The ongoing conflict involving Iran, the United States, and Israel has produced one of the most significant case studies in the evolution of contemporary warfare. Iran, a state that lacks a competitive air force and possesses limited naval power, has demonstrated that ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and unmanned aerial systems can offset some conventional disadvantages and impose serious costs on technologically superior adversaries. This development is not confined to the battlefield. It represents a doctrinal shift with lasting implications for American deterrence strategy, allied defense planning, and the long-term viability of current U.S. force structures. Understanding what Iran has and has not achieved is essential for making sound policy going forward.

The Cost-Exchange Problem 

At the operational level, Iran’s most consequential contribution has been exposing a structural vulnerability in layered air defense: the cost-exchange dilemma. Systems such as Patriot, THAAD, and Iron Dome were engineered to intercept high-value ballistic and cruise missile threats. When deployed against coordinated waves of low-cost drones and short-range missiles, these systems are forced to expend interceptors valued at hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars per shot against threats that cost a fraction of that amount. The arithmetic is unsustainable at scale. As analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies have noted, saturation attacks can exhaust defensive inventories faster than replenishment is possible, creating windows of vulnerability that adversaries are quick to exploit. For the United States, this is not merely a technical problem, it is a strategic one that requires urgent attention in both procurement and doctrine.

The development of the Golden Dome missile defense architecture and expanded investment in directed energy and electronic warfare systems reflect growing official awareness that current interception models are not cost-competitive. These are necessary steps. However, technology alone cannot resolve a dilemma that is fundamentally about the economics of offense versus defense. Adversaries will adapt their tactics faster than procurement cycles can respond unless the U.S. also changes the strategic logic driving their calculations.

Attrition Without Decision: The Limits of the Iranian Model

The Iranian approach has imposed genuine costs on its adversaries, but it has not produced decisive military outcomes. This distinction is critical. Iran’s missile and drone campaigns have disrupted logistics, strained defensive inventories, and created operational uncertainty. They have not, however, defeated U.S. or Israeli military power, seized or held territory, or forced a negotiated settlement on Iranian terms. The model is one of strategic attrition, not strategic victory. Survivability and persistence are not equivalent to effectiveness, and the broader narrative of a drone revolution rendering conventional military power obsolete requires significant qualification.

The claim that air superiority is no longer a necessary condition for strategic effectiveness also warrants scrutiny. Air superiority remains essential for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; for close air support of ground operations; and for denying adversaries freedom of movement. What Iran’s campaign demonstrates is that a state without air superiority can still impose costs and delay adversary operations—not that air power has been rendered irrelevant. The bar for what air superiority can guarantee has been raised. Its strategic value, however, has not disappeared. Policymakers and analysts should resist the temptation to draw sweeping conclusions from a conflict that remains ongoing and whose full operational record is still emerging.

Implications for American Deterrence

The proliferation of precision strike capabilities across state and non-state actors undermines the assumption that technological overmatch alone is sufficient to deter conflict. When adversaries can field asymmetric capabilities that challenge U.S. and allied defenses at an acceptable cost to themselves, deterrence by denial becomes increasingly difficult to guarantee. The U.S. must prioritize cost-effective interception technologies, particularly directed energy weapons, that can neutralize mass drone and missile attacks without depleting high-value interceptor stocks. This is a resource allocation problem as much as it is an engineering one, and it demands serious engagement at the budgetary and strategic planning levels.

The Iranian model is also exportable, and this may prove to be its most consequential long-term dimension. States with limited defense budgets that are aligned with China or Russia can observe the operational lessons from this conflict and apply them in their own regional contexts. The proliferation of domestically produced or externally transferred missile and drone capabilities across the Middle East, South Asia, and the Indo-Pacific represents a compounding deterrence challenge. American extended deterrence commitments to allies in these regions will become harder to sustain if the cost-exchange problem is not structurally resolved. As Defense News reported, the proliferation of drone technology is already forcing militaries worldwide to reconsider their approach to air and missile defense.

There is also a crisis stability dimension that deserves serious attention. Rapid, sustained missile and drone strikes compress decision-making timelines and increase pressure for early, and potentially disproportionate, responses. In a multipolar environment where multiple actors possess similar strike capabilities, the risk of miscalculation is elevated. The U.S. should pursue updated arms control frameworks and diplomatic mechanisms to manage the proliferation of these systems alongside its technical and procurement investments. Deterrence cannot be reduced to hardware alone.

