While many analysts argue that this deal covers Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, the reality is that this agreement augments the already existing strategic partnership rather than providing Saudi Arabia with a nuclear umbrella. Neither Pakistan’s nuclear policy nor its doctrine entails providing extended nuclear deterrence to any other state while Islamabad’s deterrence posture remains India-specific and does not extend to providing a nuclear umbrella to any state.

Islamabad and Riyadh have been tied in a mutual defense pact for decades. Pakistani forces, which account for 1,500–2,000 troops, provide operational and technical help to Saudi forces. In regional conflicts, Pakistan safeguards Saudi frontiers under the defense protocol of 1967. Over time, Pakistan trained approximately 8,000–10,000 Saudi military personnel.

The recent strategic mutual defense agreement further strengthens the historical alliance between Pakistan and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), rather than creating a new pact. Even previous defense agreements do not guarantee a “nuclear umbrella.” In a similar vein, the recent mutual defense pact between Pakistan and the KSA serves the purpose of signaling solidarity and strategic cooperation, rather than providing an unconditional military guarantee for Saudi Arabia.

Pakistan does not seek to assume the role of a regional security guarantor. Rather, it contributes to collective security in line with international law and its national interests. However, Islamabad can be an essential actor in collective security arrangements in the Middle East in accordance with the norms of international law.

As the Israeli air raid on Doha sent shockwaves across the globe, Gulf States, particularly Saudi Arabia, realized that the United States is unlikely to go to the defense of its Gulf partners in times of crisis, despite deep ties with the Kingdom.

The reliability of the US as a security guarantor to its Arab partners in the Gulf region diminished after the United States tolerated the Israeli bombing of Hamas leadership in Doha, Qatar, September 9, 2025. Al-Udeid Air Base, in Qatar, is the largest US military base in the Middle East with 10,000 active troops.

Israel’s attack against Hamas leadership in Doha also infuriated Gulf countries. However, the lack of action by the US against its ally for the airstrike in Doha has damaged the image of the US as a reliable security partner. Therefore, Arab states are exploring new partners for their security against Israeli aggression.

Pakistan, with its battle-tested military and cordial relations with Gulf monarchies, appears to be a natural partner for the KSA. Its decades-old alliance with the KSA is rooted in deep strategic interests, shared faith, and economic interdependence. The presence of 2.7 million Pakistanis in the KSA also matters as they contribute over $6 billion in annual remittances. Pakistan’s reliance on Saudi oil imports is also important. These factors deepen mutual trust and economic interdependence.

Together, they reinforce the strategic logic behind the Pakistan–Saudi Mutual Defense Pact. Additionally, Pakistan’s participation in Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 projects highlights opportunities for long-term economic integration and strategic cooperation.

The cardinal aspect of this new mutual defense pact lies in formalizing a deep alliance which has historical roots. With this agreement, both Islamabad and Riyadh vow joint deterrence against any aggression, institutionalizing their long-standing security cooperation. Both Pakistan and KSA view this pact as an outcome of a decades-old partnership, not a sudden alliance aimed at any adversary, as Pakistani officials reiterated in their statements. Similar to the previous defense agreements between Islamabad and Riyadh, this agreement does not offer any nuclear guarantee to the KSA.

Therefore, the idea of a nuclear umbrella remains speculative and the actual text of this mutual pact, along with Pakistan’s stated nuclear doctrine, does not support it. Operational readiness and interoperability of both states’ armed forces will be significantly improved. The pact will foster defense industry collaboration on emerging technologies such as cybersecurity, drone technology, and space-based defense systems between both states. It will enable the co-production of conventional military equipment as well, paving the way for a promising future of strategic cooperation between Islamabad and Riyadh.

It may also be pointed out that Pakistan has not offered a covert “nuclear button” to Riyadh and defense cooperation with Riyadh does not imply an automatic war pledge. While addressing the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, also praised this defense deal between the two brotherly Muslim states, marking the pact as the beginning of a comprehensive regional security system.

A Pak–Saudi mutual defense pact enhances Pakistan’s strategic depth by reinforcing its defense cooperation with the Muslim world’s most influential state, thereby expanding Islamabad’s diplomatic leverage beyond South Asia. The pact bolsters Pakistan’s deterrence posture vis-à-vis India, as Riyadh’s political and strategic backing adds weight to Pakistan’s regional standing.

Economically, it promises deeper defense collaboration, potential joint production, and technology transfer. In December, the KSA loaned Pakistan $3 billion, shoring up its foreign exchange reserves, while politically reflecting its growing confidence in Pakistan’s professional military capability and responsible nuclear stewardship. In essence, the agreement strengthens Pakistan’s strategic autonomy, broadens its alliances, and projects it as a pivotal player in the evolving security architecture of the Muslim world.

Nawal Nawaz is a Research Assistant at the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS).

Understanding the Pakistan–Saudi Defense Agreement was originally published on Global Security Review.

The near completion of Iran’s nuclear weapon brings to mind another rogue state’s activities. In 2006, after years of global efforts aimed at preventing the Kim regime from obtaining nuclear weapons, North Korea (DPRK) conducted its first nuclear test. Today, the DPRK has an estimated 50 nuclear weapons and fissile material for 6 or 7 more.

An in-depth comparison of US engagement with Iran and the DPRK’s nuclear programs requires a much longer paper. However, a brief comparative analysis of American deterrence of these adversaries is possible. Applying national interests, objectives, and activities, a methodology employed by decision analysis experts yields interesting results.

Globally, the United States has an enduring interest in safeguarding its national security and sovereignty. Underneath this enduring interest, it has a core objective of defending allies and partners, including through credible deterrence (e.g., preventing conventional and/or nuclear attacks on allies and partners by the DPRK, China, Russia, and Iran). Other major American objectives include safeguarding the free flow of commerce, countering transnational threats, preventing regional domination or aggression, and advancing nonproliferation.

The United States advances deterrence through a range of activities, including the presence of its own military assets and security cooperation with allies and partners. In the Indo-Pacific, this includes mutual defense treaties with Australia, the Philippines; South Korea, and Japan (the latter two of which are explicitly covered by the US nuclear umbrella); arms sales to Taiwan; and military exercises with allies.

More recently, the Trump administration emphasized increased allied defense spending to support “burden-sharing.” Given the limitations of the American industrial base, this is necessary even as the US maintains efforts to prevent Chinese and North Korean aggression.

Deterrence against North Korea is successful insofar as it keeps the North from invading the South or launching nuclear strikes on US Indo-Pacific allies. However, this deterrence is increasingly complicated by Chinese and Russian protection of the DPRK through mutual defense treaties.

This lends greater urgency to the American call for allies to increase defense spending, as there is a real risk of simultaneous conflict with China and North Korea, a scenario requiring substantial military assets in the region. Fulfilling the objective of regional deterrence also requires containing aggression from adversaries and bolstering security cooperation with allies and partners.

The United States supports deterrence in the Middle East by deploying its military forces and cooperating with allies and partners. However, regional deterrence, which does not formally extend the US nuclear umbrella to regional allies and partners (including Israel), often manifests as kinetic operations against adversaries, whether through security assistance or direct attacks. Thus, in the Middle East, deterrence also means advancing the goals of counter proliferation and degrading terror groups who threaten allies.

Unlike in the Indo-Pacific, where the United States prefers to contain aggression and expansion from nuclear-armed adversaries without firing a shot, in the Middle East, it will employ kinetic means to fulfill its objectives. For decades, the United States deterred Iran through sanctions, negotiations, and the threat of military action. It was when President Trump believed Iran’s uranium enrichment program was “at its highest levels and…unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons” that the US conducted kinetic attack.

The deep rifts in Middle East politics complicates the activities needed to maintain deterrence in the region. Prospects for security cooperation between Israel and the Gulf states, for example, are challenging given the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, including Israel’s recent strike against Hamas in Qatar.

Deterrence must also account for energy security concerns, given that US attempts to contain a nuclear-armed Iran may lead the regime to weaponize its control over the Straits of Hormuz. It is also unclear how far back American strikes set Iran’s nuclear program. If Iran’s proxy network persists, they can also commit further violence against the United States, its allies, and partners through attacks on military, commercial, and civilian targets.

None of these challenges are simple. In the coming years American deterrence guarantees to allies and partners may look very different as the nation shifts focus to the homeland and the Indo-Pacific. It remains to be seen how this imperative is realized in the forthcoming National Defense Strategy. Some critics note that, in practice, the United States remains heavily focused on the Middle East and Europe. Much of the ability to deter Iran and North Korea will be determined by these larger strategic shifts.

As American decision-makers face questions about effectively deploying American power across the globe, analyzing national interests, objectives, and activities can provide a helpful framework. Assessing the requirements needed to advance larger regional goals brings trade-offs into focus, better preparing the American warfighter for multiple threat scenarios. In short, this approach can yield meaningful results for those in the decision-making chair at critical moments when faced with complex problems, including maintaining credible deterrence.

Nathan Heath is an analyst at NSI. Views expressed are his own.

Deterrence of North Korea and Iran: Interests-Objectives-Analysis Framework was originally published on Global Security Review.

So sure was Israel in its southern security that intelligence reports were downplayed; the military even redeployed troops from Gaza prior to the October 7. The brutality of the attack and horror at the hostage crisis left Israel so shocked that it delayed a ground invasion for 20 days.

Despite the delay, calls for ceasefire and accusations of genocide existed before Israel’s offensive began. All the same, every first-semester international relations student knew what would happen next: with Hamas no longer deterred, Israel’s only recourse was compellence.

Compellence theory is simply acting on the threat that keeps your adversary deterred. Israel needed to compel Hamas to surrender the hostages, disarm, and realize that attacking Israel is a bad idea—restoring deterrence. For nearly two years since, Israel has tested compellence theory; at best, with mixed results, not only with Hamas, but across the region.

The Lebanese terror group Hezbollah launched its own attack on October 8, 2023, which by the end saw the launch of approximately 10,000–15,000 rockets and 2,500 drone attacks that displaced at least 70,000 Israelis and killed 75 soldiers and 45 civilians. Israel’s effort to restore deterrence devastated Hezbollah, killing 2,500–3,000 fighters, eliminating the majority of its leadership, through an exploding beeper attack in advance of a ground invasion. Seeing their losses, the group agreed to partially disarm and stay out of further hostilities, being effectively compelled.

In Yemen, the Houthis likewise joined the attack on Israel with rocket and drone attacks, as well as targeting ships off its coast, causing significant supply-chain disruptions. The attacks prompted the United States (US) to designate them a terrorist group and launch an aerial campaign alongside the United Kingdom—on top of Israel’s responses.

The Houthis endured severe damage to its offensive infrastructure and lost hundreds of fighters but still managed to occasionally launch limited attacks. The Houthis are more weakened than compelled.

