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The Price of Air Dominance: Cost, Attrition, and Sustainability in the U.S. Air Campaign Against Iran

Picture of Muhammad Waqas Haider

Muhammad Waqas Haider

Analysis Series

Analysis//0006/April/2026/London-Dialogue. 21 April 2026

Introduction

The 2026 U.S. air campaign against Iran, widely referred to as Operation Epic Fury, offers a revealing case study in the changing economics of contemporary airpower. Although the campaign demonstrated the enduring reach, precision, and operational sophistication of U.S. forces, it also highlighted a harder truth that airpower practitioners have long understood but policymakers often understate, air dominance is neither costless nor permanent. It must be generated, protected, and sustained through a combination of expensive platforms, vulnerable enabling systems, complex logistics, and persistent operational risk.

For much of the post-Cold War period, American air campaigns encouraged a powerful assumption: that technological superiority could deliver rapid air superiority at relatively low cost. From Desert Storm to Kosovo and later in Iraq and Libya, U.S. and allied airpower frequently operated against degraded or quickly suppressed air defence networks. This experience shaped a broad expectation that modern Western airpower could achieve decisive strategic effects while absorbing minimal attrition. That expectation has become increasingly difficult to sustain.

Recent conflicts have challenged the permissive-war model. The war in Ukraine has underlined the resilience of layered ground-based air defence, the difficulty of suppressing mobile and adaptive systems, and the extent to which even advanced air forces must adjust to contested environments. The notional U.S. campaign against Iran appears to reinforce this lesson in a different but related context. Iran’s geography, missile inventory, dispersed strategic infrastructure, and long investment in air and missile defence all point to a battlespace in which operational success is possible, but never cheap. As Justin Bronk notes, modern integrated air defence systems (IADS) can significantly constrain even advanced air forces, forcing them into more resource-intensive and risk-managed operations.

The core issue is therefore not whether U.S. airpower can generate meaningful military effects against Iran. It can. The more important question is at what cost, over what duration, and with what strategic implications. This article argues that the cost of such a campaign should be understood across at least four dimensions: direct operational expenditure; attrition and material loss; the burden on enabling systems and logistics; and the broader strategic costs of sustaining air dominance under conditions of contestation. Taken together, these factors suggest that future high-end air campaigns will be defined less by the initial achievement of air superiority than by the ability to sustain it at acceptable cost.

The Iran campaign appears to confirm this shift. While operationally effective, it imposed substantial financial, material, and strategic costs, with important implications for the future of airpower.

The Financial Architecture of Modern Air Campaigns

Modern air warfare is expensive not simply because aircraft are costly, but because every sortie is embedded in a wider support architecture. Platform operating costs, maintenance requirements, munitions expenditure, fuel consumption, tanker support, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, battle management, and force protection all contribute to the true cost of a campaign.

At the platform level, the burden is already substantial. Public U.S. oversight reporting has repeatedly highlighted the significant sustainment costs associated with advanced aircraft such as the F-35. Fourth-generation aircraft such as the F-15E may in some cases be cheaper to operate per hour, but they also require protection, support, and mission tailoring in contested environments that can narrow any notional savings. The relevant point is not the exact hourly figure for one aircraft versus another, but that high-tempo air operations consume resources at a scale that grows rapidly when a campaign becomes prolonged. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the F-35A costs approximately $33,000 per flight hour, while the F-15E costs around $29,000. When multiplied across high sortie rates, these costs escalate rapidly.

Munitions expenditure is equally significant. In a contested campaign, the use of precision-guided munitions and stand-off strike weapons is not simply a doctrinal preference; it is often a necessity. Suppression of enemy air defences, attacks against hardened or dispersed infrastructure, and long-range strikes from outside high-threat envelopes all increase dependence on expensive weapons. Cruise missiles, air-launched precision munitions, electronic attack payloads, and decoys together account for a large share of the campaign cost.  Tomahawk cruise missiles cost approximately $1.5-2 million per unit, while JDAM kits range from $25,000 to $85,000. In high-tempo operations, munitions expenditure alone can reach hundreds of millions of dollars. When operations are sustained over weeks rather than days, this becomes not only a fiscal issue but a stockpile issue.

There is also a tendency in public discussion to separate operational costs from strategic effects, as though the former were merely an accounting matter. In reality, cost shapes strategy. A campaign that relies heavily on scarce high-end munitions, intensive tanker support, and repeated long-range strike packages imposes burdens that constrain future options. The economic dimension of airpower is therefore not peripheral to strategy; it is part of strategy.

