Airpower, Deterrence, and the New Iran War

The joint U.S.–Israeli attack against Iran represents a remarkable development in world politics. Since its very foundation, the Islamic Republic has defined opposition to the “Great” and “Small” Satans—the United States and Israel—as a central pillar of its identity. Yet for decades neither targeted Iran’s leadership or openly attacked its territory. That threshold has now been crossed.

Iran’s Indirect Deterrence Architecture

Over the past four decades, Iran’s strategy had three pillars. First, lacking the economic scale, industrial base or allies, Iran could not develop a modern military comparable to its adversaries. Second, and consequently, Iran built an indirect regional deterrence architecture composed of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, militias in Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, and the Houthis in Yemen. Altogether, this network provided depth, deniability, and escalation flexibility to threaten Israel directly and impose costs on U.S. partners in the Gulf, raising the expected price of any direct attack on Iran itself.

Finally, Iran invested heavily in asymmetric capabilities: ballistic missiles, drones, cyber tools, and naval harassment capabilities in the Strait of Hormuz. These instruments cannot defeat a superior conventional force but can impose economic and psychological costs. It is a deterrence-by-punishment strategy on the cheap.

Nuclear Counter-Proliferation and the Logic of Prevention

Nuclear weapons would have, likely, complemented this strategy. By getting close to the tipping point, Iran could extract concessions. If, one day, the nuclear threshold was crossed, Iran would gain significantly more leverage.

We cannot fully reconstruct the decision-making behind the U.S.–Israeli joint strikes. However, the structural logic is clear: both countries have consistently sought to prevent adversaries—and, when necessary, even allies—from acquiring nuclear weapons. Pressure on West Germany, Japan, and South Korea during the Cold War, and actions against Iraq, Syria, and Iran itself, reflect the bargaining power nuclear weapons confer. Arguably, Washington and Jerusalem believed Iran was approaching the nuclear threshold and decided to halt that trajectory.

The Structural Limits of Airpower

Operationally, only the United States and Israel possess the capabilities required to conduct thousands of coordinated, time-sensitive strikes against hardened and mobile targets deep inside Iranian territory within a very short timeframe. The technological sophistication on display is extraordinary.

But airpower has structural limits. First, it faces decreasing marginal returns: locating additional targets becomes progressively more expensive, and the value of those targets declines. Second, airpower is generally effective as a denial instrument—that is, to halt enemy military maneuver. It is far less effective as a coercive tool. Repeated strikes may not convince a determined adversary and are even less likely to produce regime change—especially when the regime in question was itself born from revolution and has been engineered to survive external pressure.

Moreover, reports that Israeli and U.S. forces had struck Iranian nuclear-related targets months earlier and have now intervened again suggest that tactical success does not necessarily translate into strategic victory.

War as a Clash of Wills — and of Stockpiles

Carl von Clausewitz described war as a clash of wills. Material destruction matters, but endurance, resolve, and political cohesion matter more. These factors will shape the evolving military dynamics between the United States and Israel, on the one hand, and Iran, on the other.

In modern warfare, however, stockpiles are equally decisive. The key question is whether the United States and Israel might exhaust air defense interceptors before Iran depletes its missiles and drones—or vice versa. In theory, intelligence assessments should inform these calculations. In practice, uncertainty remains.

Facing what it perceives as an existential threat, the Iranian regime has every incentive to expand the scope of disruption—targeting oil and gas infrastructure, Gulf monarchies, and other sensitive assets—to raise the costs for its adversaries and compel de-escalation if a ceasefire is not reached soon.

Is This Also About China?

From Beijing’s perspective, the broader pattern may appear troubling: negotiations to stabilize Russia, pressure on Venezuela, and now strikes on Iran. Is Washington addressing isolated regional crises, or systematically weakening China’s partners? Many members of the current U.S. administration have long adopted a hawkish stance toward China.

China’s overriding interest in the Middle East is stability—above all, reliable access to affordable energy. A prolonged conflict disrupting Gulf production or maritime flows would directly undermine that objective. Beijing therefore has incentives to favor de-escalation.

At the same time, Middle Eastern crises divert U.S. strategic attention and consume precision munitions and interceptors that might otherwise be allocated to the Indo-Pacific. Even limited depletion of U.S. stockpiles is not strategically irrelevant. China is unlikely to intervene directly, but it will closely monitor how quickly—and at what cost—the United States can sustain operations in yet another theater.

Possible Endgames and Strategic Constraints

Regime change is conceivable but structurally difficult. The Iranian leadership has existential incentives to resist it, while the United States and Israel possess formidable military tools but limited political instruments to shape internal outcomes. The Iranian regime has been engineered from its inception to neutralize internal threats; external military pressure does not alter that reality.

The ultimate outcome will likely hinge on two dynamics: Iran’s capacity to impose costs on Israel, the United States, and their regional partners—closely linked to stockpile depth—and the ability of Washington and Jerusalem to sustain a continuous “whack-a-mole” strategy against emerging Iranian leadership structures.

Despite modern weapons and ideological fervor, war remains what it has always been: a clash of wills.