Iran, the financier of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, for the first time acted against Israel directly. Retaliating against Israeli strikes, Iran launched ballistic missile and drone salvos against Israel in April and October of 2024. The tit-for-tat came to a head over 12 days in June 2025, as the two exchanged strikes while Israel tried to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Though the damage Iran’s nuclear capability took is debated, what is known is Israel’s air superiority destroyed nearly all of Iran’s defense framework and eliminated several senior military staff.

Israel endured significant damage as Iran managed to breach its defenses on a few occasions, and the two have since agreed to a ceasefire, while simultaneously pledging readiness to attack in the future. So perhaps, they are mutually deterred for now.

Syria recently entered a new phase of its civil war following the downfall of Assad, an Israeli push to expand its buffer region, and the emergence of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) faction. HTS is led by Abu Mohammed al-Julani, an Islamic State affiliate who recently began targeting members of Syria’s minority populations, largely the Druze.

Israel intervened to protect the Druze, striking HTS sites until Julani quickly agreed to withdraw his troops from the Druze-populated areas. Prior to that intervention, there were rumors of Syria joining the Abraham Accords. While compellence worked to protect the Druze in the short term, it may have derailed a long-term peace deal.

Hamas remains the outlier. Ceasefire talks are again looking to collapse. The message is that despite the devastation, loss of leadership, approximately 17,000 lost fighters, and thousands of civilians killed in the crossfire, it can endure more. Israel’s attempt at compellence was so intense, that it sparked worldwide protests and allegations of genocide. Yet, rather than agree to Israel’s terms, Hamas continues to hold out, giving a statement that they will continue to fight until a Palestinian state is established.

The US attempted to broker multiple ceasefires, with some success in November 2023 and January 2025, but a deal to end the conflict remains elusive. If the US wants real results, compellence should target Hamas’ hosts and financiers, Turkey and Qatar.

While publicly on good terms with the US, the argument that Turkey and Qatar are state sponsors of terrorism would not be difficult to make given the support and protection they have offered Hamas. President Trump could threaten to add Turkey and Qatar to the list of state sponsors of terror unless Hamas agrees to Israel’s terms of ending the war.

There are indications that this could work. At least publicly, the two countries recently joined with Saudi Arabia and Egypt in a call on Hamas to disarm and relinquish control of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority. This is a good first step, but the call has no “or else”–type clause that would actually pressure Hamas.

With that support gone, Hamas’ political leadership’s only choice would be deportation from its hosts which would likely jeopardize their finances and potentially put them within Mossad’s reach or accede to Israel’s conditions. Ever self-interested, the hope is they would be compelled to the latter. This type of diplomatic pressure directed at Hamas’ sponsors could trickle down to Hamas’ leadership and potentially be the last best hope for Gazan civilians as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signals plans for a renewed military offensive in the enclave.

Whether deterrence is restored by Israel is yet to be determined. For the sake of civilians on both sides, let us hope it is restored and soon.

Justin Leopold-Cohen is a homeland security analyst in Washington, DC. He has written widely on national and international security issues for outlets including Small Wars Journal, the Wavell Room, and Inkstick Media. Any views expressed in the article are his own and not representative of, or endorsed by, any organization or government.

Failed Deterrence and Misplaced Compellence in Gaza was originally published on Global Security Review.

An American submarine also fired thirty Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAM) against surface infrastructure targets at Isfahan. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine described it, the entire operation was a complex timed maneuver requiring exact synchronization across multiple platforms in a narrow piece of airspace.

American deception tactics contributed to surprise as neither Iraqi fighters nor their surface-to-air missile defenses attempted to interdict the American bombers and their supporting fighter aircraft, all of which returned safely.

According to General Caine, Operation Midnight Hammer involved more than 125 aircraft, including the seven B2 stealth bombers, numerous fourth- and fifth-generation fighters, and dozens of refueling tankers. Some 75 precision-guided munitions were used in Midnight Hammer, including fourteen GBU-57 MOPs, which were used for the first time in combat.

The operational excellence of Midnight Hammer doubtless constituted a setback to Iran’s nuclear enrichment programs, although exactly how much of a setback remains to be determined.  Battle damage assessment is dependent on overhead photography unless and until further information is obtained from intelligence sources near or at the affected sites.

There also remained unsettled issues relative to American and allied strategy going forward. The Trump administration’s declaratory policy wants to draw a line between going to war with Iran, on one hand, and neutralizing its nuclear capabilities and potential, on the other.  This is a fine line to draw and Iran response, and follow-on condemnations, suggest they see the American position as a distinction without a difference.

Ater the strikes, President Trump indicated that Iran should come to the diplomatic table and negotiate the status of its nuclear future. Iran rejected further negotiations. This left the American and Israeli defense communities to await whatever diplomatic or military response the Iranians offered, including possible military attacks against American forces deployed in the Middle East.

Based on experience, Iran would likely respond with continuing missile strikes against Israel and asymmetrical warfare against the United States. With regard to the latter, Iran’s options included: (1) disrupting the flow of maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz; (2) committing cyberattacks against American military or societal targets; (3) committing missile or insurgent attacks against American military personnel in Iraq or elsewhere in the region; (4) supporting protest demonstrations or terrorism in the American homeland, perhaps making use of prepositioned cells made up of illegal aliens; and/or (5) encouraging Iranian proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen to further harass American, Israeli, and allied interests.

Thus far, Iran limited its response to employing a small number of missiles against Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, even giving the Americans advance warning of the strike. For the Trump administration, this is the best possible outcome. Already, imagery intelligence suggests Iran is digging out its capabilities at Fordow and Esfahan. What the future may hold is uncertain. Whether Iran is simply buying time and learning lessons for future success or whether the regime truly desires peace is up in the air.

Future options for Iran have their positives and negatives. Disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz would harm Iran’s own economy, which needs the infusion of cash from oil sales to China.

Cyberattacks are a low-risk, low-cost option that may appeal to Iran in the near term, but they present a more serious potential threat to civilian targets compared to more heavily defended military ones. They will also draw severe reprisals from very competent American and Israeli cyber forces.

Additional attacks against American military personnel and facilities in Iraq are an option, as are missile or unconventional warfare against other regional states hosting American military bases. However, this path was not successful the first time.

Support for antiwar demonstrations or outright terrorism in the American homeland, including “lone wolf” terrorists recruited online, are still a possibility. New stories of Iranian illegal aliens arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement are almost a daily occurrence.

As for Iranian proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah are on the ropes, momentarily, due to prior engagements with Israel, but the Houthis declared their intention to plus-up their disruptions of commerce in the Red Sea in the wake of Midnight Hammer. Whether this is possible is yet to be seen.

With respect to Iran’s future nuclear options and American responses, they may proceed in one of three ways: (1) a continuing “whack-a-mole” competition in which Iran continues surreptitious enrichment and the US and Israel continue to monitor its progress and, if necessary, repeat Midnight Hammer, or worse; (2) Iran undergoes a change of regime due to domestic opposition, leaving uncertain for a time exactly who is in charge and who controls the supplies of enriched uranium and nuclear infrastructure, never mind the armed forces and security police; or (3) Iran agrees to negotiate with the US and representatives of the international community another deal to limit its stockpiles of fissile material and its levels of enrichment.

These are possible options, but by no means the only options. Iran may pursue an unexpected path in an effort to outthink the United States and Israel. Whatever the future holds, President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must keep a close eye on a regime that is built on destroying both countries. Hope is critical to human perseverance, but it is not a strategy.

Dr. Stephen Cimbala is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Penn State university, Brandywine. He is currently a senior fellow with the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. Views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Midnight Hammer and After was originally published on Global Security Review.

However, Iran’s broader regional influence and its destabilizing activities remain a fundamental concern—one that is unlikely to be addressed through an agreement focused solely on its nuclear capabilities. Preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, dismantling its nuclear infrastructure, or even restricting its ballistic missile program does not, on its own, resolve the underlying challenge posed by Tehran’s regional behavior.

What Is Iran’s Influence Based On?

Iranian influence in the region is grounded in three main pillars. First, Iran relies on Shiite religious ideology. Iran positions itself as the leader of the global Shiite community. This sect has a social and political base in several Middle Eastern and surrounding countries. Through Shiite populations and affiliated groups, Iran infiltrates states and establishes loyal militias, enabling it to exert significant influence over these countries—or parts of them—effectively weakening their sovereignty and transforming them into subservient states.

For example, Iran wields significant influence in Iraq through the Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), in Lebanon through Hezbollah, in Yemen via the Houthis, and in Syria, where influence was exerted through Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite-led regime. Additionally, Iran has formed Shiite militias from the Shiite populations of Afghanistan, the Fatemiyoun Brigade, and Pakistan, the Zainabiyoun Brigade. Through these efforts, Iran has constructed the “Shiite Crescent.”

Second, Iran exploits broader Islamic issues. Iran strategically champions causes with Pan-Islamic appeal, most notably the Palestinian issue, to extend its influence beyond Shiite groups and into Sunni communities. Despite historical sectarian divides and conflict between Sunnis and Shiites, Iran has successfully co-opted or allied with key Sunni movements such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, expanding its influence into Gaza and presenting itself as the principal defender of the Palestinian cause. This position garners support not only from across the Muslim world but also from segments of the Western left. By uniting Shiite militias (the “Shiite Crescent”) and Sunni militant groups under a common anti-Western and anti-Israel banner, Iran has forged what it calls the “Axis of Resistance.” This alliance played a central role in the outbreak of the October 7, 2023, war, which continues to this day.

Third, the regime exercises a repressive domestic grip. Maintaining and managing this vast regional network requires immense and sustained financial and military support. Despite facing long-standing and severe international sanctions and domestic economic hardship, Iran continues to fund and arm its proxies. A key factor enabling this is the authoritarian nature of the regime, which extracts national wealth and redirects it to foreign operations, while the Iranian population endures poverty, inflation, and public service failures. Popular discontent is suppressed through systematic repression, especially targeting marginalized ethnic groups such as the Kurds, Baluchis, and Arabs, who face both economic deprivation and political persecution. This repressive apparatus prevents domestic uprisings and sustains the regime’s ability to project power abroad.

Therefore, Iranian influence in the region is not primarily based on its nuclear program or ballistic missiles. Iran was able to extend its influence over Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Gaza without resorting to ballistic missile attacks or explicit threats involving its nuclear program. However, when Iran did employ its ballistic missiles and military power, most notably during its direct attacks on Israel on April 13, 2024, and October 1, 2024, this coincided with a period of declining regional influence. During this time, Iran experienced significant setbacks, losing ground in Syria and Gaza and suffering major blows in Lebanon and even within its own borders.

In other words, the golden age of Iranian influence occurred during a time when it refrained from directly using its ballistic missiles or overt military force. Its later use of such power came at a moment when its regional axis was already weakening. This suggests that Iran’s true influence lies not in its nuclear program or missile capabilities, but in other, less tangible sources of power—ones that are far more difficult to constrain through formal agreements. Therefore, to effectively counter Iran’s regional influence and threat, the United States must begin by addressing the three key factors discussed above.

