39 Days in Iran Changed Everything: Why China Is Watching America's Depleting Missile Stockpile

| Apr 24, 2026, 09:34:56 PM | TOI.in
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America fired more than a thousand Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iran. Between 1,500 and 2,000 air-defence interceptors — THAAD, Patriot, Standard Missiles — expended in 39 days. For the first time in a generation, serious strategists are asking whether Washington has enough left to defend Taiwan from China. The Center for Strategic and International Studies calls it plainly: a window of increased vulnerability in the western Pacific. Even before this war, US stockpiles were deemed insufficient for a peer competitor fight. Now that gap is measurably worse. Rebuilding takes years. China needs only days to decide. US intelligence says Beijing won't move before 2027. But windows of vulnerability don't announce themselves — they exist until they're closed or exploited. The most powerful military on earth is fighting with lighter magazines. And the dragon is watching.

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