Table 1: Cost Structure of High-Intensity Air Campaigns, Author compilation based on GAO (2023) and CBO (2021)

Cost Element

Estimated Cost

Operational Role

F-35A Flight Hour

~$33,000

Strike, ISR, EW

F-15E Flight Hour

~$29,000

Strike / interdiction

MQ-9 Reaper

~$3,500–4,000/hour

ISR / precision strike

Tomahawk Missile

~$1.5–2 million

Long-range strike

JDAM

~$25,000–85,000

Tactical strike

Tanker Operations

High variable cost

Force projection

Attrition and the Return of Costly Warfare

A defining feature of the campaign was the re-emergence of attrition as a structural reality. It may not resemble the mass losses of industrial-era air war, but attrition in contemporary conflict still matters because today’s platforms are fewer, more expensive, and more operationally central. Losses, particularly among UAVs and enabling platforms, highlight the persistence of risk even for advanced forces. Analysis of the Ukraine war demonstrates that layered and adaptive air defence systems impose enduring constraints on airpower.⁴ RUSI studies further emphasise the continued effectiveness of ground-based air defences in limiting operational freedom.⁵ Attrition generates both direct costs (replacement, repair) and indirect costs (reduced availability, maintenance burden, logistical strain). Even limited losses can disrupt operational tempo and degrade overall effectiveness.

In any sustained campaign against Iran, attrition would likely be uneven rather than catastrophic. One would expect the greatest vulnerability not necessarily among the most advanced penetrating aircraft, but among enabling and support systems: drones, ISR platforms, refuelling aircraft, transport nodes, expeditionary basing infrastructure, and command-and-control networks. Even limited losses in these categories can produce outsized operational effects.

This is a critical point. The cost of attrition is not only measured by replacement value. It is also measured in disrupted sortie generation, reduced targeting fidelity, longer mission cycles, increased maintenance strain, and greater exposure of the remaining force. Damage to one tanker or the degradation of one operating base may affect dozens of downstream sorties. The air campaign becomes more expensive not merely because assets are lost, but because the entire system becomes less efficient under pressure.

This is where friction re-enters the analysis. High-end air warfare is often discussed in terms of clean effects: strike this node, suppress that radar, destroy this launcher. But actual campaigns are shaped by uncertainty, weather, maintenance failures, routing changes, base vulnerability, coalition coordination issues, and the need to re-attack or revalidate targets. These frictions increase cost even when losses remain limited. A campaign against Iran would likely reveal this dynamic in full.

Table 2. Categories of Cost in a High-Intensity Air Campaign.

Cost Category

What It Includes

Why It Matters

Platform operating cost

Flight hours, maintenance, parts, manpower

Drives daily campaign expenditure

Precision munitions

Cruise missiles, stand-off weapons, guided bombs

High unit cost and stockpile pressure

Enabling systems

Tankers, ISR, airborne command and control, EW

Essential for reach, awareness, and survivability

Attrition and repair

Damaged aircraft, lost drones, base disruption

Reduces force availability and increases replacement burden

Enabling systems

Tankers, ISR, airborne command and control, EW

Essential for reach, awareness, and survivability

Attrition and repair

Damaged aircraft, lost drones, base disruption

Reduces force availability and increases replacement burden

(Source: Author’s synthesis based on publicly available analysis from the U.S. Department of Defense, RAND Corporation, and NATO on contested air operations and modern airpower.)

The Cost of Enabling Airpower

Airpower is often publicly represented through visible strike aircraft, but its effectiveness rests on a much less visible web of enablers. Refuelling aircraft extends range and loiter time. ISR systems identify and monitor targets. Airborne command-and-control assets manage the battlespace. Electronic warfare platforms reduce threat effectiveness. Space-based support provides communications, navigation, and geolocation. None of these are incidental. All are necessary.

A campaign against Iran would place extraordinary pressure on this enabling architecture. Distances are significant. Threats to fixed basing are real. Tanker tracks would need to be carefully managed. ISR persistence would be essential both for dynamic targeting and for battle damage assessment. If adversary missiles, drones, or sabotage operations degraded even part of this architecture, the cost of maintaining operational tempo would increase sharply.

This is one of the central paradoxes of modern airpower. Advanced platforms promise greater reach and survivability, yet they also depend on a wider and more expensive ecosystem of support. The result is that the campaign’s real centre of gravity may lie less in the strike aircraft themselves than in the resilience of the supporting network. If that network is strained, the cost of each marginal effect rises. The same logic applies to basing. Distributed and resilient basing is often presented as a solution to vulnerability, and in strategic terms it is. But dispersal is not free. It multiplies logistics, demands more force protection, complicates maintenance, and raises the coordination burden across the theatre. In other words, sustainability requires resilience, and resilience itself carries cost.

Operational Tempo and the Economics of Persistence

A defining challenge in any air campaign is the relationship between tempo and sustainability. High sortie generation creates military pressure but also accelerates wear, consumes munitions, increases maintenance demands, and raises cumulative exposure to risk. For short campaigns, this may be acceptable. For prolonged campaigns, it becomes a major strategic variable. This is especially relevant in a conflict against Iran. If early strikes fail to produce rapid operational collapse, the campaign shifts from a model of shock to a model of persistence. Persistence is expensive. Aircraft require deeper maintenance cycles. Crews experience fatigue. Tanker demand remains high. Spare parts and weapons inventories come under pressure. Adversaries adapt, relocate, conceal, repair, and disperse. The cost of sustaining operational effect increases over time, not decreases.