The Shia Principle of Taqiyya

Iran is constitutionally defined as a Shia state, and its ruling regime openly adopts and promotes Shia ideological principles. One of the most well-known concepts in Shia Islam is Taqiyya, a principle that permits the concealment of one’s beliefs or intentions when facing danger, threat, or coercion. Traditionally, Taqiyya is understood as a form of self-protection in times of persecution, allowing individuals to lie or withhold the truth to preserve life and religious identity.

In the context of the Iranian regime, Taqiyya has evolved beyond personal religious practice into a broader political doctrine. It is sometimes employed as a strategic tool to justify diplomatic flexibility, ambiguity, or deception, particularly in times of weakness. As a result, securing Iran’s full compliance with international agreements may be especially challenging. The regime may commit to agreements under duress or strategic necessity, only to abandon or reinterpret those commitments once it perceives a restoration of strength. Thus, Taqiyya is not merely a religious principle but has become a core aspect of the regime’s political behavior and strategic calculus.

What Is the Solution?

One of the key factors behind Iran’s continued expansion of influence and regional destabilization is its perception that the United States is unwilling to launch a military strike against its territory. This perception significantly reduces the credibility of diplomatic pressure and sanctions. To alter this strategic calculus, a limited and targeted military strike on Iran’s nuclear and military facilities, followed by the negotiation of a specific and enforceable agreement, may be necessary.

Such a calibrated use of force would serve not only to degrade Iran’s capabilities but also to demonstrate clear consequences for noncompliance. In this context, Iran may become more amenable to concessions and more committed to upholding agreements, as it would recognize that failure to comply carries the real risk of further military escalation—potentially threatening the survival of the regime itself.

Ranj Tofik is a Non-Resident Scholar at the Middle East Policy Council, and a PhD researcher in political science at the University of Warsaw, Poland.

US–Iran Talks: Unlikely to Succeed Absent a Military Strike was originally published on Global Security Review.

Science and education are part of strategic ties in recent years. The “Program of educational cooperation between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the State of Israel for the years 2023-2026” forms the basis for developing this vital field in mutual cooperation. As Azerbaijan strives to reform its education system in order to make schools future-ready and sci-tech focused, it benefits greatly from the exchange of teachers and education experts to train and learn from the Israeli experience.

Cooperation on climate change, high tech agriculture, green energy, and water are also part of the educational and scientific ties. Israel’s high-tech economy and agriculture and its experience in green energy and water desalination provide Azerbaijan a unique opportunity to diversify and develop the non-oil sector of its economy.

Cybersecurity is also part of the educational ties between the countries with staff at the Technion, a public research university based in Haifa, contributing to the training of Azerbaijani students on a cybersecurity program.

Food security with a focus on grain is another new angle in Azerbaijan-Israel ties. Israel’s food security, and specifically its requirement for grain, will be met by Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, following the disruption to supplies as a result of the Russia-Ukraine war. This will be a huge boost to both Israel’s and Azerbaijan’s food security, as Azerbaijan will receive advanced technology from Israel as part of the deal.

The high level of religious tolerance and historical lack of anti-Semitism in Azerbaijan form a strong basis for people-to-people relations between Azerbaijan and Israel. The village of Qırmızı Qəsəbə (Red Village) in the Quba region of Azerbaijan, home to an old community of Mountain Jews, is believed to be the world’s only all-Jewish village outside Israel and the United States. The opening of the Mountain Jews Museum in the village is also a testament to the positive role of Azerbaijan in Jewish-Muslim coexistence and the promotion of harmony and tolerance. Azerbaijani Jews form a strong bond between the people of the two countries and their significant presence in Israel also promotes bilateral ties.

An important development in the energy sector, a key part of the strategic partnership between Azerbaijan and Israel, took place in October 2023, when Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR was granted a gas exploration license alongside British Petroleum and Israel’s NewMed to explore an area north of Israel’s Leviathan gas field in the Mediterranean. This is a significant boost to SOCAR, increasing its role in the world energy market and introducing a new aspect to Azerbaijan-Israel energy cooperation. Around 40 percent of Israel’s oil imports come from Azerbaijan.

Diversification of supply and non-reliance on Arab oil has been a key component of Israeli energy security over the years. Azerbaijani oil pumped to Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan and transported onwards to world markets forms a major source of revenue for the Azerbaijani budget and, as such, has been crucial in the modernisation of the country’s infrastructure, armed forces, and the large-scale reconstruction in Azerbaijan’s liberated lands.

Azerbaijan’s energy policy forms the backbone of the country’s independent foreign policy. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline bypasses both Russia and Iran and has proved a key asset following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when Kazakh oil shipments, for example, most of which pass through Russia, have been disrupted.

Since the Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza, Iran has singled out the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline as well as Azerbaijan, putting them under pressure to cut off the key crude oil supply to Israel and thereby to damage the basis for Azerbaijan’s independent foreign policy.     Iran launched media propaganda against Azerbaijan. Leftist so-called nongovernmental organizations, financed by Western-donor political figures such as Greta Thunberg and Qatar-financed outlets such as the Middle East Eye, also criticized Azerbaijan.

The attacks reveal the range of political sides that are keen to damage and destroy the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and Azerbaijan’s independent foreign policy. Attacks against SOCAR’s HQ in Istanbul, organized by pro-Hamas Islamists and leftists, with the tacit approval of circles within the Turkish government, were also part of the campaign.

Azerbaijan-Israel strategic cooperation, particularly in the energy sector, stood firm in the face of attacks from various circles, geopolitical turbulence, and pressure. The incoming Trump administration should value Baku’s role in the energy security of Israel, the European Union, and Turkey, which are key US allies.

Azerbaijan and Israel developed the defense component of their strategic partnership over the years. Israel is one of the main sources of Azerbaijan’s defense imports and modernization of the armed forces. Azerbaijan made skilful use of Israeli defence products in liberating its lands; most notably, Israeli’s Barak 8 anti-ballistic missile defense system intercepted an Iskander missile fired from Armenia over the capital Baku.

Israel, too, stood firm in the face of pressure during the war in 2020 and did not allow third parties to influence their defense cooperation with Baku. The defense cooperation also came under extensive media attack by pro-Armenia and pro-Iran elements who consider the Azerbaijani-Israeli defense partnership a threat to their interests. Iran feared Azerbaijan’s growing role since Baku’s victory in the Karabakh war and the high-level conduct of its armed forces.

A strong Azerbaijan on its northern border is a nightmare for Iran. Tehran invested heavily for decades to keep Azerbaijan weak, but this failed badly with the restoration of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Azerbaijan-Israel defense cooperation is vital for regional security and the containment of rogue actors such as Iran, which pose an existential security threat to both countries.

With the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, Israel and Turkey appear to have inflicted a strategic defeat on Iran. Considering the strained nature of Turkish-Israel relations, due to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan backing Palestinian extremist groups, it is in the interests of both Israel and Turkey not to collide in Syria and to manage the risks.

In this regard, Azerbaijan can play a key role in coordinating and reconciling both Israeli and Turkish interests to avoid confrontation in Syria. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s foreign policy aide Hikmet Hajiyev visited Israel in December, where he had meetings with high-level Israeli officials including Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and President Isaac Herzog. The trip was a positive development in reducing confrontational elements in Turkish-Israeli ties and keeping backchannel communications open.

It is in Azerbaijan’s interests to reconcile or at least reduce the negative atmosphere between its two key strategic partners Israel and Turkey, with Azerbaijan playing a significant role in the recent normalization process between the two countries. Baku also proposed setting up a trilateral regional format for strategic cooperation between Azerbaijan, Israel, and Turkey before the Hamas terrorist attack derailed the fragile Israeli-Turkish ties with Erdoğan siding with Hamas.

Overall, it is worth noting that both Azerbaijan and Israel benefit strategically from their partnership in various fields. The contribution of their relationship to the security environment of the South Caucasus and the Middle East is important as it also opens new opportunities.

The role of Azerbaijan in easing the tension in Turkish-Israel ties becomes more significant with the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. Azerbaijan and Israel have both stood firm during geopolitical crises, protecting their strategic ties and blocking third-party attempts to influence them, thereby proving that their partnership is reliable and mutually beneficial.

Rufat Ahmadzada is a graduate of City University London. His research area covers the South Caucasus and Iran. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Azerbaijan-Israel Strategic Relationship Proves Its Importance was originally published on Global Security Review.

The conflict caused widespread destruction and displacement, exacerbating the long-standing humanitarian crisis in the region. It then extended into Lebanon, where Iran-backed Hezbollah engaged in hostilities against Israel. On November 27, 2024, following months of intense confrontations, the US brokered a 60-day ceasefire, allowing thousands of displaced individuals to return to southern Lebanon. However, the ceasefire’s durability remains uncertain, with speculation concerning potential violations and the broader implications for regional stability.

In Syria, rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) capitalized on regional unrest to seize control of key areas, including Aleppo, Idlib, and Hama. The Assad regime’s traditional allies—Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia—were preoccupied with their own conflicts, allowing the Assad regime’s overthrow. HTS, which is presumably anti-Iran, is making Syria more difficult for Iran to influence. Iranian influence allowed the regime to transit armaments to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Over the past year, Israel intensified its military operations to degrade Iran’s proxy forces across the Middle East, employing a combination of airstrikes, special operations, and strategic assassinations. On October 26, 2024, Israel launched Operation Days of Repentance, targeting over 20 locations in Iran, Iraq, and Syria. This operation significantly damaged Iran’s capabilities for missile production and utilization of its air defense systems.

This also included the destruction of long-range surface-to-air missile batteries and detection radars. Israeli operations employed targeted assassinations to eliminate key figures within Iran’s proxy networks, including Hassan Nasrallah, who was eliminated in an airstrike in Beirut on September 27, 2024, along with other senior officials. Previously, on July 31, 2024, in an operation attributed to Israel, another notable assassination in Tehran, Iran, eliminated Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas.

Furthermore, Israeli special forces conducted covert special operations and missions to disrupt Iran’s proxy activities. For instance, in September 2024, Israeli commandos raided an underground facility near Masyaf, Syria, known for its weapons development and potential use by Iran and Hezbollah to produce precision-guided missiles. Israeli forces also captured Ali Soleiman al-Assi in southern Syria in November, accusing him of aiding Iranian intelligence efforts.

Despite the systematic degradation of Iran’s proxy forces in the region, Iran continues to advance its nuclear program, posing a significant threat to the region. The head of France’s foreign intelligence agency stated that Iran’s nuclear proliferation poses a serious threat in the coming months, and both France and the United Kingdom are developing strategies to counter this threat.

However, the current geopolitical and military dynamics may present a unique opportunity for Israel to strike Iran, with a focus on neutralizing its nuclear and regional threats. A combination of factors, particularly the expectation of a West-backed Israeli military action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, can underpin the reasoning.