Conclusion

Iran’s missile and drone campaign has not rewritten the principles of warfare, but it has exposed critical assumptions underpinning American deterrence in ways that cannot be ignored. Distributed, low-cost, high-impact systems are now accessible to a wider range of actors and the gap between offensive capability and defensive cost is widening. The United States requires a

deterrence posture that integrates cost-effective defense, credible offensive options, active non-proliferation diplomacy, and sustained alliance management. Meeting this challenge demands strategic adaptation across doctrine, procurement, and diplomacy, not simply an incremental increase in interceptor production.

Dr. Tahir Mahmood Azad is currently a research scholar at the Department of Politics & International Relations, the University of Reading, UK. Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Iran’s Missile-Drone Campaign and Its Implications for the United States’ Deterrence was originally published on Global Security Review.

Their low cost, flexibility, and ability to operate without putting human pilots at risk make drones increasingly valuable in conventional military conflicts. Their capabilities already include reconnaissance and surveillance, long-range strike missions, electronic warfare, and precision killing.

With their precision-targeting ability, drones can be integrated into nuclear deterrence strategies. For instance, they could be used to ensure the survivability of a country’s nuclear forces by providing continuous surveillance and early warning against potential nuclear threats. Drones could also support a more viable second-strike capability, potentially increasing the credibility of nuclear deterrence by ensuring that a country retains a means to retaliate even after a nuclear first strike.

The use of drones in situations where nuclear escalation is a possibility could lead to unintended consequences. The increasing autonomy of drones raises the risk of misinterpretation, as drones could be perceived as a precursor to a larger attack, even when they are only conducting reconnaissance. This could trigger a preemptive nuclear strike by an adversary, leading to an inadvertent escalation into full-scale nuclear war. Cold War and subsequent histories show that the danger of inadvertent nuclear escalation is not trivial.

The possibility that expansion of the war in Ukraine from conventional weapons into nuclear first use could occur from Russian views of Ukrainian deep strikes into Russian territory, with NATO ballistic and cruise missiles, provides one example of concerns in this category.  Lewis A. Dunn suggests that President Donald Trump is faced with a world sliding into nuclear anarchy. He writes:

Brinkmanship among major nuclear powers is rising. China is relentlessly expanding its nuclear forces but rejecting serious engagement with the United States on arms control. US–Russia cooperation on nuclear matters, already in a dire state, has deteriorated further with President Vladimir Putin’s repeated nuclear threats in the course of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Recent reports based on information from senior US officials indicate that the United States, too, could modify its posture and expand its arsenal to strengthen deterrence of coordinated Russian, Chinese, and North Korean nuclear adventurism. All these developments have eroded critical pillars of nuclear order and raised the risk of nuclear warfare.

Drones are relatively fast, low-cost, and difficult to detect, which makes them ideal for preemptive strikes against high-value targets. In theory, a nation could deploy a drone strike against an adversary’s nuclear command-and-control infrastructure or missile silos, aiming to disrupt or neutralize a potential nuclear retaliation before it can be launched. In addition, drones equipped with nuclear payloads or advanced conventional weapons could be used as part of a disarming strike. The ability to carry out such strikes could shift the strategic calculations of nations, as adversaries might feel more vulnerable to a preemptive attack, especially if they believe their nuclear retaliation capabilities could be neutralized by fast-moving drone strikes.

As drones become more autonomous, the risk of them making decisions without human oversight increases. In a nuclear context, where the consequences of any action are catastrophic, the delegation of decision-making to machines is highly controversial. The potential for autonomous drones to trigger a nuclear response or make fatal miscalculations due to algorithmic errors presents a possible threat to strategic stability.

Given that drones can operate autonomously, one challenge is ensuring that their actions do not trigger unintended escalation. Moreover, the reliance on technological systems for communication and control in a nuclear context raises concerns about vulnerabilities in these systems, especially if adversaries employ cyberattacks or electronic warfare tactics to disrupt drone operations.

Future generations of drones will interact with artificial intelligence that also supports other elements in the matrix of deterrence and defense. AI will privilege deterrence by denial compared to deterrence by credible threat of unacceptable retaliation. It will do so because states will have to quickly manage the deterrence and/or conduct conflicts in multiple domains: land, sea, air, space, cyberspace, and the information or knowledge domain. The knowledge domain wraps around all the others. It is the “gnostic center” that controls, connects, and prioritizes among the component parts of the various domains in order to provide for the correct response to threats or attacks.

