A nation like Iran, strategically constrained in airpower and external projection, can nonetheless wield specific asymmetric and geographic advantages that allow it to impose significant operational costs, shape enemy strategy and arguably achieve strategic leverage that could give it an upper hand in conflict dynamics.
Even under constraint of relentless sanction for over five decades, Iran possesses one of the Middle East’s largest ballistic missiles inventories – Khorramshahr, Ghadr and Fattah-2 – with ranges up to 2,000 km, sufficient to reach all of Israel, all US bases in the Gulf, and other regional vistas.
Indigenous production may not rival America’s precision-guided munitions, but their relatively low production cost has enabled Iran to produce massed missile salvos which can overwhelm layered defences, forcing the defenders to expend interceptors at a high rate. In a sustained barrage, even highly capable systems like Patriot, THAAD, Iron Dome and Arrow have proven to be impotent, with their interceptor inventories depleting fast in the face of continuous salvo attacks.
Iran not only outnumbers its opponents in low-cost inventory, it also has another unique edge: its arsenal is reportedly hidden so deep under the ground that even the US B-2 stealth bombers cannot penetrate to that depth. This double edge gives Iran a ‘second-strike’ logic, meaning that even if its overground infrastructure is degraded, it retains the ability to strike back. This creates a mutual assured attrition dynamics in a regionally constrained context where complete destruction of Iranian strategic forces is nearly impossible without a full-scale invasion plus the combing down of the full terrain.
Iran’s large inventory of UAVs and loitering munitions can fly up to 2,000 km, carry significant payloads and can loiter for extended periods. This integrates strike, surveillance and electronic warfare roles. Swarms of inexpensive drones can saturate air defences and present cumulative attritional threats that erode morale, disrupt logistics, become a constant source of mid-air jamming and force constant vigilance. Iran’s proximity to key theaters, like Israel and US bases in the Gulf States, gives their swarm drones intrinsic geographic advantages of requiring short flight time and achieving high mission frequency.
At the core, Iran’s capabilities suit a doctrine of deterrence by ‘denial and attrition’. With a force posture built upon ballistic missiles, unmanned aerial systems, anti-ship weapons and geographic control of vital chokepoints, Tehran’s military doctrine prioritises denial of adversaries’ freedom of action and escalation leverage, designed to make any direct conflict expensive, protracted and politically unsustainable for the enemy.
Blocking the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of global petroleum traverses, gives Iran the means of geoeconomic warfare. By blocking the Strait, Iran can practically halt a large part of global trade and raise both the political and economic cost of attacking it. And that is exactly what Iran’s small fast-attack craft, mines and medium-range anti-ship missiles have done for both commercial and military ships. Iran’s bid to acquire Chinese supersonic anti-ship CM-302 missiles will increase its capability of maritime denial against the enemy.
Iran’s interior geography also gives it a vital edge. Its mountainous terrain allows natural layered shield to it weapons systems installed between hills. Its vast, deeply networked subterranean infrastructure provide it unsurmountable defensive depth. Extensive missile bases and storage facilities deeply buried in mountain complexes testify to Tehran’s emphasis on preservation and survivability.
Iran also has a constellation of proxy groups and allied militias in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, which provide indirect deterrence. Proxy actors can open multiple fronts, dilute enemy forces and create political dilemmas far from Iranian soil. This is consistent with Iran’s forward defence doctrine, whereby Iran can leverage allied militant forces as buffers or as active fronts, complicating adversary decision-making without overt mass deployment.
The sheer perception of Iran’s capacity to strike back, launch missiles into Israel, threaten US bases and disrupt global energy markets creates a political signaling that shapes adversaries’ strategic calculus. This credible ‘threat perception’ from Iran’s side can be as decisive as actual battlefield victories.
Above all this, Iran’s political culture, its revolutionary ideology and the narrative of resistance show the strength of its domestic unity. Even if there were dissenting voices in the county, external military pressure seems to have merged them into mainstream nationalism. The way the whole nation has been constantly on the streets in the millions, in all major cities – mourning the martyrdom of their beloved leader and constantly raising the slogan of ‘revenge’ – has killed the US idea of regime change at the hands of a negligibly small dissenting section of the society.
Since the war began, Iran has suffered well over a thousand missiles and bomb attacks. In retaliation, it has simultaneously bombed US assets in the UAE, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, besides relentlessly bombing Israel. The attacks on Israel have come in ‘waves’, with each wave featuring a barrage of hundreds of missiles. But nothing compares to murderous tactics of the US and Israel like abductions, assassinations, vicious espionage; creating, harbouring and funding dissent; and the compromised nature of the leadership of Western states that have proven to be mere puppets in the hands of rapist, pedophile, blackmailing networks like the one run by Epstein.
So, how do you win a war? While western strategic analysts are terming the US-Israel attack as strategically ungrounded, lacking clear objectives and a timeline, and being based on exaggerated threats; it seems a big foreign policy gamble that wholly depended upon their foul narratives against the regime, and on the notion that the Iranian nation would somehow fall into another orchestrated colour revolution.
But instead, the Iranians have shown doctrinal strategic planning, long-term improvisation and narrative superiority. Israel’s haste in attacking Iran and the US blindly following them, with their delusion of breaking the Iranian nation, has failed. Already clear that they cannot have boots-on-ground in Iran, the thought of getting a zappy win by mere aerial bombardment has died down. Iran has said nobody should dare talk about ceasefire to them, meaning it is ready for a long-term campaign. And in the time-game, a 93 million-strong united Iran will always win against a 10 million deeply divided Israeli people and a US whose all assets have been bombed out.