Degraded Proxy Capabilities

In the past few months, Israel has effectively degraded the operational strength of Iranian-affiliated groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Shia militias in Syria and Iraq. Moreover, the precise eliminations of various leadership divisions within Hezbollah and Hamas significantly undermine the command frameworks of Iran’s affiliates and their capacity to orchestrate operations.

Furthermore, Israeli precision strikes and covert operations effectively dismantled essential facilities supporting these groups, thereby diminishing their capacity for swift counteractions. With its proxies weakened, Iran is likely encountering difficulties in coordinating a robust regional strategy.

Israeli operations significantly degraded Iran’s air defense systems, including their Russian S-300s and other advanced defense platforms. This leaves critical facilities, including nuclear sites like Natanz and Fordow, more exposed to precision strikes aimed at eliminating Iran’s nuclear threat. Some Western experts believe that a successful strike now could potentially delay Iran’s nuclear ambitions for many years.

Domestically, Iran is also facing severe economic challenges, including unemployment, inflation, and widespread dissatisfaction among its population, which was further fuelled by protests over the past two years as a result of the dire economic situation of the country as well as the increasing repression by the regime. Ongoing protests and internal dissent are already straining the regime’s resources. Analysts believe that Iran’s leadership is significantly preoccupied with maintaining internal stability rather than launching a significant retaliatory campaign.

Overall, reports indicate that Iran’s national funds are nearly depleted, along with most of its financial resources being drained by its support to military and proxy activities. In addition, energy shortages, including electricity and gas, have fueled Iran’s economic crisis, thus, severely impacting its citizens and therefore further increasing civil unrest towards the regime.

That said, there is already a growing gap between the government and the public. This gap spans economic, political, and social aspects along with the increasing dissatisfaction over the government’s inability to address internal civil needs in parallel to the increasing repression by the regime.

Iran’s nuclear program is progressing at a rapid pace, with the emergence of reports indicating the installation of advanced centrifuges and uranium enrichment nearing the weapons-grade levels. Israel and the West may be seeing this as a narrowing window of opportunity to act decisively before Iran develops a nuclear weapon or possesses weapons-grade uranium. The possibility of delaying a firm action could allow Iran to fortify its facilities further or even achieve a nuclear breakout.

Iran’s foreign minister recently stated that if the West proceeds with the threat of reimposing all United Nations sanctions, Iran is likely to move toward possessing its own nuclear weapons. This statement raises concerns about the effectiveness of the sanctions against Iran over the past years in advancing its nuclear objectives.

The ceasefire with Hezbollah and reduced clashes with Hamas is expected to establish a brief respite in regional conflicts. However, the US and European allies are growing increasingly exasperated with Iran’s unwillingness to engage on its nuclear program, which could render decisive action more acceptable on the diplomatic front. Arab nations, while cautious, share concerns about Iran’s regional influence and the progress in the development of its nuclear capabilities.

Although Iran held a new round of nuclear talks with France, Germany, and the United Kingdom on November 29, 2024, talks resulted in minimal progress and no immediate course of action. This underscores the fact that diplomatic discussions with Iran yielded nothing in recent years, except for Iran’s continued advancement in its nuclear aspirations.

Furthermore, this will likely increase Europe’s shift towards adopting a hard-line position regarding engagement with Iran on nuclear issues. In this respect, it was reported that US President-elect Donald Trump is weighing options in countering Iran’s nuclear developments, including the option for a preventive airstrike.

Recent Israeli successes against Iran and its proxies created strategic momentum. Waiting too long could allow Iran to rebuild its defenses and recover its regional proxies to actively engage in attrition warfare with American and Israeli forces in the Middle East. This could occur while potentially working covertly in strengthening its own nuclear program. In this respect, some security analysts may argue that a Western-supported Israeli strike would leverage the latter’s current military and intelligence superiority in countering Iran’s regional proxies.

While highlighting these opportunities, it is also important to anticipate the possible risks, including the regional escalation involving Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, Iraqi militias, and Syria. The risk of fully strained international relations with Iran also exists, especially if a strike triggers widespread civilian casualties or destabilizes global oil markets. Furthermore, a military action could arguably accelerate Iran’s nuclear ambitions clandestinely.

Those advocating for prompt action are likely to contend that the dangers of failing to act against Iran surpass the dangers of launching a pre-emptive strike before it is too late, putting Iran in a position to acquire nuclear weapons or nuclear-grade enriched uranium. It can be argued that the current moment is a fleeting alignment of weakened Iranian proxies, vulnerable defenses, and growing nuclear threats, making it a strategically opportune time to act decisively in pressuring Iran to refrain from pursuing its nuclear program. Finally, with President’s Trump return, it can be assumed that the new US administration may not have the immediate intention to pursue diplomacy with Iran, instead it would be more likely that a “maximum pressure” campaign would be adopted.

Mohamed ELDoh, PhD, is a business development and consulting professional in the defense and security sector. He regularly authors articles addressing defense cooperation, counterterrorism, geopolitics, and emerging security threats in the Middle East and Africa.

Is This the Right Moment to Act Against Iran on All Fronts? was originally published on Global Security Review.

The core of Iran’s strategy is its desire to build two major corridors of influence. The first stretches west to the Mediterranean via Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, where Iran’s alliance with Hezbollah plays a central role. This “Shia Crescent” provides Tehran with a direct line of influence and military capability near Israel’s borders.

The second strategic corridor runs through Yemen to the southern Red Sea, where Iran’s support for the Houthi rebels positions it to disrupt maritime traffic and challenge Saudi Arabia’s influence in the region. Both corridors are critical to Iran’s broader objective of positioning itself as a dominant power in the region, capable of challenging Israel, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), and Western interests.

In the current conflict with Israel, both the West Bank, bordering Jordan, and Gaza, bordering Egypt, serve as crucial strategic pressure points for Israel. Iran views Gaza as a key element in its wider strategy to surround Israel with hostile forces. Although Iran does not directly control the armed Palestinian groups in Gaza, their shared objectives make them natural allies.

This presents Iran with the opportunity to capitalize on such a situation and continue to provide support to groups like Hamas, despite their current ineffectiveness and only increasing the likelihood of a wider-scale war in the region. For years, Egypt, with an emphasis on regional stability and peace, indirectly managed Gaza’s political agenda. However, in recent years, Hamas increasingly aligned itself with Iran, a country primarily focused on regional destabilization and triggering armed confrontations.

Iran’s increased backing for Hamas in Gaza in recent years reflects a comprehensive strategy aimed at surrounding Israel from multiple fronts. Hezbollah, supported by Iran, projects influence from both Lebanon and Syria. Iran’s engagement in Yemen strategically places it adjacent the Red Sea, positioning Iran as a potential threat to international maritime routes as well as to most of the nations in Yemen’s vicinity.

Gaza, situated along Israel’s southwestern border, forms a crucial point in this intricate web of tension. While Egypt exercises stringent oversight of its border with Gaza and consistently opposes Iranian influence, Tehran’s backing of Palestinian groups aligns with its overarching strategy to apply pressure on Israel from multiple fronts. However, the relationship between Egypt and Iran is strained—since the 1970s—particularly given the enduring peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.

The current conflict between Israel and Palestinian factions illustrates a significant shift in the behavior of non-state armed groups. In Syria, various rebel factions fought against the government, which is supported by Iran, but often harboured animosity toward one another, as their objectives and alliances are/were not unified. By contrast, in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the non-state actors—Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other factions—share a common enemy (Israel) and a broadly unified goal: weakening of Israeli military and political control.

This alignment of interests made Iran’s role in supporting these groups more influential and effective, even if Tehran does not have direct command over them. However, the regional threat posed by this situation stems from Iran’s lack of genuine concern for the Palestinian cause and its failure to support the Palestinians in achieving a peaceful resolution with Israel, including the two-state solution that most Western and Arab nations proposed over the past decades. This further supports the claim that Iran’s main objective is to disseminate its ideology and expand its regional power through persistent destabilization tactics.

While the current Palestinian factions in Gaza and the West Bank share common goals with Iran, they were neither previously nor currently formal proxies to it, unlike Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthis in Yemen. However, Iran’s ability to support and influence these groups through financial and military aid allows it to project power in the region indirectly. For Iran, Gaza serves as a crucial point in its strategy of regional influence, even though the Palestinian factions maintain their independence from direct Iranian control.

Egypt, on the other hand, is a strategically more complicated case for Iran given the fact that Cairo has always perceived any Iranian presence near its borders as a direct threat to its national security. This has led to a long-standing Egyptian policy of limiting Iranian influence in Gaza and rejecting any Iranian foothold in its immediate vicinity.

However, Iran has sought to circumvent this by expanding its influence in Libya and Sudan. By supporting and arming militias and armed groups present in Egypt’s neighbouring countries, Iran would ultimately aim to surround Egypt with allies or proxies, potentially allowing it to exert pressure on Cairo from multiple fronts. This strategy could eventually create openings for Iran to influence Egypt’s policies regarding Gaza and its relations with Israel.

Despite that Iran’s regional ambitions have always been clear to Egypt, the unprecedented level of war risk presented to the Middle East region further presents Egypt with increasing challenges concerning Iran’s regionally backed groups.

Iran’s possible sway in Libya and Sudan places Tehran in a strategic position to constrict Egypt from the west and south, resulting in a geopolitical pressure point. Nevertheless, the circumstances in Sudan demand greater attention. While Egypt and Iran back the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), Iran’s unrestrained backing of the SAF presents a potential risk to Egypt, as it may result in a rise in Iranian influence and connections within Sudan, ultimately advancing Tehran’s objectives.

The recent attacks by Yemen’s Houthis in the Red Sea have profoundly affected Egypt’s revenue from the Suez Canal over the past 10 months, presenting an ongoing danger to global shipping routes that traverse the Bab al-Mandeb Strait followed by the Red Sea then the Suez Canal. Consequently, Tehran has the potential to exert greater control or cause disturbances in maritime traffic through this vital passage, particularly during periods of increased tension, due to Iran’s expanding presence in Sudan, which is also situated close to the southern gateway of the Red Sea.

In parallel, Iran has pursued diplomatic engagement with Egypt, recognizing the potential benefits of normalized relations. Iran’s foreign minister recently visited Egypt to discuss Gaza-related regional tensions. Tehran apparently hopes to use soft power tools to build ties with Egypt.

A clear goal for Iran would be to create a network of influence with Egypt that complements its broader regional strategy in the Middle East. Should Iran succeed in building a stronger relationship with Egypt, it would be better positioned to influence events in Gaza, Libya, and Sudan, further consolidating its regional presence.

In contrast, Iran’s prospects of success in Jordan appears to be more limited. The Jordanian government’s strong ties with the United States and its historical enmity with Iran make Amman a more difficult target for Iranian influence. However, Iran may still view the sizable Palestinian population in Jordan as a potential pressure point.

By appealing to Palestinian nationalist sentiments and leveraging its support for Palestinian groups in Gaza and the West Bank, Iran could attempt to destabilize Jordan or at least pressure its government into altering its policies regarding Israel and the Palestinians. While this is a more challenging front for Iran, it remains a part of its broader geostrategic calculus.

