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Russia’s heavily taxed fleet of Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers is regularly employed as launch platforms for subsonic Kh-101 land-attack cruise missiles (Russia’s Tu-22M bombers are, to date, exclusively associated with using very different supersonic Kh-22/Kh-32 cruise missiles, which have proven to be of limited effectiveness). For much of the Russia-Ukraine War, Russia had greater theoretical launch capacity than it had strike munitions available for launch. Sustained stockpiling for periodic launches was the norm. The situation has changed over time, with Russian strike munition stocks now being much larger as a result of the sustained expansion of production capacity, with the important caveat that Ukraine’s air defences have also improved in the interim, such that a greater availability of missiles does not always translate into a higher penetration rate for Russian missiles. Moreover, Russia faces new pressures as a result of attrition inflicted by Ukraine and imputed attrition resulting from sustained use over the course of the Russia-Ukraine War. Russia’s bomber force is fast burning through the remaining flight hours of out-of-production Soviet-built aircraft, not least as a result of operating from very distant airbases, and also suffered heavy attrition during Ukraine’s June 2025 Operation Spiderweb. The Russian Aerospace Forces’ Long Range Aviation, which operates the country’s bomber aircraft, is not, therefore, in a state of bliss. All things considered, it needs more aircraft and, at the same time, it also needs more munitions, so as to make the most of every possible bomber sortie.

Russia is likely to reduce the pressure on its bomber force in several ways, including adapting the ordinarily air-launched subsonic Kh-101 for launch from the ground, employing other non-bomber combat aircraft as launch platforms for cruise missiles (not the Kh-101) and, more speculatively, adapting the in-production Il-76MD-90A heavy military transport aircraft into an ad hoc bomber via the pairing of new mass-produced, low-cost, and low payload-range cruise missiles such as the Banderol and Geran-5 and a palletized air-dropped launch mechanism in a manner similar to the American Rapid Dragon and FAMM-P efforts.

While Russia may or may not come to employ an air-dropped palletized launch mechanism to turn transport aircraft into surrogates for bomber aircraft, the recently introduced Banderol, Geran-5, and the S-71K Kovyor, which all notably make use of low-cost turbojet engines, highlight what is well within the realm of possibility when it comes to Russia’s bomber force. In principle, there is scope, for example, for a Tu-95MS to launch not eight Kh-101 air-launched cruise missiles but a larger quantity of Banderol cruise missiles or a derivative thereof. This will allow Russian bomber aircraft to launch larger salvos per sortie. While Russia’s new cruise missiles are less expensive and better suited to mass production— largely on account of having a significantly lower payload-range than the Kh-101, which notably has excessive payload range for most purposes in the military-geographical context of the Russia-Ukraine War—it bears emphasis that all Russian subsonic cruise missile designs have had decidedly unimpressive penetration rates against Ukraine’s air defences over the course of the war. In such a context, lower-cost cruise missiles are, all things considered, a better value proposition. Even if intercepted by Ukraine’s air defences, it is one thing to lose an expensive Kh-101 in an unsuccessful strike and another matter entirely to lose even multiple lower-cost cruise missiles such as the Banderol and Geran-5 in an unsuccessful strike—provided that launches induce the expenditures of finite quantities of surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles available to Ukraine. As things stand, Russia’s bomber force is poorly positioned to play the long-underway attritional game with Ukraine’s air defences and, by association, with the military-industrial capabilities of the countries arming Ukraine. A low-cost air-launched cruise missile will change that.

More generally, Russia’s approach to operating bombers as launch platforms for air-launched cruise missiles has been exceptionally inefficient in the context of the Russia-Ukraine War in a manner that is not dissimilar to the ill-conceived and much-hyped “Kalibrization” of the Russian Navy.

Ukraine's territory is no more than ~1300 kilometers wide, and Kyiv—the target for so many Russian munitions, including air-launched cruise missiles—is located 200-300 kilometers from the closest sections of the international border. As Ukrainian strike drone and cruise missile attacks on Russian bomber bases expanded in scope and became a more regular occurrence, Russia redeployed the vast majority of its bomber aircraft from their peacetime bases in western Russia to more distant airbases in the form of Olenya, which is located in the Kola Peninsula near the Barents Sea, and Ukrainka, which is located in the Russian Far East. From these distant airbases (from which Russian bomber aircraft have long operated), Russian bombers periodically “forward-deploy” to airbases closer to Ukraine, including the long-standing Engels-2 airbase near Saratov along the Volga River, so as to launch cruise missiles before returning to the safer, more distant airbases.

