Heavy US aircraft losses in the Middle East are raising fresh doubts about whether US airpower can withstand sustained attrition in a future Pacific war against China.
This month, the US Congressional Research Service (CRS) released a report stating that the US has reportedly lost or damaged 42 aircraft during Operation Epic Fury, the US-Israeli military campaign launched against Iran in February 2026.
The losses span fighters, refueling aircraft, helicopters and drones, highlighting the scale and intensity of the air campaign.
Reported losses included four F-15E Strike Eagles, three of which were destroyed by friendly fire over Kuwait in March, and another shot down over Iran on April, alongside one damaged F-35A stealth fighter, one A-10 Thunderbolt II destroyed after taking enemy fire, seven KC-135 refueling aircraft, an E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft, two MC-130J special operations aircraft, one HH-60W rescue helicopter, 24 MQ-9 Reaper drones and one MQ-4C Triton drone.
Iranian missile and drone strikes reportedly damaged several aircraft on the ground at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, while two MC-130Js were intentionally destroyed in Iran after becoming stranded during a rescue mission.
The CRS said the US Department of Defense (DoD) has not released a comprehensive loss assessment, but lawmakers are expected to scrutinize the operational, budgetary and industrial implications of replacing high-value aircraft lost in the conflict.
The reported US aircraft losses in Operation Epic Fury may reflect tactical failures, resilient Iranian air defenses, vulnerabilities in US doctrine and enhanced Iranian strikes reportedly supported by Chinese and Russian assistance.
Discussing the possible tactical-level causes of those losses, Peter Suciu wrote in a March 2026 Forbes article that the fog of war could have led to mistakes by ground crews and pilots, while aircraft may have had emitters or transponders turned off during combat conditions.
He also cites communications overload, a barrage of radio transmissions, electronic warfare and rapidly changing plans alongside problems with data linking, communications and computer systems.
Suciu also points to dense multinational operating environments, conflicting radar identifications, possible identification friend-or-foe (IFF) failures, pilots forgetting procedures as well as human factors such as nervous or poorly trained operators.
Yet beyond those tactical problems, Iran’s surviving air defenses still imposed meaningful operational costs on US aircraft. Before the conflict, Arie Egozi wrote that prior to Operation Rising Lion – Israel’s June 2025 strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, widely regarded as the prelude to Operation Epic Fury in February 2026 – Iran operated Russian TOR-M1, SA-5, SA-6, SA-10/S-300PMU, Chinese HQ-2 and FM-80 systems, upgraded HAWK missiles, British Rapier and Swedish RBS-70 missiles.
According to Egozi, the TOR-M1 can engage fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), guided missiles and precision weapons in “dense” electronic warfare environments, while the S-300PMU is described as Iran’s most capable anti-air system, capable of launching different missile types with longer range and improved lethality. He also adds that Iran uses YJ-14 search radars, modernized surveillance radars and integrated command-and-control networks protecting Tehran, military sites, ports and oil facilities.
Although US and Israeli strikes may have degraded Iran’s larger air defense systems, such as the S-300PMU, substantial numbers of mobile, concealed, and dispersed systems may have survived strikes and continue to pose a threat.
Lower-cost and more survivable systems may have proven especially difficult to suppress. For instance, the Robert Lansing Institute (RLI) reported in February 2026 that Russia, under a €500 million contract signed in December 2025, agreed to supply Iran with 500 Verba man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) launchers and 2,500 9M336 missiles between 2027 and 2029.
RLI says that the Verba is capable of engaging low-flying aircraft, helicopters, cruise missiles and UAVs. The report says those systems could significantly complicate US air operations, raise the risk of attrition for helicopters, UAVs and low-altitude aircraft and constrain routes, altitudes and mission timing.
It also notes that MANPADS deployed around key sites could create localized no-go bubbles, complicating intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), combat search and rescue (CSAR) and rapid-strike operations.
Beyond surviving Iranian air defenses, the conflict also exposed vulnerabilities in US operational doctrine. In a July 2024 Proceedings article, Michael Blaser mentions that the US Agile Combat Employment (ACE) doctrine aims to disperse aircraft to increase survivability by operating fast enough to outpace enemy targeting.
However, Blaser points out that the strategy relies on two unlikely conditions: the enemy’s lack of long-range fires capable of hitting many airfields and a slower kill chain than US sortie generation. A kill chain refers to the sequence required to identify, track and destroy a target.
The CRS report mentions that six US aircraft were destroyed at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia by Iranian strikes – five KC-135 Stratotankers and one E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft.
Blaser mentions that AI, machine learning and persistent space-based sensors could shrink the kill chain to under 24 hours, allowing adversaries to identify and target dispersed aircraft faster than the US can relocate them.
Those vulnerabilities may have been compounded by alleged Chinese and Russian ISR and targeting support for Iran. China has reportedly supplied Iran with commercial satellite imagery, ground-station access, and AI-driven intelligence tools that analyze satellite imagery, flight tracking, and shipping data. Chinese firms have also reportedly used AI-enabled open-source intelligence (OSINT) to map US deployments and reconstruct flight paths.
Likewise, Russia has allegedly provided Iran with satellite imagery, targeting data and ISR support for US troops, warships and aircraft, coinciding with more precise Iranian strikes on radar systems, command infrastructure and US positions.
Together, such support could form a distributed and deniable ISR network supporting Iranian missile and drone strikes.
The implications may extend far beyond the Middle East into the Pacific, where the US could face a far more capable and better-resourced adversary in China with vastly larger missile inventories, greater industrial depth and far denser strike networks than Iran.
In a January 2023 Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report, Mark Cancian and other authors note that the US and its allies could lose hundreds of aircraft in a Taiwan conflict with China, with 90% of those losses occurring on the ground. The authors attribute those possible losses to China’s large and sophisticated ballistic and cruise missile arsenal, which threatens the limited number of Western Pacific air bases available to US forces.
If Operation Epic Fury is any indication, future wars against peer competitors may be decided less by who fields the most advanced aircraft than by who can keep enough of them alive, dispersed and operational under sustained missile and drone attack.
Remember the Korean War? Think thrice! This time, China has the army, air force, navy, and home-court advantage.