Iran’s regional strategy capitalizes on building and supporting a complex web of alliances, proxy forces, non-state actors, and soft power tools, all aimed at expanding its influence and challenging its adversaries. Through direct military backing for entities such as Hezbollah and the Houthis, as well as indirect sway over Palestinian groups and diplomatic interactions with regional players like Egypt and the KSA, Iran persistently seeks to establish itself as a pivotal force in the geopolitics of the Middle East, while simultaneously exacerbating regional tensions and engaging in destabilizing activities.

Dr. Mohamed ElDoh is a business development and consulting professional in the defense and security sector.

The Geostrategic Mind of Iran was originally published on Global Security Review.

As discussions of retaliation by Israel continue, the media discuss Iranian oil refineries as possible targets that might be hit. Israeli Defence minister, Yoav Gallant, stated that retaliation against Iran’s missile attacks will be “lethal and surprising.” Meanwhile, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-linked social media accounts are already spreading reports that Tehran warned the United States that actions against Iranian oil refineries will lead the Islamic Republic to target oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Kuwait. According to a Reuters report, Iran also warned the Gulf Arab states that any use of their airspace or military bases to target Iran will be unacceptable and threatened a military response.

Iran’s Strategy

Iran’s reference to Azerbaijan as a potential target, should Israel attack Iranian oil refineries, is an indication of the Islamic Republic’s growing threat to critical energy infrastructure not only in the Middle East, but also in the South Caucasus and the Caspian Sea basin region. Azerbaijan supplies 40 percent of Israel’s energy needs and Azerbaijan’s oil and gas infrastructure is the backbone of its independence in the geopolitically tense region.

Not only does Azerbaijan meet nearly 40 percent of Israel’s demand for crude oil, Azerbaijan’s state energy giant SOCAR, alongside British Petroleum and Israel’s NewMed, was awarded a licence to explore an area to the north of Israel’s Leviathan gas field in the Eastern Mediterranean. The strong bilateral and multifaceted relations between Israel and Azerbaijan are a primary concern for Iran.

In anticipation of Israeli retaliation against the Iranian ballistic missile attacks, the Iranian media continues to make unsubstantiated claims about supposed secret Israeli military bases in Azerbaijan with a ridiculous accusation that Azerbaijan is one of the origins of sabotage against the Islamic Republic. Talking about possible Israeli retaliation against Iranian oil facilities, Iranian diplomat Abbas Mousavi falsely claimed in an interview to Tejarat News that Israel deployed many planes to Azerbaijan.

In fact, since Hamas launched the brutal terrorist attacks against Israel in October 2023, Iran’s main goal is the consolidation of the members of the Organisation of Islamic States to achieve an economic blockade and diplomatic isolation from Israel. Iranian Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei repeatedly called on Arab and Muslim countries to impose an oil embargo on Israel. Iranian officials frequently repeat similar calls showing Tehran’s agenda behind the Hamas attacks, which aimed to disrupt economic, political, and diplomatic relations between the State of Israel and Muslim-majority nations.

Iran’s multidimensional strategy behind the Hamas attacks was based on several ambitious goals, including preventing possible normalisation between Israel and Saudi Arabia and other Arab states; derailing the Abraham Accords; preventing efforts to improve strained Turkish-Israeli ties; and trying to inflict economic and diplomatic damage on Israel-Azerbaijan strategic ties. Iran’s strategy seeks to achieve multiple goals simultaneously in both the Middle East and South Caucasus.

Iranian media outlets launched coordinated propaganda attacks against Turkey and Azerbaijan for supplying crude oil to Israel via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline since the Hamas terrorist attacks and start of the subsequent war in Gaza. Iran-inspired, pro-Hamas Islamist, and leftist circles in Turkey staged several demonstrations where they vandalised Azerbaijani oil company, SOCAR, offices in Istanbul in an attempt to halt oil exports.

Considering the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Turkey, the country is a comfortable space for Iranian propaganda and hybrid activities covered by so-called Islamic narratives. Ironically, the fact that Iran is a major energy supplier to Armenia and supplied the formerly Armenian-occupied Karabakh region received no similar response from Islamists or leftists in Turkey.

Coercive Actions

Iran’s military threats against Azerbaijan increased from the end of the Second Karabakh War, when the balance of power in the South Caucasus shifted in Baku’s favor. Iran conducted several military drills near Azerbaijan’s border, putting on a show of force against the geopolitical changes in the region. In late September and early October 2021 Iran suddenly conducted military drills near Azerbaijan’s borders.

An Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman described the exercises as a “sovereign right,” saying, “Iran will not tolerate the presence of the Zionist regime” near its borders. Iran undertook another military provocation a year later when Tehran laid pontoon bridges across the Araz River near the Azerbaijani border and crossed the river as part of war games. In March 2023, an Iranian air force fighter jet violated Azerbaijan’s airspace. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry summoned Iran’s ambassador, and the Azerbaijani Defence and Foreign Ministries issued a joint statement condemning the incursion.

When Israel liquidated Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, in Damascus in April 2024, Iranian member of parliament, Jalal Rashidi Kochi, called for strikes on an Israeli embassy in the region, preferably in Azerbaijan. Iranian attempts to target the Israeli embassy and ambassadors in Baku were also foiled on many occasions over the years; the most recent reported attempt involved the arrest of an Afghan national in July 2023. Recently Iran has enhanced its naval capabilities in the Caspian Sea and increased naval drills, including joint drills with Russia.

Iran’s Missile and Cyber Capabilities

Iran possesses numerous capabilities to threaten critical infrastructure including energy and power in the region. Among them Tehran’s ballistic missiles and cyber tools are key. Iran maintains the largest ballistic and cruise missile force in the Middle East, capable of reaching 2,500 kilometres from its borders. Moreover, these capabilities combined with Iran’s drone arsenal can overwhelm missile defence systems. Iran’s missile attacks against Saudi oil facilities in 2019 were conducted by a combination of drones and cruise missiles.

Iran has improved its offensive cyber capabilities, too, and is capable of causing localised and temporary disruption to corporate networks for days or weeks. Drilling oil wells, pumping crude oil, and loading fuel are processes where cyberattacks can cause significant disruptions. According to an FBI report released in August 2024, Iran exploited computer network vulnerabilities to infiltrate and steal sensitive technical data from organisations in Israel and Azerbaijan. In July, cybersecurity firm Check Point reported that an Iranian hacker group named Muddy Water, affiliated with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, increased its cyber activities against targets in Azerbaijan, Israel, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.

Securing Critical Infrastructure

Overall, considering Azerbaijan’s key role in the energy security of vital American allies, such as Europe, Israel, and Turkey, and its significant help in supplying energy to US-friendly states Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, the next administration needs to reverse shortsighted Biden State Department policy. The decision not to waive Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, banning US aid to the Azerbaijani government, damages American interests in the South Caucasus. It is in the interest of the US and Azerbaijan to expand their military and technical partnership to secure critical infrastructure in the region.

Rufat Ahmadzada is a graduate of City University London. His research area covers the South Caucasus and Iran. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Iran’s Threat to Azerbaijan’s Critical Energy Infrastructure was originally published on Global Security Review.

Hezbollah, now attempting to fend off Israel’s September 30 ground operation, is simultaneously working to adapt its own approach to technology, and, if history is any indicator of the future, the terror group will likely continue as it has, answering Israel’s high-tech efforts with ironically harder to trace low-tech options. That Hezbollah was even using pagers was to avoid cellular detection. And as they adapt, their communications will likely go even more analog, perhaps communicating only through couriers, as Osama Bin Laden was known to do, or using physical handwritten notes and dead drops, as militant Italian anarchist groups did in the early 2000s.

While the idea of a terrorist group obtaining a more technologically advanced arsenal, such as nuclear or chemical weapons, or instituting a mass cyberattack is daunting, it is not exactly uncommon due to expense and required expertise. What is far more likely is that Hezbollah and other terrorist groups will downgrade methods, opting for cheaper and easier to implement weapons and methods which are more than capable of lethal outcomes.

Time and time again, society has seen heavy damage wrought on person and property via methods that seem relatively primitive.

In 2021, the Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas increased their use of incendiary balloons when attacking Israel, causing more than 20 fires in southern Israel, straining civilian and IDF emergency service resources, and burning upward of 10,000 acres of farmland over the preceding three years. These “balloons are easily constructed and require little setup to launch compared to rockets, which are expensive and time-consuming to produce” but are still incredibly effective.

In 2013, a US power plant in California was victim of an as yet unsolved shooting attack, damaging multiple transformers. Surprisingly set up with little to no security, the plant’s perimeter was breached and approximately 100 rounds of high-powered rifle ammunition were fired into 17 transformers before police arrived. The damage was severe enough that to avoid blackouts across Silicon Valley power had to be diverted from other areas during the months-long repair.

While these incidents are high profile, given the critical infrastructure connections, they did not result in any fatalities. However, that is not always the goal of terrorists and is hardly the reality for other common low-tech methods. Shootings, bombings, and melee attacks continue to make up the overwhelming majority of terrorist attacks. Research from the Center for Strategic and International Studies shows that from 2015 to 2020,  85 percent of terror attacks employed one of these methods, with 12 percent being unrealized threats, 2 percent other, and 1 percent vehicle ramming.

The numbers are remarkably similar for lethal attacks in 2023 according to the 2024 Global Terrorism Index published by Vision of Humanity. Out of the 50 most lethal terrorist attacks, only one, an incident in the Homs Province of Syria, featuring an explosive-laden unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) targeting a military graduation ceremony which killed 89 people, could be thought of as a high-tech weapon. The other 49 were made up of 43 armed assaults, five bombings, and one explosive projectile.

As terrorist groups get backed into a corner by high-tech counter methods like the Israeli pager attack, it is increasingly likely they will rely on time-proven simple methods. The world may even see them adapting and learning from accidents such as the September 2024 car crash into a gas pipeline in Texas which caused an explosion or the 2017 Hamburg, Germany, airport evacuation which resulted from the accidental discharge of a simple, lipstick-sized can of pepper spray. While these were both accidents, one can imagine the economic and fear-induced impact if a terrorist group were to try to replicate the outcomes.

There are, of course, outliers to the terrorist use of low-tech methods. There is the terrorist cult Aum Shinrikyo’s launch of the notorious Tokyo Sarin gas attack in 1995 or drone attacks along the lines of  2023’s drone attack in Syria, as well as other groups’ potential use of commercial drones. But today’s would-be terrorist is likely not resorting to high-tech weapon or communication devices, and more often than not, going for something easy and/or available. To borrow from Chistopher Nolan’s Joker in the Dark Knight, items like “dynamite, and gunpowder, and gasoline [are] cheap” and are going to comprise the bulk of the future threats from terrorist groups.