As with the rather farcical effects of the “Kalibrization” of the Russian Navy in the Black Sea context, the problem that Russia faces has transitioned from having too few strike munitions for too many launch platforms to increasingly having too many strike munitions for too few launch platforms or, with respect to Russian bomber aircraft, for too few bomber sorties. A low-cost and low payload-range air-launched cruise missile in the vein of the Banderol and Geran-5 can help remove the strike munition bottleneck on Russian bomber operations and increase the efficiency of the Russian bomber force by launching a larger number of munitions per sortie in the context of a war that has taken on an exceedingly attritional nature, not least in the contest between strike munitions and air defence capabilities.

As things stand, there are no public indications that Russia is moving in this direction. The Banderol, for example, is operated by the Russian Army, not the Russian Aerospace Forces, with Kronstadt Orion/Inokhodets fixed-wing uncrewed aircraft and, reportedly, Mi-28 attack helicopters, as its launch platforms (there also appears to exist a ground-launched adaptation of the Banderol). While the S-71K Kovyor is associated with the Russian Aerospace Forces’ non-bomber combat aircraft, the Banderol is not.

As for the Geran-5, the design is more interesting and relevant for the present purposes in terms of its components rather than the airframe itself, which is not optimized for use as an air-launched cruise missile, especially with the likes of Tu-95 and Tu-160 bomber aircraft. Many of the components in the Geran-5, however, amount to ingredients through which Russia take advantage of economies of scale with the aim of developing and deploying a low-cost and low payload-range air-launched cruise missile that is suitable for use with the Tu-95 and Tu-160.

It bears mentioning that leaked documents suggest that Russia is considering integrating both the (very different) Geran-4 and Geran-5 onto non-bomber combat aircraft in the form of Russia’s large but also ineffectively utilized fleet of Su-25 ground attack aircraft. The Geran-4 is also not suitable for use with Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers and may not even be successfully integrated onto the Su-25, but the above leaked scan of a Russian document nevertheless highlights some of the directions that the Russian military and Russian designers are pursuing. A revamp of Russia’s bomber force via new armaments in the form of a mass-produced, low-cost, and low payload-range air-launched cruise missile is not beyond the realm of possibility.

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According to Ukrainian officials, Russia is scaling back production of the 9-S-7760 (“Kh-47 Kinzhal”) air-launched ballistic missile on account of the poor observed wartime effectiveness. This development should come as little surprise. If anything, it is surprising that Russia remained committed for so long to such a complex and expensive strike munition that is, to date, exclusively associated with a small fleet of adapted MiG-31K aircraft—employed by the Russian Aerospace Force’s Long Range Aviation, which otherwise employs bomber aircraft. The 9-S-7760 may continue to serve some purpose in the Russian military, especially as a means of delivering nuclear warheads, but remains decidedly ineffective as a means of delivering conventional high-explosive warheads.

For background on the air-launched ballistic missiles including the Russian 9-S-7760 (“Kh-47 Kinzhal”), see:

In principle, an air-launched ballistic missile is inherently well-suited to undertaking simultaneous multi-axis attacks against defended targets, including strikes against highly sectored ballistic missile defence systems such as Patriot—the fire control radars used by Ukraine’s Patriot systems have a field of view of no more than 120°. This, however, requires considerable accuracy and precision, or at least a means of launching such a large number of air-launched ballistic missiles against a defended target and/or a ballistic missile defence system with the aim of overwhelming defences and/or inducing the depletion of ballistic missile defence interceptors and/or damaging, if not destroying, the intended target. If nothing else, being restricted to launch from a small fleet of adapted MiG-31K aircraft dramatically reduced the effectiveness of the 9-S-7760 and made it less competitive relative to ground-launched ballistic missiles in the form of the operational 9M723 Iskander-M and the reportedly under-developed extended-range 9M723-2/“Iskander-1000.” Israel may have made the effective employment of air-launched ballistic missiles look easy in operations against Iran and Qatar, but the approach demands very high accuracy and precision that Russia has not been able to match.