The lesson here is not that operational tempo should be avoided. It is that tempo cannot be understood independently of campaign duration. A force designed for intense opening strikes may not be equally well optimised for a longer war of sustained suppression, re-attack, and defensive counter-air support. This distinction matters strategically because many Western assumptions about airpower still privilege rapid paralysis over prolonged competition.

Table 3. Operational Trade-Offs in Permissive and Contested Air Campaigns

Variable

More Permissive Environment

Contested Environment

Sortie generation

High and sustained with lower risk

High demand but increasingly constrained

Cost per effect

Lower relative cost

Higher due to support, routing, and munitions burden

Platform survivability

Greater confidence in forward employment

Conditional and threat-dependent

Reliance on enablers

Important but less stressed

Critical and highly vulnerable

Time to strategic effect

Often shorter

Frequently longer and more uneven

Stockpile pressure

Manageable

High, especially for precision weapons

(Source: Author’s synthesis based on publicly available analysis from the U.S. Department of Defense, RAND Corporation, and NATO on contested air operations and modern airpower.)

Cost Imposition as Strategy

From the adversary’s perspective, the purpose of air defence may not be to deny air access outright. It may instead be to make access costly enough to shape political decision-making, limit tempo, reduce freedom of manoeuvre, and complicate coalition planning. This is the logic of cost imposition. Iran has long invested in layered defensive measures, missile forces, strategic dispersal, and infrastructure hardening. Even where these measures do not prevent a strike, they can force the attacker into more expensive methods of war. Long-range launches replace shorter-range strikes. More escorts and support assets are required. More ISR is needed. More decoys and suppression missions must be flown. The attacking force still delivers effects, but at a higher price.

This is strategically important because cost imposition need not produce tactical parity to generate political leverage. If an adversary can raise the cost curve of U.S. operations, extend campaign duration, and create visible evidence of friction or attrition, it can affect deterrence calculations and domestic political confidence even while suffering heavy military damage itself. In this sense, the economics of airpower become part of the strategic contest. The question is not simply who can strike harder, but who can sustain the exchange longer, absorb disruption better, and preserve credibility under conditions of mounting cost.

The Informational and Political Cost of Air Campaigns

Modern air campaigns unfold under intense informational scrutiny. Tactical incidents, platform damage, base strikes, and drone losses are quickly translated into narratives about technological superiority, vulnerability, escalation, and strategic momentum. These narratives matter. For the United States, the political appeal of airpower has often rested partly on the assumption of limited friendly losses. That assumption becomes more difficult to sustain in a campaign marked by attrition, disruption, and visible operational strain. Even modest losses may have an outsized informational impact when they involve advanced platforms or iconic capabilities.

Adversaries understand this. Tactical effects are therefore paired with information operations designed to magnify the symbolic meaning of relatively limited military events. A damaged high-end aircraft, a disrupted tanker operation, or a successful strike against a regional base can all be framed as evidence that U.S. dominance is eroding. Whether or not that claim is militarily decisive, it imposes political cost. This is one reason why campaign cost should be understood holistically. Expenditure and attrition are only part of the total burden. Reassuring allies, maintaining escalation control, managing public narratives, and preserving deterrence credibility all draw on political capital. A campaign that remains militarily effective but becomes politically more expensive over time may still be strategically constrained.

Rethinking Air Dominance

The central implication of the Iran campaign is not that airpower has lost relevance. On the contrary, airpower remains indispensable. It offers speed, reach, precision, flexibility, and strategic signalling that few other instruments can match. But its conditions of employment have changed. Air dominance should no longer be conceptualised as a stable wartime possession achieved early and held at marginal cost. It is better understood as a temporary and localised advantage that must be continuously generated through suppression, protection, adaptation, logistics, and expenditure. This places a premium on resilience as much as on lethality.

For practitioners, this has several implications. First, campaign planning should place greater emphasis on sustainment, not merely opening-phase success. Second, enabling systems deserve greater attention in force design and operational protection. Third, stockpile sufficiency and repair capacity must be treated as strategic issues. Fourth, political leaders should be more cautious about assuming that technologically advanced airpower can deliver decisive outcomes without enduring financial and material burden.

Conclusion

The 2026 U.S. air campaign against Iran illustrates a defining reality of contemporary warfare: air dominance remains possible, but it is increasingly expensive to produce and sustain. Its cost is measured not only in flight hours and munitions expenditure but also in attrition, enabling-system vulnerability, stockpile pressure, informational exposure, and strategic endurance. For airpower practitioners, this is not an argument against the use of airpower. It is an argument for a more realistic understanding of its economics. Future campaigns will not be judged solely by whether air superiority is achieved but by whether it can be sustained at acceptable cost against adaptive adversaries over time. That is the real price of air dominance. It is not simply what is spent to gain it but what must be absorbed to keep it.

Muhammad Waqas Haider is a Research Fellow at London Dialogue

This article draws on open-source reporting and should be read as an analytical interpretation rather than a definitive operational account.

Picture of Muhammad Waqas Haider

Muhammad Waqas Haider

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