2 F-35 stealth fighters hit

4 F-15 Strike Eagles lost

7 KC-135 Stratotankers damaged (one lost)

All of those aircraft are a big maybe; fratricide, friendly fire, we don’t know yet. To be fair, let’s suppose not a single aircraft suffered Iranian fire but 11 Reapers drones are confirmed hit. The after-action historical analysis will determine the air war losses, we simply don’t know. During the Iraq War in 1991, the US and coalition forces lost approx 41 aircraft.

BUT

Ten expensive radar systems taken out including lower-value assets like the AN/TPS-59 but also including the one billion dollar AN/FPS-132 Upgraded Early Warning Radar (UEWR) at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

Removing ISR assets that provide the sensor capability for effectors to land where they are asked to complicates the most modern armed forces in war.

All in just twenty days of war against an adversary with just a ten billion dollar annual defense budget.

Ten billion dollars.

As of March 2026 (FY 2026, the current fiscal year), the US national defense budget, Budget Function 050, which explicitly includes the Department of Defense (DoD) plus Department of Energy (DOE) atomic energy defense activities (primarily nuclear weapons programs via the National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA) totals approximately $1.05 trillion.

Arthur C. Clarke wrote about this in 1953 in a short story called Superiority:

https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v002n04_1951-08_AK/page/n3/mode/2up