While Russia may not develop and deploy a high-end Israel-like air-launched ballistic missile capability anytime soon, the country still stands to benefit from the flexibility and various operational benefits associated with launching ballistic missiles from altitude, particularly as it concerns operations against NATO. The 9-S-7760 experiment has not delivered in terms of military effects, but Russia may eventually deploy a smaller and shorter-range air-launched ballistic missile, whether something in the vein of the Israeli Rampage or something larger than that, perhaps around 1500 kilograms or so in total weight along the lines of the Soviet Kh-15. More generally, Russia may pursue something in the vein of the Israeli Rampage for use by its fighter and strike aircraft such as the Su-35 and Su-34, which will allow, among other things, Russia to launch large salvos of (much smaller, lighter, and shorter-range) air-launched ballistic missiles to, if nothing else, compensate for the inaccracy of individual missiles in a manner that is simply not possible with the 9-S-7760 and MiG-31K pairing.

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Russia’s Tu-22M bomber force has been largely irrelevant over the course of the Russia-Ukraine War on account of the limited selection of armaments it can employ. Ukrainian officials now claim that production of the Kh-32 liquid-fuelled rocket-powered supersonic anti-ship cruise missile, which has a (decidedly imperfect) secondary land-attack capability, has been suspended on account of poor effectiveness. As a result, Russia’s substantial force of supersonic Tu-22M bombers, which have considerable potential, is largely relegated to, at best, a tertiary role in the war absent the integration of one or more new armaments onto the Soviet-built airframes.

The Tu-22M has a curious design history and came to serve two different roles in the Soviet era under the Soviet Air Force’s Long-Range Aviation and Soviet Naval Aviation, respectively. In addition to unguided bombs, the Tu-22M became associated with the Kh-22, of which the aforementioned Kh-32 is the evolved variant, and the Kh-15, a solid-propellant air-launched short-range ballistic missile that is no longer in service. Specualtion and reports nowithstanding, there are no public indications that the quite large and heavy 9-S-7760 (“Kh-47 Kinzhal”) air-launched ballistic missile has been integrated onto the Tu-22M fleet, which perhaps ended up a positive development for the Russian Aerospace Force on account of the disappointing wartime performance of this air-launched ballistic missile design, which is to date exclusively associated with modified MiG-31K aircraft operated by the Russian Aerospace Forces’ Long-Range Aviation. Russia’s subsonic Tu-95 bomber aircraft and supersonic Tu-160 bomber aircraft are employed to launch subsonic land-attack cruise missiles, namely the Kh-101, which is notably not integrated onto the Tu-22M fleet.

For background on the Kh-22 and Kh-15, see:

As things stand, the Tu-22M serves little appreciable purpose in the context of the Russia-Ukraine War unless Moscow decides to further draw down on its Kh-22/Kh-32 stocks to little appreciable effect. All things considered, the supersonic Tu-22M airframe makes for an excellent launch platform for air-launched ballistic missiles, perhaps a modern take on the Soviet Kh-15 or an even smaller design in the vein of the Israeli Rampage. The Tu-22M may also be effectively employed as a launch platform for guided glide bombs such as the Russian UMPK and UMPB designs, including for the turbojet-powered variants thereof. A supersonic high-altitude launch from a position beyond 200 or so kilometers from the international border/frontlines would offer a significant range extension to powered and unpowered strike munitions alike. As a ballistic missile launch platform, the Tu-22M fleet is inherently very well suited to undertaking simultaneous multi-axis attacks against defended targets, including strikes against highly sectored ballistic missile defence systems such as Patriot—the fire control radars used by Ukraine’s Patriot systems have a field of view of no more than 120°. As things stand, however, Russia’s Tu-22M fleet may not be literally grounded or even significantly attrited by the Russia-Ukraine War, but may as well be, on account of not having suitable munitions integrated so as to bring its considerable weight to bear on a conflict that is fast approaching the start of its fifth year.

