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.

The primary objective of Biden’s integrated deterrence strategy was to harmonize and unify the efforts of various government agencies and allied nations to deter aggression from China and other hostile actors. To achieve this objective, the strategy aimed to maximise the utilisation of all available tools of American power, encompassing diplomacy, intelligence, economic assistance, and force posture decisions. Integration with allies and partners was an integral component of Biden’s deterrence strategy and would be achieved by enhancing the interoperability of allied military forces and coordinating the diplomatic and economic initiatives of friendly nations.

While the goals of integrated deterrence appear sensible, many expressed concerns about the concept. Some claimed the term was not new or unique. It simply described the implementation of any effective, tailored deterrence strategy that leverage various organisations to prevent hostile actions.

American deterrence was executed in an integrated fashion throughout the Cold War by necessity, thanks to the size and significance of the Soviet threat. Concerns were also expressed that proponents of integrated deterrence overstated the ability of sanctions, diplomacy, and other non-military tools to prevent conflict. History shows that the threat of major military action has a unique strength in deterring an enemy, especially when that threat comes from a nation with a nuclear arsenal.

Regardless of one’s stance on integrated deterrence and its implementation, a coordinated US strategy that leverages the strengths of its allies should be preferred to the alternative currently being pursued in Washington. A lack of integration in deterrence matters is evident both within the US government and in its interactions with partners and allies.

Within the United States government, there are several reported disconnects between President Trump and senior members of his administration. For example, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was first informed of Trump’s proposal to take Gaza by military force and evict Palestinians while watching a press conference held by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Furthermore, it was recently reported that Rubio is “privately frustrated that Trump has effectively sidelined him.” More recently, Signal messages disclosed highlight significant differences between Vice President Vance and President Trump on the timing and signaling associated with strikes on Houthi targets.

This lack of vertical integration diminishes the authority that the secretary holds in meetings with both allies and adversaries. Additionally, it eliminates the potential for any exchange of ideas that could transpire within the Department of State to develop more effective policy options to present to the president.

Horizontal integration of deterrence across various departments was also weakened, partially by budgetary cuts and eliminations of entire organizations. Foreign assistance and development resources were pivotal components of the 2022 Indo-Pacific Strategy. However, extensive cuts made to the United States Agency for International Development and other government agencies by the Department of Government Efficiency did not fully consider or comprehend the regional implications or potential negative impacts on deterrence.

To date, much of Trump’s foreign policy is focused on addressing conflicts in Europe and the Middle East. A strategy for dealing with China, beyond the use of tariffs and other economic measures, is yet to be revealed. There are lessons to be learned from what has transpired with allies facing a menacing Russian threat in Europe.

President Trump consistently urges the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) member-states to significantly enhance their defence expenditures, even suggesting that 5 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) may be an appropriate threshold. For those nations that fail to meet NATO’s spending guidelines, Trump stated that US military support under Article 5 may not be available. While NATO nations were increasing defense spending prior to Trump taking office (a 20 percent increase in 2024), Germany and the United Kingdom (UK) recently announced plans to further bolster defense budgets.

While additional insights into Trump’s approach to allies in the Indo-Pacific are anticipated in the coming weeks and months, Australia should draw upon several valuable early lessons. The first pertains to the long-standing Canberra tradition of analyzing and dissecting the statements and writings of senior officials within an American administration to comprehend policy. Maintaining cordial relations with officials at all levels of the US government remains prudent, but it is uncertain whether statements from senior administration officials can be relied upon to fully reflect Trump’s perspectives.

Furthermore, the current level of Australian defense spending, which accounts for 2 percent of GDP, will not meet Trump’s expectations for allies. A pre-emptive move to increase defense spending to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2027, similar to what was announced in February by the UK, would demonstrate Australia’s national commitment to addressing its deteriorating strategic circumstances and to contributing more towards its share of the alliance. If President Trump has made one thing clear to allies, it is that if they do not value their own defense neither will he.

Carl Rhodes is founder of Robust Policy and a senior fellow with the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. Carl hosts the Deterrence Down Under podcast and previously spent 25 years with RAND Corporation. Carl has a PhD in chemical engineering from Caltech.

Trump’s Disintegrated Deterrence and Lessons for Australia 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.