[ceejayoz]

> If the interceptor keeps a multi-million dollar building around then interceptor at a million dollars is still cheap, even if the missile it takes out was only $100.

Not if it means you can't intercept the next one hitting much a more valuable/critical building.

[bluGill]

That is a trade off that hopefully you never need to consider, but it is a valid concern that does come up in the real world.

[hedora]

It's not a hypothetical:

Trump started blaming Biden for the US's interceptor shortage two days into the war. Third-party military analysts say there's a high probability Iran's drone stockpile will outlast the US's first-tier interceptor stockpile.

The first-order math checks out: At the beginning of the war, we (and allies) were using 800 x $1M patriot missiles per day. The global production capacity for patriots is 600 per year, so there's no way we've have been able to maintain that cadence now that we're in week 4 of the war (the patriot program has not existed for enough decades). Now we see things like successful strikes on Israel's nuclear complex.

If the math isn't good enough, note that Trump backed down over the weekend, after Iran reiterated that they'd target civilian infrastructure if the US did so first. If we still had adequate interceptor capabilities, calling his bluff would not have worked.