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The above recently circulating image is very likely to be AI-generated but nevertheless draws attention to an important dynamic: what remains of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which has withdrawn from Crimea to Novorossiysk, tends to primarily remain in the relative—but certainly not absolute—safety of port, where the warships and subamarines are periodically attacked by Ukrainian strike munitions, so as to avoid the risks posed by Ukrainian uncrewed surface vessels (USVs), as well as Ukrainian strke munitions at sea. Naval dynamics in the Black Sea over the course of the Russia-Ukraine War have forced the demise of the ill-conceived and much-hyped “Kalibrization” of the Russian surface fleet—as well as Russia’s diesel-electric submarine fleet—which inherently entailed corvettes and frigates briefly heading out to sea to launch a maximum of eight to sixteen—typically just eight—long-range land-attack munitions before having to return to port so as to rearm. As things stand, however, there is a case to be made that the Russian Black Sea Fleet is primarily important as a political target for Ukraine on account of its fast-diminishing value as a means of periodically heading out to sea to launch fairly small quantities of 3M14 Kalibr and 3M22 Zircon strike munitions against terrestrial targets in Ukraine.

According to leaked documents released by Ukrainian sources, production of the 3M14 Kalibr continues for the Russian Navy alongside the related ground-launched 9M729 (and shorter-range 9M728) employed by the Russian Army.

This raises questions as to the wisdom of this approach because the 3M14 can, as per publicly available information, only be launched from the vertical launch system (VLS) cells on Russian warships and from the torpedo tubes of Russian submarines. Russian warships and submarines outside the Black Sea cannot, in practice, attack targets in Ukraine using 3M14 cruise missiles, and the warships and submarines that remain in the Black Sea rarely go out to sea and can, in any event, only launch small salvos of 3M14 cruise missiles.

For much of the Russia-Ukraine War, Russia had greater theoretical launch capacity than it had strike munitions available for launch. Sustained stockpiling for periodic launches was the norm. The situation has changed over time, with Russian strike munition stocks now being much larger as a result of the sustained expansion of production capacity, with the important caveat that Ukraine’s air defences have also improved in the interim, such that a greater availability of missiles does not always translate into a higher penetration rate for Russian missiles. In any event, there are now more ordinarily ship- and submarine-launched 3M14 cruise missiles to go around than there exists launch capacity in the Black Sea. This raises the possibility that Russia will come to deploy the 3M14 as a ground-launched cruise missile from a ground-launch VLS system or similar, at least in the context of the Russia-Ukraine War and, going forward, as a coastal defence system that can also be deployed elsewhere in Russia to launch the missiles launched by Russian warships and submarines from land.

There is precedent for this dynamic in how the ordinarily ship- and submarine-launched 3M22 Zircon rocket-powered quasi-ballistic missile is now being employed against terrestrial targets in a ground-launched capacity using launchers associated with the Bastion-P coastal defence system.

In principle, Russia should be capable of adapting the 3M14 Kalibr for launch from a ground-based launcher in the vein of the launchers employed by the Bastion-P system, as well as the ground-launched 9M728 Iskander-K and extended-range 9M729, which are, unlike the 3M22 Zircon, related to the 3M14 Kalibr. Russia may also come to deploy a ground-based 3S-14 (UKSK) VLS system, perhaps something in the vein of the American Typhon system derived from the Mark 41 VLS.

Such a development will allow Russia to readily employ 3M14 cruise missiles from land and draw upon 3M14 production capacity even if every corvette, frigate, and submarine of the Russian Black Sea Fleet is crippled or sunk. As indicated earlier, for much of the Russia-Ukraine War, Russia had greater theoretical launch capacity than it had strike munitions available for launch. The situation has, however, changed as of late, primarily as a result of attrition inflicted by Ukraine and imputed attrition resulting from sustained use over the course of the Russia-Ukraine War. Russia’s bomber force, for example, is fast burning through the flight hours of out-of-production aircraft, not least as a result of operating from very distant airbases, and also suffered heavy attrition during Ukraine’s June 2025 Operation Spiderweb. The Russian Black Sea Fleet is not, as such, alone when it comes to being subjected to diminishing launch capacity, even as the supply of available strike munitions increases in tandem with the ongoing expansion of Russian military production.

