allow Ukraine to buy more missiles and batteries, Lockheed Martin only plans to boost missile output to 600 or so per year, and even a sympathetic [US] administration wouldn’t want all of them transferred to Ukraine.
This imbalance compels Ukrainian commanders to prioritise offensive actions against bomber bases and missile storage sites. As Russia accelerates drone and missile output, Ukraine’s air defence umbrella becomes increasingly vulnerable to constant shelling.
The juxtaposition of these assessments reveals a defining paradox in contemporary warfare: Kyiv’s demonstrated capacity to execute sophisticated, long-range drone operations against a major power simultaneously underscores its own existential defensive shortfalls – and mirrors vulnerabilities now acknowledged within the US itself.