AI-assisted attacks on the gnostic center will require immediate responses by AI-assisted defenses that can defeat or diminish the cost of those attacks. Absorbing the first blow and then retaliating may not be a choice that is available to beleaguered and time-pressed decision-makers. This situation poses an especially concerning challenge for nuclear deterrence. Decisions for or against nuclear war should allow policymakers sufficient time to deliberate alternatives with their advisors and to select the most appropriate option for the exigent circumstances. But the potential speed of AI-boosted attacks against space and cyber assets, together with the rising speed of kinetic strikes from hypersonic weapons, may leave leaders fearful of an enemy nuclear first strike to choose preemption instead of retaliation.

Just as we can conceive of drones as reconnaissance and strike platforms for offenses, it is also possible that drones can be part of any state’s comprehensive antimissile and air defense plan. One illustration is the use of drone swarms to defeat attacking drones tasked with reconnaissance or strike missions. Another example would be the use of drones for electromagnetic “hit to kill” within the atmosphere or, even more ambitiously, in midcourse intercept against attacking ballistic missile forces. Drones based on one or more lunar spaceports could protect American interests in cislunar space.

Futuristic drones with embedded AI and space-to-space weapons could defend orbital satellites against attack (so-called DSATs) or engage another state’s satellites that appear threatening (ASATs). Priority DSATs and ASATs would deter or defend against any threat to the viability of American satellites for warning and assessment; command, control, and communications; geolocation; and other missions.

Comparatively inexpensive drones could thus take over some of the strategic defense burden, otherwise requiring both upgraded terrestrial missile launchers and kill vehicles or, eventually, sophisticated ballistic missile defenses based on space-to-earth weapons such as lasers or particle beams. Future planners should expect a more crowded space domain, including newer generations of orbital satellites with diverse missions, space stations, and additional reconnaissance and strike weapons along with smarter drones and larger swarms.

The preceding discussion about drones and their possible relationship to nuclear deterrence has implications for nuclear arms control. It is important for a peace agreement to terminate the war in Ukraine for many reasons. One reason is so that the United States and Russia can resume negotiations about an arms control regime to succeed the New START agreement, due to expire in 2026.

The “beyond New START” consultations should include discussions about the two states’ arsenals of non-strategic nuclear weapons and protocols for nuclear first use. Vladimir Putin’s repeated warnings about the possibility of Russian nuclear first use in Ukraine is dismissed by some as bluffing for effect, a form of coercive diplomacy. On the other hand, Russia’s doctrinal shifts appear to move toward a more permissive standard as the war continues. In addition to clarifying this matter, the United States and Russia must acknowledge that China is an aspiring nuclear peer and include China in discussions about nuclear policy issues, including transparency about force structures and military doctrines. China is unlikely to be interested in arms reductions per se, but dialogue should be initiated at the expert level to clarify China’s thinking about strategy, arms control, and related issues.

The character of war changes with the advent of new technologies and strategic thinking.  But the nature of war is perennially the environment of competition and conflict, uncertainty, chance, and friction. The relationship between drones and nuclear deterrence represents a mixed blessing for military planners and arms control. Drones have the potential to enhance nuclear deterrence, but they also introduce significant risks in terms of escalation control and first-strike stability. As drone technology advances, it will be critical for policymakers to develop strategies that account for the unique challenges drones pose in nuclear deterrence and, as well, their future roles in space and cyber wars.

Professor Stephen Cimbala, PhD, is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies.

Nuclear Deterrence and Drones: An Unpredictable Mix? was originally published on Global Security Review.

The lessons from this experience are numerous. First, American and coalition air defenses performed marvelously in the political act of coordinating multiple nations in the defense of Israel. This required working out the logistical issues prior to taking a defensive posture ahead of time.

Second, the response proved the maturity of ballistic missile defenses. Israel’s Iron Dome (and other defenses), American SM-3s, and coalition systems were excellent. It was a practical demonstration of the technical improvements in air and missile defenses.

Third, the response was a demonstration of successful intelligence integration. Coordinating intelligence among coalition partners is never easy, but as the coalition response proved, it is possible.

Fourth, coalition members took full advantage of the geography and time provided by Iranian air strike. With the coalition expecting a response, they had the time needed to prepare for an attack. Moreover, due to the distances the cruise missiles and drones had to traverse, coalition defenders could best posture themselves at the optimal locations to intercept inbound weapons.

However, there are also negative lessons to learn from the coalition’s response to Iran’s attack. First, the response was expensive. At least $1 billion was spent to defend Israel from Iranian and Houthi attacks. Israel spent half a billion dollars to defend against this single attack.  Such expenditures are unsustainable. While this captures the immediate costs, more time is needed to determine the long-term/opportunity costs.