Justin Leopold-Cohen is a homeland security analyst in Washington, DC. He has written widely on national and international security issues for outlets including Small Wars Journal, the Wavell Room, and Inkstick Media. Any views expressed in the article are his own and not representative of, or endorsed by, any organization or government.

Counter Terror’s High-tech to Low-tech Backfire was originally published on Global Security Review.

An inherently political phenomenon, terrorism is concerned with balances of power and the use of violence to achieve ideological and political aims. Though political goals influence the strategy of violent Islamic fundamentalists, the religious component remains the most important motivator for its agents and leaders. This makes that type of terrorism especially deadly and difficult to combat. Even seven years after the most recent wave of attacks from ISIS, Islamic terrorism is still the most prevalent type of terrorism threatening Europe, Africa, and Asia. In Latin America, Hezbollah is the only originally Islamist terrorist organization present.

Hezbollah was born during the Lebanese Civil War, which broke out in 1975 as a group of Shiite Muslims took up arms against the Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon. Under the sponsorship of Iran, this militia would attack the barracks of the coalition forces in Beirut with more than three hundred causalities.

Hezbollah’s 1985 manifesto called for the destruction of the Israeli state, the expulsion of Western powers from Lebanon, and pledged allegiance to Iran’s supreme leader. By the late 1980s, Hezbollah established operations in Colombia, the tri-border area (between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay), and, later, Venezuela. Hezbollah claims credit for attacks against an Israeli Embassy (1992) and a Jewish community center (1994) in Argentina.

Latin America’s recent history of violent revolutions and regime change shows why the region is particularly ripe for extremist movements. When Fidel Castro entered Havana, Cuba, on January 1, 1959, he imposed a type of repressive regime that was seen as a model by socialist movements on the continent. In the years that followed Castro’s victory and the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, Cuba became the center of the “good” guerrilla fighter. Asymmetric warfare proliferated across Latin America. The Shining Path organization from Peru relied on terror tactics that included: bombings, targeted assassinations, and guerrilla raids.

In these environments, death became romanticized through public executions commonly seen in the cartels, enabling Hezbollah to find considerable sympathy in many Latin American countries. Today, the group uses the region as a breeding ground for illicit drug trafficking and money laundering. Weak border enforcement and flawed authorities create fertile soil for Lebanese traffickers to move goods northward and southward, from Colombia’s coca fields to Argentina and Brazil’s ports.

Hezbollah activity in Peru, where the Shining Path continues drug trafficking operations, proves that the group also relies on local means to spread its influence. The center of the connection between the Shining Path and Hezbollah is in the small rural town of Abancay, where large parts of the population are converted Muslims and declared members of the Peruvian Hezbollah Party. In October 2014, a Lebanese man was arrested in connection to a plot against Israelis and Jews in Lima. According to law enforcement, he received assistance from the Shining Path to enter the country for this plot.

The State Department designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization in 1997, but Latin America was slow to follow: Argentina in 2019, Paraguay in 2019, and Colombia in 2020. As of 2024, these three countries remain the only states in South America to designate Hezbollah a terrorist entity, though several Central American states also accept Hezbollah as a violent extremist group.

In April 2024, Argentina’s Court of Cassation declared Hezbollah and Iran responsible for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center. Despite thirty years of setbacks from the court, the tide is turning against Iran and its proxies. However, Argentina still finds itself in tricky situations involving planes and passengers with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) while Venezuela’s overt relationship with Iran deepens.

On July 12, 2024, Argentina took its recent progress even further and designated Hamas a terrorist organization, the first Latin American country to do so. In today’s era of intense globalization, conflicts can be both regional and global. If Argentina’s actions are anything to go by, the influence of Iran as one of the world’s leading sponsors of terrorism may be on the decline. The path to do so, however, is far from linear. As Iran continues to sit on the brink of becoming a nuclear-armed state, the country’s reign of terror will not end.

General John F. Kelly, former Commander of US Southern Command, expertly warned, “Iran’s involvement in the Western Hemisphere is a matter for concern.” Only naïveté would support a belief that unchecked terrorist operations in Latin America will never spread north, when the incentives to do so only grow. A unified continent may be the best counter to Iran and its proxies, but the complexities of this issue prevent any easy or immediate avenues for this goal. As with many of the world’s challenges, solutions must first begin with knowledge of the problem.

Santiago Spadiliero is a doctoral student at Missouri State University’s School of Defense and Strategic Studies. Alexis Schlotterback is an Analyst at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies.

Terrorism in Latin America: We Should Be Paying Attention was originally published on Global Security Review.

This year, outbreaks of antisemitism across American college campuses, including at the most elite private colleges and universities, remind commentators of the turbulent year 1968. That year was marked by the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy, together with antiwar demonstrations at many colleges and riots at the Democrat National Convention in Chicago.

Some saw, in the upsurge of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli demonstrations a possible prelude to a similar upheaval at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August 2024. The Biden administration was under attack from its progressive wing and for its support of Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza.

Democrat doubters about the administration’s foreign policy were already worried about the polls showing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump competitive against Vice President Kamala Harris in the seven key swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. And irony of ironies, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was running as a third-party candidate who might conceivably take away votes from either Biden or Trump—eventually withdrawing and throwing his support to Trump.

In 1968, Democrat dissidents and message malaise opened the door for Richard Nixon to come back from the graveyard of politics and win the White House. Would the Democrat Party recreate that debacle in 2024 and usher Donald Trump into the presidency for a second term?

Unfortunately for political prognosticators, 2024 is only superficially reminiscent of 1968. Pro-Hamas demonstrations on college campuses are not catching fire with the public as did antiwar protests in 1968. To the contrary, college presidents are under siege from various quarters for not doing enough to resist outbreaks of antisemitism and pro-Hamas demonstrations.

Jewish students feel unsafe on many college campuses, and parents of college students began to file lawsuits against schools that refuse to enact policies that protect Jewish students against harassment. In addition, a majority of American voters support Biden’s policy of favoring Israel’s right to defend itself against attack, while sharing some reservations about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approach to the war in Gaza. Not every criticism of Israel’s policy is antisemitism. As Israel moves toward the final stages of its campaign against Hamas, controversy will almost certainly surround its choice of military tactics and the costs of war for civilian noncombatants.

Given current events, the foreign policy center of gravity for the 2024 presidential campaign is not only the war in the Middle East, but also the war in Ukraine. The most recent tranche of American military assistance to Ukraine was held up in Congress by endless delays based on a variety of complaints from conservatives in the House. Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, ended this deadlock by agreeing with a majority of Democrats to pass legislation providing aid to Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine in separate bills.

For his anti-isolationist temerity, Johnson was threatened by his House Republican colleagues with a vote to vacate the speakership as soon as practicable. Some House Republicans gave as their reason for opposing Johnson the absence of a companion bill providing additional funding for controlling the southern border. However, the problem at the border is not a lack of funding, but a fundamental policy disagreement between the Biden administration and its critics about whether to enforce existing immigration law and or allow the near-free flow of illegal aliens to enter the country.

The war in Ukraine, on the other hand, is a fundamental test of American resolve to defend the international order based on rules and expectations that preserved security and freedom in Europe from the end of World War II until well into the twenty-first century. Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine is an overt attempt to overthrow a legitimate government in Europe, based on reading history through a glass darkly and on ambition to restore Russian greatness as seen by its clique of siloviki, oligarchs, and propagandists.

Apologists for Russia attribute its belligerence to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) post–Cold War expansion, the United States’ drive for unipolar dominance, and Ukraine’s illegitimacy as a unique culture and civilization. None of this may be true or original on the part of Russia. It is Aleksandr Dugin marinated in twenty-first century Moscow-centric geopolitics.

The tragedy is that Russia is a great civilization, with a history and culture that provided some of the world’s great literature, music, art, higher education, and excellence in professional military studies. Russia’s history is the story of an advanced civilization ruined by a succession of retro autocratic governments.

NATO has admirably rallied in the face of Russian military aggression by providing Ukraine with necessary military assistance, including weapons, intelligence, and training. But NATO has dragged this out to an extent that jeopardizes Ukraine’s ability to fight successfully even on the defensive, let alone on offense, for anything more ambitious than a military stalemate. Russia still hopes that an offensive before winter might turn the tide decisively against Ukraine—to the extent that the latter would have an insubstantial position for any post-conflict peace agreement.

Disparities between Russian and Ukrainian personnel- and military-related resources favor Russia as the war becomes more extended in time and space. Ukraine can only be saved by American and NATO firmness in the face of repeated threats of horizontal (extending military operations into NATO territory) or vertical (nuclear weapons) escalation. NATO’s combined gross domestic product is about thirty times that of Russia, but Russia has a far larger nuclear arsenal. Such problems all await the next president.

Therefore, the proper analogy is not between 2024 and 1968, but 2024 and 1938. Before the end of 1938, Germany had already crossed several red lines that anticipated an unlimited appetite for political coercion supported by the threat of military conquest. Then, as now, isolationists in the US and apologists for Hitler in Europe called for conciliation of Germany and appeasement of its demands. History never repeats itself exactly, as the saying goes, but it does rhyme.

The question for the United States and democratic Europe, now, as then, is not whether to resist aggression, but how and when. History suggests that tyrants’ appetite grows with the eating. The United States needs neither a return to its “unipolar moment” nor a willy-nilly reboot into forever wars among non-Western cultures. It does need to lead NATO’s resistance to Russia’s mistaken revanchism in Europe with smart strategy and politics until the climate improves for a viable peace settlement.

With regard to wars in the Middle East, the United States and its allies must also confront the foreboding reality of Iran’s wars against Israel, the United States, and the international order.

Iran’s instigation of Hamas’ attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, together with its support for proxy attacks on Israel and American troops elsewhere (Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Iranian-supported terrorists in Iraq and Syria) has thus far met with less than intimidating responses. In addition to these failures in US and allied conventional deterrence, Iran is now a threshold nuclear weapons state potentially capable of threatening its immediate neighbors and targets outside the region.

An Iranian bomb could also stimulate Saudi Arabia and other Middle East powers to follow suit and destabilize the region. In addition, a nuclear Iran might pass nuclear materials and know-how to proxies for the construction of so-called dirty bombs or suitcase nukes. A nuclear Iran can destabilize the Middle East without firing a nuclear weapon.

Tehran can use the bomb for coercive diplomacy against Israel and other enemies, including threats of nuclear first use in response to any losses in a conventional war. In this respect, as well, 2024 may resemble 1938. Imagine Hitler with the bomb in 1938. A strategy of appeasement would have been far more appealing to political leaders in Britain and France, and a posture of isolationism to Americans—compared to what actually happened. Iran must be stopped by political negotiation or other means before it crosses this Rubicon.

Whether the world’s worst fears are recognized in the years ahead, as they were in and after 1938, or whether conflict is avoided will likely result, in large part, from the actions of the next president. This is a daunting future for either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump.

Stephen Cimbala, PhD is a distinguished professor at Pennsylvania State University—Brandywine and a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. Views expressed are the authors own.  

It’s 1938, not 1968 was originally published on Global Security Review.

