The ‘final ten percent’ and the rising cost of American global military power

The next ten percent of military disruption now costs more than the first ninety, and this is the operational lesson of the last four years and the fundamental problem facing modern military strategy.

The wars in Ukraine and Iran are depictions of a bygone era of high-intensity conflicts with huge losses, as in the case of Russia and Ukraine, and are also a rehearsal for the conflicts that will define the 21st century. Unmanned systems, data science at a scale that enables computing and targeting, distributed command and control, and cheap precision attacks have demonstrable effects on the battlefield that herald an uncertain future, and cheaper lethal effects and available software reveal the real possibility of a democratization of organized violence, including the expectations that nation-states may have when choosing to engage a country in war.

The Russia-Ukraine war, which has been going on for more than four years, is the deadliest interstate war in Europe since 1945; by the same count Russian losses exceeded one million and Ukrainian losses were between 250,000 and 300,000. Europe will never be the same after this war, but the groundbreaking change occurred on a battlefield that was relatively stable when measured by the front lines separating Russian and Ukrainian forces. Russia controls roughly twenty percent of Ukraine, an area equivalent to Pennsylvania, and has gained a net total of 1,669 square miles in the last twelve months, or about 0.7 percent of Ukraine’s territory. Given the scale of human toll, it would be entirely reasonable to expect a much larger territorial shift, and instead the line of contact has been roughly frozen for more than two years even as the violence continues at an apocalyptic pace with no end in sight.

IRAN’S MINI Swarms pose a challenge to US AIR DEFENSES as troops in the MIDDLE EAST FACE INCREASING THREATS

The Iranian wars demonstrated the same dynamics twice on a compressed timeline. In June 2025, the United States conducted Operation Midnight Hammer, striking Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan with fourteen GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator and nearly two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles within twenty-five minutes, subsequently ending the Twelve-Day War within forty-eight hours. Eight months later, the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Rage, which included nearly 900 strikes within twelve hours that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and decapitated the regime’s military leadership, while Iran responded with hundreds of ballistic missiles and thousands of one-way strike drones across the region. As of April 1, the UAE alone had engaged 438 ballistic missiles, 2,012 unmanned aerial vehicles, and 19 cruise missiles launched from Iran, and American losses before the April 8 ceasefire totaled 13 soldiers killed and 381 wounded; Operation Project Freedom and the May 7 conflict near the Strait of Hormuz continue the cycle. The political and economic paradigm of the Middle East is in turmoil, but it is remarkable that this has happened without the military operations that might be expected to accompany such dramatic changes.

Although the United States has indeed achieved massive destruction of Iran’s military infrastructure in both operations, further escalation would require accepting a new phase of Iran’s response, and the Trump administration’s reasonable reluctance to make such a choice is a tacit recognition that the next ten percent weakening of the Iranian military will come at a higher cost than the previous ninety percent. Yet there is a new Middle East paradigm, and while typical measurements of wartime battle damage assessments paint a clear picture of America’s superiority, it comes amid a strange stalemate.

This is the Last Ten Percent, the structural condition under which traditionally superior militaries currently operate; here is a situation where the disruption of fixed infrastructure remains within America’s means, while pressure from a determined enemy for a defined political outcome is out of the question, and the cost curve is inverted as a result.

The arithmetic of the new air war points to a reversal. Iran’s Shahed-136 costs about twenty to fifty thousand dollars per unit, while a Patriot PAC-3 interceptor that intercepts one costs over four million, THAAD interceptors cost about fifteen million each, and a single Patriot battery costs about $1.5 billion. CENTCOM’s preventive spending against the Shaheds exceeded three billion dollars in the first six months of the Iran conflict alone, and although tactical intercept rates approach ninety percent, the campaign-level cost ratio still favors the aggressor because every Shahed that forces a Patriot launch fulfills its strategic purpose even if it is destroyed fifteen kilometers from its target.

RUSSIA’S WAR AGAINST UKRAINE HAS ENTERED ITS FIFTH YEAR AS EXPERTS EXPLAINED 3 POSSIBLE OUTCOMES

Ukraine showed the opposite; Magura V5 naval drones, priced at about $250,000 to $300,000 each, forced the Russian Black Sea Fleet to withdraw from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk, damaging or sinking about a third of that fleet; so much so that an army without surface fighters achieved sea denial against the successor to the Soviet Black Sea Fleet at a capital cost of one hundredth of the value displaced.

If the world’s hegemon, in coalition with one of the world’s most capable expeditionary armies, can wage war to achieve political goals with such uncertain consequences, then it is worth wondering whether war can remain the same kind of political option that existed thousands of years ago. Weak armies are clearly able to wield significant military influence in a way that was not possible before the digital age, and for traditionally strong armies the question is whether traditional notions of victory are worth the dramatically increased costs.

Management has already named the problem. The November 2025 National Security Strategy recognizes that “the huge gap revealed in recent conflicts between low-cost drones and missiles and the expensive systems needed to defend against them makes clear our need to change and adapt” and that “America needs a national mobilization to develop strong defenses at low cost.” The same document lays out Nonintervention as a central tenet of American strategy and structures the Middle East chapter around the imperative to shift burdens elsewhere and avoid endless wars. The diagnosis is correct and the doctrine is correct, but political execution has twice failed to deliver on both; because Midnight Hammer occurred before NSS’s articulated restriction, and Epic Rage occurred after it.

BILLIONS OF DOLLARS Spent, FIGHTERS ARE WAITING: INCLUDING THE PENTAGON’S BROKEN PROCUREMENT SYSTEM AND THE PLAN TO FIX IT

What this means for the United States is restriction combined with reinvestment. Restraint is necessary because The Final Ten Percent makes further Middle East complexity strategically implausible, regardless of how satisfying the first ninety might feel, and the historically declining Iranian regime throughout Midnight Hammer and Epic Fury presents a situation in which the United States must consolidate its operational gains and return to the parameters of the National Security Strategy: defending the homeland, asserting the Trump Corollaries of the Monroe Doctrine in the Western Hemisphere, and deterring China in the Indo-Pacific.

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Reinvestment is necessary because the cost curve has inverted while the American procurement portfolio has inverted, and although objections to this argument correctly point out that drones are not viable, that the case for American AI is broader than autonomous targeting, and that deterrence will continue to require both attributable mass and perfect systems, these points reinforce rather than refute the conclusion that the procurement portfolio must change.

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The War Department is still buying excellent platforms at excellent costs and that’s necessary, but it’s not buying measurable mass, it’s not buying weapons-based and directed energy systems that put Shaheds in the hundreds rather than millions of dollars per shot, and it’s not buying interceptor drones at the two to five thousand dollar price point indicated by Ukrainian manufacturers. NSS calls for a national mobilization to close this gap; But it remains to be seen whether this call will survive engagement with the defense industry status quo and the American posture in the Indo-Pacific, where the relevant adversary has the world’s largest navy and the world’s deepest missile inventory.

A world reflecting this thesis would not be a Pollyanna-style manifestation of a Fukuyama-style end of history, and more people might die and instability would increase; because the future of armies fighting on the battlefield is particularly uncertain when more of these armies will consist of and be targeted by robots.