Second, the United States is continuing to deplete limited stocks of expensive and exquisite missile systems against relatively cheaper Iranian weapons. The US and coalition must reverse this exhaustion strategy.

The variation in responses to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Iran’s attack on Israel certainly create difficult political questions. Taiwan, for example, may look at its own situation and see this varied response as politically problematic for itself. Fears of escalation against a nuclear power are logical, but to defeat any of these nations equates to extinction. Defending these democratic nations’ right to exist is in the United States’ and NATO’s interest.

The United States does not, however, have the luxury of time in preparing for future Russian or Chinese attacks on Ukraine or Taiwan. Any attack will also see far more sophisticated weaponry than that employed by Iran. Thus, defending Ukraine and Taiwan requires persistent forces ready to defend these nations.

If the United States, NATO, and other American allies are committed to defending democracies like Ukraine and Taiwan, there are three moves the United States should make. First, it must take proactive and deliberate actions. It could include establishing defensive zones around critical infrastructure and civilian population centers. This includes combined land- and sea-based defenses for shooting down air attacks. The goal is to protect civilians and critical infrastructure against indiscriminate attacks.

Second, the United States should accelerate investments in inexpensive weapon systems.  Providing more inexpensive air defenses allows for sustained defense. Focusing on capabilities that disrupt adversary surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting systems along with electronic warfare effort should serve as a central focus. The US and NATO must counter the exhaustion strategy employed by Russia, China, and Iran.

Third, the United States and its allies should enhance their partnership by further exchanging lessons learned, innovative ideas, and best practices for defending against evolving attacks. Reducing bureaucratic obstacles that limit ally and partner access to critical air defenses is part of that effort.

The reasons for doing this are simple and best summarized in four points. First, it is important to improve American credibility. Nothing will aid American deterrence efforts more. There is ample reason to argue that Ukraine and Taiwan should receive the same support as Israel. All are fighting for their nations as enemies vow to destroy them. Thus, the US and NATO must do more to protect democratic nations.

Second, for the sake of deterrence, demonstrating to adversaries that the United States will not allow air strikes on democratic nations is important. Establishing protective cover with American and NATO forces can act as a deterrent that drives tensions down. The “responsibility to protect” concept is useful in deterring Russia, China, and/or Iran from attacking the infrastructure and citizenry of democratic states. There is always a risk of escalation by intervening, however. The risk of defeat and the elimination of democratic states by authoritarian regimes would, however, do irreparable harm to the United States’ standing in the world.

Third, there is value in creating and enforcing international norms. Even though Russia and China would veto any UN Security Council resolution supporting the defense of Ukraine or Taiwan, establishing such norms is worth the effort.

Fourth, the United States must defend democracy and freedom. Many nations are looking at both Western democracies and Eastern authoritarians to determine which path to follow. It is in the United States’ interest for them to take the democratic path.

It is time for the West to take a stand. While Americans may not seek war, authoritarian adversaries often believe that war is their best option for reshaping the world in their own image. The United States and some NATO member states demonstrated the means and will to defend Israel against Iranian air attack. Providing a similar defense to Ukraine and Taiwan certainly deserves further consideration if the United States aspires to continue leading the free world. Abrogating that position would be a mistake. It is now time for the US and NATO to take more risks in supporting friends in their hour of need.

CDR (Ret.) Todd Clawson is a Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies.  Opinions expressed are the author’s own and not those of the Department of Defense or the Department of the Navy. 

Allied Air Defense was originally published on Global Security Review.

On paper, India looks like a good candidate. It is a nuclear weapons power. It has a large army that in recent years confronted China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) along the disputed border between the two countries. It shares democratic values with the United States as well as the objective of a free and open Indo-Pacific. There are several problems, however, on both sides that will prevent this partnership from achieving its objectives.

Militarily, the United States, Japan, and Australia have the same technology and weaponry making interoperability easy between the three countries. India, on the other hand, presents an obstacle since its weaponry is largely of Russian origin and its technology is a generation behind that of the other three Quad members. This means that the Quad is actually a 3+1, because in a real conflict it would be difficult for the four countries to successfully coordinate their efforts.

Politically, while the US, Japan, and Australia share values and are strong alliance partners, India has significantly divergent views from Washington on Russia and the Ukraine invasion, its position on nonproliferation issues, and because of its unwillingness to be in an open alliance against China.