Ukrainian sources report that Russia may be working on a ground-launched adaptation of the ordinarily air-launched Kh-101 subsonic land-attack cruise missile employed by Russian bomber aircraft. The Kh-101 is far less well-suited for use as a ground-launched cruise missile than the 3M14 Kalibr, which already has ground-launched counterparts in the form of the 9M728 and 9M729 operated by the Russian Army. Given the incentive structures and the increasingly precious state of what remains of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the development and deployment of a ground-launched adaptation of the 3M14 Kalibr may not be far on the horizon, not least on account of how the 3M22 Zircon is already being launched from locations far inland. If and when such a development comes to pass, the Russian Black Sea Fleet will be more or less militarily irrelevant, only to serve as a political target for Ukraine, thereby bringing the ill-conceived and much-hyped “Kalibrization” chapter of the Russian Navy to a close, at least in the Black Sea context and quite possibly beyond.

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Russia’s ongoing use of the ordinarily ship-launched supersonic 3M22 Zircon rocket-powered quasi-ballistic missiles (the image on the left) against terrestrial targets in a ground-launched capacity using launchers associated with the Bastion-P coastal defence system (the image on the right) is indicative of the evolving division of labour when it comes to Russia’s long-range conventional strike capabilities amid the Russia-Ukraine War and in a post-INF Treaty world.

As things stand, the Russian Air Force employs air-launched cruise missiles of various types as well as the 9-S-7760 (“Kh-47 Kinzhal”) air-launched ballistic missiles from bomber aircraft and modified MiG-31K aircraft, respectively, alongside a series of shorter-range cruise missiles employed by fighter-type combat aircraft. The Russian Army operates 9M723 Iskander-M ballistic missiles, 9M728 Iskander-K subsonic ground-launched cruise missiles, extended-range 9M729 subsonic cruise missiles, as well as propeller-driven long-range fixed-wing strike drones in the vein of the Shahed-136/Geran-2, as well as turbojet-powered strike munitions including the Geran-3, Geran-4, Geran-5, and Banderol. The Strategic Rocket Forces, meanwhile, has transitioned from exclusively operating nuclear-armed ballistic missiles of so-called intercontinental range to also operating the Oreshnik, which has been used against Ukraine with a conventional payload. Not to be excluded, the Russian Navy is not only launching subsonic 3M14 Kalibr long-range cruise missiles from its ships and submarines alongside 3M22 Zircon missiles, but is also sporadically employing its land-based anti-ship cruise missiles, including the 3M55 (P-800 Oniks) associated with the Bastion-P system to attack terrestrial targets in Ukraine.

The use of 3M22 Zircon missiles in a ground-launched capacity using launchers associated with the Bastion-P coastal defence system is in line with the wartime trends in the Russian military. This dynamic reflects, in no small part, the pressures faced by the Russian Black Sea Fleet and the attrition it has faced, which has reduced the number of vertical launch system (VLS) cells available for 3M14 Kalibr and 3M22 Zircon missiles to be used against Ukraine. This is, however, also a reflection of a broader and more important dynamic: the demise of the ill-conceived and much-hyped “Kalibrization” of the Russian surface fleet—as well as Russia’s diesel-electric submarine fleet—which inherently entailed corvettes and frigates briefly heading out to sea to launch a maximum of eight to sixteen—typically just eight—long-range land-attack munitions before having to return to port so as to rearm.

In the context of confined waters such as the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea, this approach never made much sense, with Russia being, all things considered, better off simply launching such land-attack munitions from ground-based launchers and reserving the VLS cells on warships for other purposes. This was not, of course, possible under the strictures of the now-defunct INF Treaty, but here, as elsewhere, Russia has been slow to adapt to a post-INF world even as its actions brought about the demise of the treaty.