A comparison of recommendations for multilateral diplomacy and sanctions written in 2007 and 2023 offer no evidence of success. Experts now say Tehran is within a few months of several working atom bombs, and a year or two at most from having nuclear-tipped missiles capable of reaching Israel and the European Union.

Israel’s bombings of plutonium-producing reactors under construction in Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007 are simpler examples of how to regain the initiative in civil defense—via prevention of nuclear attack to begin with. Iran’s underground nuclear weapon facilities at Natanz and Furdow should be neutralized with GBU57-A/B ground-penetrator ordnance, which are necessary to wreck their delicate centrifuges and cave in their adits (entrances).

Sanctions and diplomacy failed to stop North Korea from getting the bomb. Words and tighter sanctions will no longer work on Iran. Iran is a disruptive, warmongering, rogue state. Its repressive autocratic regime is entrenched.

Iran is controlled by a radical sect that believes killing perceived enemies is a sure route to Paradise. Iran’s leaders promise to “destroy Israel forever.”

The risk calculus, were Iran to field nuclear arms, would present the US, and Israel, especially, with something worse than the Cuban Missile Crisis. A nuclear-armed Iran is more intolerable than a nuclear-armed Cuba in 1962. The conditions favorable for a successful naval quarantine of Russia’s nuclear weapons, on the decks of cargo ships going to Cuba, do not apply to Iran.

It is unwise to look to nuclear deterrence against a nuclear-armed and radically hostile Iran to solve the problem, given their extremist ideology. Keeping nuclear weapons far away from bad actors is vital to effective nuclear counterterrorism.

Both Russia and China have separatist problems—including terrorists who might have or might develop Iran connections. Their best interests are aligned with the US and Israel in this instance. This is similar for Israel’s Arab neighbors. They should all want Tehran’s nuclear weapons program permanently terminated. Yet they stay on the sidelines, believing this is a Western problem.

North Korea shows that once a rogue state fields nuclear warheads on missiles, voluntary denuclearization becomes impossible. The US missed the opportunity to prevent the Kim regime from fielding a now-expanding nuclear arsenal.

As Iran’s supreme leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei surely realizes, “Israel is a one-bomb country” because of its small size. This means that a single nuclear weapon could devastate any of Israel’s major cities.

The Kim regime played several American presidents while North Korea came to own dozens of nuclear missiles threatening South Korea, Japan, and, now, the continental United States. The ayatollahs are probably playing a similar game. Hamas’s attack could be Tehran’s premeditated sleight of hand to buy the little time they need to go nuclear.

Iran’s latest threats to attack Israel’s nuclear facilities and finish their own atom bomb, should Israel attack Iran’s nuclear assets, has unacceptable odds of being more Tehran double-talk while Iran’s covert weapons work presses forward. Intel that such worked ceased—like the nonexistent or ignored “intel” before September 11, 2001, and October 7, 2023—might be, quite literally, fatally flawed.

A clandestine approach to building fission weapons underground might be beyond already overstretched Mossad and CIA abilities to detect. Typical intel lapses, bureaucratic sluggishness, and political paralysis within and between concerned countries could get millions killed.

Barely 4 percent of the ballistic missiles Iran fired at Israel got through the layered multinational defenses defending Israel on April 13. But with further attrition of interceptors and less help from the outside being possible over the next year, one atom bomb might reach Israeli soil. Missile defenses alone are not the answer. An Iranian bomb could instead be delivered covertly, by a ship or a truck…or a camel…or mule.

A nuclear attack is likely to take place without warning. The heat and overpressure from an air blast over Tel Aviv would prove devastating. A ground burst could blanket Israel’s cities and towns with fallout.

It would be better and wiser to fight a larger regional conventional war now than a limited nuclear war in the Middle East in the months or years ahead. Yet more “mowing the grass,” or reticent watchful waiting, are short-term non-answers.

As a Department of State spokesman recently said, “Iran has no credible civilian justification for enrichment up to sixty percent.” Iran has already crossed an unacceptable red line. As Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu recently said, “Israel will do whatever it needs to defend itself.”

Israel does not need more lectures about restraint. Israel needs to prevent nuclear annihilation at the hands of Islamic terrorists certain their religious obligation requires them to strike with whatever deadly weapons they possess.

Joe Buff is a senior fellow for the National Institute for Deterrence Studies and risk-mitigation actuary researching modern nuclear deterrence and arms control. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Iran Shall Not Have the Bomb was originally published on Global Security Review.

Since 2021, Russia upgraded or modernized approximately 85 percent of its strategic nuclear arsenal. China undertook what then-Commander of United States Strategic Command, Admiral Charles Richard, called “a strategic breakout,” with “explosive growth in their nuclear and conventional forces.” North Korea went from a fledgling 1980’s nuclear program to possessing an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the continental United States. Iran’s nuclear program goes deeper underground, figuratively and literally, to avoid US threats and complicate US risk assessment.

Little occurred in the US nuclear arsenal during the same two decades. The nuclear enterprise is attempting to modernize each leg, with debatable levels of success. In June 2023, the Biden administration publicly confirmed and accepted American numerical nuclear inferiority for the first time since the end of the Cold War. The administration posits deterrence comes from quality over quantity. But how is a triad that is 30–50 years old qualitatively better than a new Russian arsenal?

The non-strategic nuclear arsenal rose in prominence as the Ukraine war began and Russia began making threats to attack the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s member states. Production of the B61-13 and life extension of the W80-4 emphasize regional nuclear deterrence and may preempt strategic conflict at a lower level but may arrive too late. Retiring the B83 purportedly transfers the hard and deeply buried target (HDBT) responsibility to the B61-13, streamlining the Department of Energy’s sustainment and modernization expenses. The Department of Defense is still weighing a 2022 study, evaluating future HDBT targets to demonstrate viability of the non-strategic capability.

Since 2021, the nuclear enterprise began receiving long-overdue attention, but it will take years to yield results. The enterprise competes for American talent, amongst lucrative technological fields, that it needs for successful reconstruction and for addressing the needs of the triad. The Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) authorized $500 million more than requested for plutonium pit production reconstitution at Savannah River and Los Alamos National Laboratories.

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) goal is to produce at least 80 plutonium pits per year, between the two facilities, by 2030. Assuming 80 pits per year went into refurbishing 85 percent of deployed nuclear warheads, matching Russia’s accomplishment, that pace would require nearly 16.5 years and almost 20 years for a 100 percent refurbishment. In FY 2024, the NNSA is requesting 8.6 percent more money than enacted in FY 2023 for the Product Modernization Program to support strategic nuclear weapons modification and life extension.

The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy, refocused on strategic-level concerns, reprioritizing strategic power over Russia and China higher than post-9/11 terrorism. The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) called for nuclear modernization, as previous NPRs did, but was followed by the financial resources outlined in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act required for execution.

There is a nexus between terrorism, nuclear weapons, and immigration. Iran sponsors Hezbollah, Houthi rebels, and Hamas’ terror campaign against Israel. If Iran develops a nuclear weapon and provides it to any of these groups, the US may be left searching for nuclear fingerprints in the aftermath of a detonation. The Federation for American Immigration Reform reported Customs and Border Patrol data showing 3.2 million aliens illegally crossed into the US between October 2022 and October 2023. Among those apprehended, 172 aliens were suspected terrorists. One hundred sixty-nine attempted an illegal entry at the southern border. The notion of an attack on the homeland by terrorists using a smuggled weapon of mass destruction is a credible threat.

Law Enforcement sources assert terrorists can employ nuclear weapons without sophisticated delivery systems on US soil. Former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker described the US as extremely vulnerable to a catastrophic terrorist attack. Swecker suggested that the mismanaged southern border is the key source of that vulnerability, concurring with a warning presented in December 2023 by the Department of Homeland Security. Preventing such dangerous exposure belongs at the forefront as policymakers seek to correct three years of negligent border protection. American strategic deterrence once overshadowed immigration, reducing temptation from adversaries abroad.

Nuclear-armed nations and proliferators alike must remember any nuclear attack against the United States from a terrorist organization will result in retaliation against the nation providing the weapon, as codified in the Bush Doctrine found in the 2002 National Security Strategy. While internal politics unnecessarily expose the US, those responsible can project strength by reiterating the consequences of exploiting that vulnerability and reemphasizing nuclear deterrence.

Terrorism and nuclear war are real. The US cannot afford to alternately overlook one in favor of the other. When adversaries see vulnerabilities, it invites aggression. Controlling who and what comes across US borders is essential to keeping Americans safe. Maintaining a modern, reliable, and lethal nuclear deterrent can foundationally dissuade terrorist attacks on US soil.

Dan Wasserman was both a missile operations and maintenance officer in the United States Air Force. He remains active in the field. The views expressed are his own.

Do Not Let Terrorism Distract from Deterrence was originally published on Global Security Review.

This is not a proxy war from the Cold War or the Global War on Terror. The West is in a hot war with Iran, and the United States must act accordingly. American focus on containing the conflict in Israel and Gaza is undermining Israeli deterrence. An anemic campaign of limited attacks against the Houthis is failing to deter Iran in the Red Sea, damaging American credibility and promoting Iranian and Houthi prestige.

By contrast Israel understands it is in an existential fight and has an appropriate strategy.  They are systemically destroying enemy forces and can hold Iran’s high-value targets at risk.  Iran should not doubt that October 7, 2023, put its nuclear program and critical infrastructure on the target list. Israel will deal with the Iranian threat with or without American support.

For Israel, American involvement is always a two-edged sword. American politics, Western pressure, and arbitrary red lines are often liabilities that disadvantage Israeli deterrence.  In fact, Israel began a no-holds barred information campaign, targeting media and anti-Jewish forces in the US and Europe. Some Israeli voices attacked the “River to the Sea” narrative characterizing the “two-state solution” as a de facto Iranian occupation of the Jewish homeland.

Deterrence is a coercive spectrum from positive to punitive. Carrots are not working, which leaves only sticks. Curtis McGiffin argues that provocations by Iran, including more than 160 attacks on American forces since October 7, 2023, combined with anemic policies of appeasement and the bribery of Iran, irreparably damaged deterrence in the region.

McGiffin points to statements by IRGC General Hossein Salami that Iran is not afraid of war with the United States. Why should they? Iran’s conduct of grey zone war for decades, with few repercussions, only encourages further aggression. Finally, McGiffin argues that America must formally declare war if we are going to cross the Rubicon and attack targets inside Iran.

That position is debatable. After the Cold War, conventional military superiority empowered the US to act whenever there was sufficient will, constrained only by the imperative to avoid escalation with another nuclear-armed power.

Game theory can be instructive in this case. It teaches risk aversion (Prospect Theory) is a powerful incentive and a key predictor of behavior. Decision-makers will irrationally forego probable gains to avoid improbable losses. It also shows that in an iterative game, players learn from previous opponent actions. The Mullahs learned from American behavior that the US is irrationally risk-averse when it comes to conflict with Iran.