Technologically, while India wants the latest technologies for its armed services, and would like to build these weapons systems domestically, it does not have the financial resources to pay for these systems or, arguably, the ability to absorb the latest technologies. The Indian government prioritizes butter over guns and has kept defense expenditure below 2 percent of gross domestic product to pay for social welfare programs. (And unlike the United States, the Indian defense budget includes the pensions paid to retired servicemen.)

These financial constraints led to India cutting its order for the Rafale fighter from 126 to 36 aircraft and to the government delaying acquisitions like a new conventional submarine, a new aircraft carrier, and additional fighter jets. Fully modernizing the Indian armed forces requires selling weapons at subsidized rates to the Indians—something the United States will not, and cannot, do, since this would up-end the United States’ arms-transfer policies that have been in place for decades.

Additionally, the Indian government has a policy of techno-nationalism which requires that new weapons systems be built in India. The problem with this approach is that such production is marked by delays and quality-control issues. The Indian Air Force’s long and troubled procurement history of the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft is testimony to these failures.  Not only is production marred by delays, but the procurement of weapons from foreign companies moves at a glacial pace and can take decades. It took twenty years for India to buy the Hawk Trainer and fifteen to purchase the Rafale. More recently, the Indian Navy has put out a tender for a new conventional submarine but the takers are few since the Navy’s requirements

are considered impractical by major suppliers and some have dropped out of the competition for supplying the new submarine.

The other problem for India, of course, is the cost of weapons systems and here the United States can be of little help to New Delhi because the latter would need high-quality arms at subsidized rates—something that the US has not done in significant numbers since the Cold War. Further, some of India’s most pressing needs—like a conventional submarine—cannot be met by the US which decades ago gave up producing those subs.

Despite these problems, if given proper assistance, Indian capabilities can be improved to the extent where the country’s armed forces can pose a greater challenge to China and in doing so complicate the threat calculus of the People’s Liberation Army in the Indo-Pacific. As of now the Chinese have two divisions in Xin Jiang which are heavy units with armor and over 10,000 soldiers in each of them. In Tibet, the Chinese have four brigades with 4,000 soldiers each and 10–12 regiments with 2,000 soldiers in each unit.

The units in Tibet face the India border, and as of now, there is no major Chinese build-up of forces in the region. Instead the Chinese are modernizing their air defenses and infrastructure to allow for the rapid movement of troops and materiel into the area. Facing an Indian Army that has better weaponry, and more effective intelligence assets, would force the PLA to divert more resources, especially manpower, to the border and tie down those forces.

Better weaponry does not necessarily mean better aircraft and submarines, it requires building up the fundamentals of the armed forces which is cheaper to do and leads to combat effectiveness. Thus, the Indian Army still does not have a decent assault rifle since the factory that is supposed to produce Russian AK-203s is still not fully functional and the Army was forced to import 73,000 Sig Sauer rifles from the United States. The Indian Army also operates largely without night-vision equipment and is only now beginning to acquire drones at the tactical level for its units. Given that it has engaged in skirmishes with the PLA, the Indians need to be in a better position to handle such localized conflicts.

The other area where the United States and India can cooperate is in developing a set of affordable drones for surveillance and carrying out tactical strike operations. The Indian Army is buying off-the-shelf First Person View (FPV) drones in sufficient numbers and, eventually, the three services will acquire 31 Reaper drones, although these are both expensive and, given the vast ocean, mountain, and desert territories of India, too few to make a substantial difference to Indian combat capabilities. What the country needs is an affordable Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) drone to back up the FPV drones and provide a redundancy in drone capabilities. There are several medium-sized American companies that can collaborate with the Indians to build such drones thereby fulfilling the Indian desire to manufacture in India but also allowing for the procurement of affordable systems for the military.

The other key area where the US can help the Indians is by providing intelligence on Chinese positioning and basing along the border. This was done in 2022 because of an intelligence-sharing agreement that gave the Indians the location of Chinese forces, which allowed the Indians to successfully engage and deter the Chinese. Such agreements should expand to significantly enhance Indian capabilities along the border since New Delhi lacks the space-based assets to comprehensively monitor its border.

While the India-US military relationship may not prove as successful as those with NATO or Israel, it can develop to give the Indians a better ability to defend their interests along the disputed India-China border. That is good for America’s interest in containing China in the Indo-Pacific.

Amit Gupta is a Senior Advisor on Peace and Conflict Resolution to the Forum of Federations, Ottawa, Canada. The views in this article are personal. He can be contacted at agupta1856@gmail.com.

The views expressed by the authors are their own.

The Flawed US-India Military Relationship was originally published on Global Security Review.