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Air defence wasn't really NATO's strong suit during the Cold War. NATO prioritized fighter jets over SAMs. Since then there has been 30 years of cut backs with the war in Afghanistan and Iraq costing an ungodly amount of money. SAM-systems had little use against taliban, and they cost a fortune to buy and operate. The cutbacks lead to a big drop in capacity, as cutting spending leads to a much bigger drop in deliveries. Half the budget and the unit cost increases due to diminishing production volumes.
Ukraine is currently consuming SAM systems at a much higher rate than they are produced. Nobody expected Russia to manufacture 3000 Geran drones in a year and almost none of them to be shot down by a fighter jet. Russia manufactures more missiles than expected and defending from Russian missiles wasn't the main priority during the forever wars in the middle east.
China is manufacturing missiles and drones at an industrial rate while Iran has managed to go from barely being able to fight in the skies to having thousands of flying systems. A war of attrition between American SAM systems and Iranian, Chinese and Russian drones and missiles is a big win for the latter. Especially if they are using 10 000 dollar drones built with parts ordered online.
Quite right. Also the lethality of surface to surface missiles has increased. Scuds in the 1960s, 70s and 80s were not very accurate, you could maybe target an airbase or some big target... nothing like the precision we have now. They were big, expensive and relatively easy to target on the ground, now there's a wide range of missiles that are smaller, harder to spot, cheaper to replace. I saw a Houthi military parade on youtube, where you'd expect to see columns of tanks they just had dozens of trucks with drones on them.
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