Diplomacy is insufficient without a credible threat to back it up. The United States is standing in a forest fire asking everyone to put away the matches when it needs the deterrence equivalent of backburning. This requires the President to take a significant step up the escalation ladder to re-establish deterrence. Israel is doing this while the US dithers.

Iran is a cancer that has metastasized to threaten the region and the world. America’s ineffective tit-for-tat strategy only emboldens Iran. However, since the hostage crisis (1979) and the Desert One/Operation Eagle Claw fiasco, there was/is little American appetite to deal effectively with Iran. As a result, Tehran has capitalized on American weakness at every turn.

Presidents Ronald Regan and George W. Bush deterred the nation’s enemies by inflicting unacceptable losses, backed by overwhelming military and economic capacity. Operation El Dorado Canyon missed killing Muammar Gaddafi by minutes. The US Air Force enforced no fly zones over Iraq for a decade to punish and contain Saddam Hussein. After the American removal of Saddam, Gaddafi opted out of the extended axis of evil, voluntarily eliminating his weapons of mass destruction programs and long-range ballistic missiles. Even President Bill Clinton “went downtown” bombing Serbian power plants and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s cronies. Instead, Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden bribed Iran and put the United States only twelve days away from an Iranian nuclear weapon.

Iranian instigated attacks in the region can no longer be met with impotence and half measures. Swift decisive American action directly against Iran is now essential. Drone attacks on American forces call for the prompt destruction of Iranian drone production facilities and IRGC command and control nodes inside Iran. Harassment of international shipping and attacks on US naval vessels require the destruction of Iranian naval forces and oil-exporting infrastructure.

Chamberlain was wrong in 1939 and his disciples are wrong today. Iran is an implacable foe, and it must be de-fanged. America must make rational choices based on reality. The Mullahs began their war against the US on November 4, 1979. After 45 years, the only rational strategy is to eliminate Iran as an existential threat.

The immediate elimination of the Iranian nuclear program is a necessity. Anything less is delaying an inevitable conflict with a nuclear-armed enemy determined to kill Americans and incinerate Israel.

Colonel (Ret.) Kirk Fansher (USAF) is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. The views expressed are the author’s own.

The US Is Undermining Deterrence with Iran was originally published on Global Security Review.

It is important to separate this terrorist organization from the innocent Palestinian population that is dying as sacrificial lambs to Hamas’ ideological goals. Hamas is arguably using the self-made shield of dead and starving Palestinian civilians to gain appeal with Western observers. Civilian casualties, whether child or adult, male or female, devout or secular, are collateral damage in the terrorist organization’s quest to remain hidden and effective in their fight for narrative supremacy.

Yet upon further examination of Hamas’ covenant, “The Day of Judgment will not come about until [Muslims] fight Jews and kill them.” History has demonstrated that the groups and individuals who choose violent and radical means to achieve ideological goals often disregard the unintended consequences of their ambitions.

It seems that Hamas rejects any long-term peace talks. According to the Hamas covenant, “So-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement…Those conferences are no more than a means to appoint the infidels as arbitrators in the lands of Islam.” To take it a step further, Hamas believes, “There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. Initiatives, proposals, and international conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility.”

Hamas does not care about the thousands of dead Palestinians, or the families displaced and starving. One must ask, is Hamas an organization supporting Palestinian liberation or a cancer on long-term peace and security in the Palestinian-Israeli question?

From a strategic perspective, Iran is the actor behind the scenes supporting Hamas, which many experts suggest is a subordinate organization in Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” against Israel. A further examination suggests Hamas’ ideological blindness brought the current hell on Gazans. In November 2023, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reportedly told Hamas leader, Ismail Haniya, “You gave us no warning of your October 7 attack on Israel and we will not enter the war on your behalf.”

Analysts can choose to believe this or not. But Tehran struggles to keep up with heavy inflation, faces angry and restless youth and minority groups, a possible invasion by Azerbaijan into Armenia, which would cut trade and electricity imports. This is all while Iran undertakes a multifaceted campaign to remove the US from the middle east.

Hezbollah has largely remained out of the Gaza conflict, limiting engagement with Israel to small skirmishes on the Lebanon-Israel border. Hezbollah’s ideological and militaristic zealots do not appear willing to sacrifice their manpower and treasure for a group that is not comprised of co-religionists. Bashar al-Assad’s Syria was not going to join Hamas either because of its never-ending civil war and depleted resources. The Houthis are a different story, but as one al- Jazeera columnist wrote, the group’s real goal is permanent deterrence against the Saudis.

Hamas failed to understand that Israel would “rally around the flag” in an effort to exterminate the organization once and for all. Although Hamas sought to invoke a severe reaction from Israel to generate Gazan casualties, which then generates international support and aid, the Hamas leadership did not expect Israel to pursue a fight to the death.

Globally, Hamas is experiencing significant support in the information war, which can prove equally important to battles on the ground. While fighting rages in Gaza, the terror group’s strategic ambitions remain unchanged. The confounding reality is that the war is producing distorted Western perceptions of Hamas which are winning sympathy for Hamas (a designated terror group since 1997). Uninformed views of Hamas in the West confuse some younger generations, leaving them thinking the extremist group is fighting for freedoms similar to those found in the West.

Sadly, social media algorithms seem to ignore the hostage situation. Hamas took roughly 240 Israeli hostages during the attacks that killed over 1,200 people. The hostages were taken to underground “tunnels of the resistance”. Recent efforts to negotiate the trade of Hamas prisoners for Israeli hostages has failed. Though many Gazans celebrated in the streets after the October 7 attacks, Gazans recently criticized the harm caused by Israel’s response and are calling for an end to Hamas’ reign of terror. Tragically, the Israeli response and the refusal of Egypt or any other neighboring nations to accept Palestinian refugees has created a humanitarian crisis that is often viewed from very skewed sources that create echo chambers of disinformation.

This content amplification may arguably be convincing actors to commit more acts of terror. National law enforcement agencies report seven arrests made in connection with planned terror attacks related to efforts to support Hamas. Three of them were planning an attack on behalf of Hamas in Denmark and four in Germany and the Netherlands were members of the organization. They were detained due to suspicion of planning attacks against Jewish institutions in Europe.

European countries are notorious for knife attacks related to terror groups. Americans are susceptible to the same danger due to the Biden administration’s open-border policy. A US Customs and Border Protection internal intelligence notice warned that “individuals inspired by, or reacting to, the current Israel-Hamas conflict may attempt to travel to or from the Middle East via circuitous transit across the Southwest border.” Hamas’ ideology is indeed a cancer that will spread to the West if left uncontested. Amplified media content indirectly can support Hamas, as the justification and expansion of terrorism is copycatted.

Hamas is far from an Enlightenment-minded organization advocating for personal freedom and the preservation of human life. Americans can help end this war, but only with the defeat of Hamas.

Lora Karch Dulgarian is an independent analyst focusing on national security, social, political, and economic issues in the Middle East and Europe. Views expressed in this article are the author’s own. 

The Israel-Hamas Conflict Has Spread the Fog of War Across the Western World was originally published on Global Security Review.

Today, international order is breaking down. Essays by Walter Russell Mead, Victor Davis Hanson, and Nadya Schadow, for example, detail this breakdown, and all reference China and Russia as top culprits. The October 2023 report from the Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States likewise weighs in with an acute warning that China, Russia, North Korea (DPRK), (and soon Iran) are now in the business of using nuclear weapons as a coercive tool with which to secure their objectives—raising the danger of nuclear conflict to the highest level since the 1945 dawn of the nuclear age.

American nuclear deterrent strategy is part of the international order and prevented direct military conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. Throughout the Cold War, American extended deterrence over NATO and allies in the Pacific prevented, respectively, a Soviet invasion of Western Europe and a repeat of the DPRK invasion of the Republic of Korea (ROK).

During the Cold War’s nearly five-decade-long struggle, the US faced one nuclear-armed peer adversary. In  2022 as the head of US Strategic Command warned, the US will soon face not one but two nuclear-armed peer competitors and do so for the first time in its history.

The unique dangers of this environment are reflected by the manner with which Russia and China see deterrence. Their goals are not designed to prevent war, but to embolden both nations to successfully engage in aggression—such as against Ukraine and potentially against Taiwan. Their nuclear capability acts as an umbrella under which they succeed in preventing the United States from defending the rules-based order. If the US stands down, military aggression succeeds and is not deterred.

Today’s emerging strategic environment contains a change that is not fully appreciated. American conventional military superiority, for example, is believed to help guarantee American and allied security. The US kicked Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991, defeated the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 and Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, and decimated ISIS a decade later—all through conventional military superiority. American strategy, then and now, relies on superior technology and precision weapons, all backed by the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

However, when President Yeltsin decreed in April 1999 that the Russian military would develop highly accurate and very low-yield battlefield nuclear weapons, he set Russia on a path that now enables President Vladimir Putin to dominate warfare in Europe. China is in the process of adopting a strategy that threatens to introduce limited nuclear strikes into the conventional battlefield mix—“escalate to win”—leading the former commander of US Strategic Command to conclude that American conventional battlefield superiority “cannot hold.”

Without a robust and credible nuclear deterrent to restrain adversaries from using nuclear weapons, American plans to prevail on the conventional battlefield will no longer hold. And equally invalid is the Global Zero assumption that the US can prevail on the battlefield if the United States relies on conventional forces in a conflict that goes nuclear.

What then can the US make of the push by Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran to rewrite the rules of international behavior? That is, what should Americans make of what Russia describes as the unfair unipolar agenda and Iran describes as the great “global arrogance”? Americans should certainly worry that the nation is unprepared for the years ahead.

China’s growing nuclear arsenal emboldens President Xi Jinping to run roughshod over the South China Sea and its Philippine neighbors—flying military aircraft and steaming naval vessels recklessly in international waters. China may also be assisting Venezuela’s effort to grab oil-rich areas of Guyana. This is all taking place at a time when China is seeking bases on the Persian Gulf and near Gibraltar.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and regular threats to use nuclear weapons need little description. This is at a time when Russia maintains at least a 10 to 1 advantage in tactical nuclear weapons over the United States.

Nearly nuclear-armed Iran, partially under the protection of Moscow and Beijing, wages war through Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis. The Iranians and their allies are killing thousands, grabbing commercial vessels in the Persian Gulf, assassinating regime opponents, and ransoming hostages. The American response is, at best, muted.

North Korea recklessly and with impunity fires hundreds of missiles over Japanese and ROK territory and manages a vast international criminal complex of drug running, human trafficking, and weapons transfers, all while imprisoning millions of its own people in the world’s worse gulag. This is all made possible by China. It is through Chinese banks that North Korea avoids sanctions and finances its ongoing mayhem, including its nuclear program.

In short, the United States faces a daunting challenge that it must manage if the American-led international order has any hope of surviving the growing challenges the mayhem brothers present. The time to act is now.

The Mayhem Brothers: Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran was originally published on Global Security Review.