EditWho is winning? U.S. intelligence reveals partial, not decisive, degradation of Iran’s missile arsenal
A parallel assessment applies to Iran's drone fleet, where confirmed destruction also hovers around one-third
One month into the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran – codenamed Operation Epic Fury by U.S. Central Command – the Trump administration’s public narrative of near-total success stands in sharp contrast to the more cautious, incomplete picture painted by U.S. intelligence assessments.
According to five Reuters sources familiar with the latest classified evaluations, the United States can confirm with high confidence the destruction of only about one-third of Iran’s pre-war ballistic missile stockpile.
A second third is believed to have been damaged, buried under collapsed tunnels, or rendered temporarily inaccessible by the relentless bombing of underground bunkers and facilities. The fate of the final third remains largely opaque, leaving Tehran with a still-formidable, if degraded, retaliatory capability that could be partially recovered once active hostilities subside.
This intelligence snapshot, reported exclusively by Reuters on Friday, underscores the inherent challenges of assessing damage in a conflict defined by Iran’s deeply buried, hardened infrastructure. Pre-war estimates from Israeli officials placed Iran’s ballistic missile inventory at roughly 2,500 weapons capable of reaching Israel alone; U.S. and Israeli strikes have neutralized over 70% of known launchers (more than 335 systems), but actual warhead counts are harder to pin down.
A parallel assessment applies to Iran’s drone fleet, where confirmed destruction also hovers around one-third. Meanwhile, U.S. Central Command reports broader progress: over 10,000 Iranian military targets hit, 92% of the Iranian navy’s large vessels sunk, and more than two-thirds of missile, drone, and naval production facilities and shipyards damaged or destroyed. Iranian attack rates have plummeted by about 90% since the 28 February outset of major operations.
Yet these metrics mask a more complex reality. Iran continues to demonstrate resilience, firing 15 ballistic missiles and 11 drones at the United Arab Emirates as recently as 27 March and, for the first time, launching long-range missiles at the U.S.-U.K. base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
Analysts like Nicole Grajewski of Sciences Po in Paris argue that the Trump administration may have overstated the campaign’s impact, noting Iran’s ability to sustain launches even from heavily bombed sites such as Bid Kaneh. Tehran retains more than a dozen major underground facilities, raising questions about whether key launchers and stockpiles have truly been collapsed or simply entombed for later recovery. One senior U.S. official captured the uncertainty bluntly: “I don’t know if we’ll ever have an accurate number.”
President Trump, by contrast, has projected unqualified triumph. On 27 March he declared Iran “very few rockets left” and asserted that the U.S. has “won” the war, having “decimated” its navy, air defences, and manufacturing base. He has floated escalation options, including Marine deployments to secure the Strait of Hormuz, while acknowledging that even a 1% residual missile threat poses unacceptable risks to billion-dollar naval assets. These claims serve a clear political purpose -projecting strength amid domestic scrutiny – but they diverge from the intelligence community’s more measured view and risk underestimating Iran’s strategy of conservation and asymmetric persistence.
Who is winning?
Trump can credibly claim a tactical victory on paper: Iran’s conventional military has been gutted in key domains, its navy is a shadow of its former self, and its ability to mass-fire missiles has been severely curtailed. Production lines for replacement weapons are crippled, buying the U.S. and its partners time and space. Operation Epic Fury is described by Centcom as “on schedule or ahead of plan,” and the dramatic drop in Iranian attack volume validates the intensity of the air and naval campaign.
However, a broader strategic ledger reveals a far murkier picture – and significant costs that complicate any declaration of outright victory. Iran has not been forced to the negotiating table on U.S. terms, and its recent barrages against Gulf states underscore the human and economic toll on America’s regional partners.
Meanwhile the U.S. has conducted an extraordinarily high-tempo campaign involving thousands of precision strikes, which inevitably strains munitions stockpiles, maintenance cycles, and forward-deployed assets. Public reporting does not yet confirm “large-scale depletion”, but the sustained operational demand – coupled with Trump’s own warnings about even minimal residual threats—suggests logistics and endurance are becoming factors.
Gulf Cooperation Council states, repeatedly targeted by Iranian retaliation, are paying a steep price in blood and economic disruption; their fury is directed primarily at Tehran but also reflects frustration with a conflict that has engulfed their territory. NATO allies, meanwhile, have drawn Trump’s ire for offering minimal support, further fraying transatlantic cohesion at a moment when global credibility matters.
In sum, neither side has achieved a clean “win.” The U.S.-Israeli coalition holds the initiative and has imposed massive degradation on Iran’s warfighting machine, but Tehran has absorbed the blows, adapted through dispersal and hardening, and kept the conflict alive. Trump can tout battlefield gains for domestic audiences, yet the one-month mark reveals a grinding war of attrition rather than a decisive knockout. The intelligence community’s restraint is a reminder that in modern great-power proxy fights, “victory” is rarely total and often measured in decades, not days.
With Reuters.
Caption: Israeli emergency teams work at the site of an Iranian missile strike in a residential area in Tel Aviv, Israel, 24 March 2026. The Israeli military reported that it had detected missiles launched from Iran, several of which struck central Israel. EPA/ABIR SULTAN
Updated: March 27, 2026 - 17:47