Reports of Russia’s employment of anti-ship cruise missiles with a secondary land-attack mode against terrestrial targets emerged early in the Russia-Ukraine War and were likely motivated by the severe depletion of Russia’s strike munition arsenal in 2022. The employment of the 3M22 Zircon in a ground-launched capacity using launchers associated with the Bastion-P coastal defence system, which have been redeployed inland far from the Black Sea coast for this purpose, is likely indicative a different dynamic, one that may eventually come to result in either the 3M22 Zircon being adopted by some other part of the Russian military for use as a ground-based land-attack strike munition, or, more speculatively but also more significantly, with the Russian Navy deploying a ground-based VLS system, perhaps something in the vein of the American Typhon system derived from the Mark 41 VLS, so as to draw upon the Russian Navy’s stocks of 3M14 and 3M22 missiles if and when surface ships and submarines cannot launch said strike munitions, or launch said strike munitions at the required cadence and salvo size, for whatever reason. As things stand, the launchers from the Bastion-P coastal defence system associated with the practice of launching 3M22 Zircon missiles from inland positions are not known to be capable of launching 3M14 Kalibr cruise missiles, but this development may nevertheless be a sign of things to come.

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Reports of an extended-range variant of Russia’s 9M723 Iskander-M ballistic missile first became public in the summer of 2024. With a reported maximum range of 1000 kilometers, this extended-range “Iskander-1000,” which has more recently been referred to as the 9M723-2, has the potential to significantly enhance Russia’s long-range conventional strike capabilities in more ways than one. Beyond simply expanding the reach of the Russian Army’s conventionally armed ballistic missiles to a maximum range of 1000 kilometers, such a ballistic missile would also enhance Russia’s ability to undertake multi-axis attacks against distant targets. In the context of the Russia-Ukraine War, for example, a 1000-kilometer-range ballistic missile can not only be used to attack most of Ukrainian territory, including the western city of Lviv, when launched from Russia proper, but can also be used to target Ukraine from launches in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. Russia can, of course, undertake such launches simultaneously, thereby subjecting Ukrainian ballistic missile defence systems to simultaneous multi-axis attacks that can be very difficult to defend against.

An extended-range 9M723 variant, and any longer-range Russian ground-launched ballistic missile more generally, has significant implications for NATO and Europe. A 1000-kilometer-range ballistic missile can, for example, be used to target NATO’s early warning radars as well as the likes of the Aegis Ashore ballistic missile defence facility in Deveselu, Romania. Russia can, for example, also employ such ballistic missiles in multi-axis attacks against targets across much of Scandinavia. As a result, Russia may finally come to possess a much-needed “door-breaker”-type capability that can create openings for its other strike systems, all at a time when stocks of ballistic missile defence interceptors are critically low following expenditures in the American and Israeli war against Iran.

All things considered, Russia has been remarkably slow to shift its fielded military capabilities in response to the end of the INF Treaty. While the extended-range 9M729 ground-launched subsonic land-attack cruise missile helped bring about a transition to a post-INF Treaty era, Russia does not appear to have rushed to fill critical capability gaps in the realm of conventionally armed ballistic missiles with a maximum range greater than the 500 kilometers associated with the baseline 9M723. A 1000-kilometer-range version of the 9M723 Iskander-M will help close a longstanding capability gap that the Soviet Army-turned-Russian Army has experienced since 1988, but will still leave much unaddressed. The German-Polish border is some 1000 kilometers from the western borders of Russia proper (i.e., excluding Kaliningrad). The Rhine is some 1500-1600 kilometers away, and London and Paris, for example, are some 2000 kilometers away.

Although the conventionally armed version(s) of the Oreshnik can be employed against such targets, there exists a possibility that Russia will eventually follow the lead of China and Iran in deploying conventionally armed ballistic missiles with a maximum range of 1000-2000 kilometers. Iran has demonstrated what a country such as Russia can obtain from such missiles as well as the limitations thereof, with the caveat that Russian industry is in important respects better-positioned to develop a more accurate ballistic missile design. Furthermore, Russia’s military-geographical position vis-a-vis NATO provides it with some structural advantages that Iran does not enjoy vis-a-vis Israel, but does vis-a-vis the Gulf Arab states, even accounting for variance in distances. As indicated earlier, the implications in terms of possible launch geometries are, in many respects, greater than the implications in terms of a simple extension of maximum range.

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Observers of military dynamics in the Middle East will have noticed a trend. In October 2024, Israel attacked Iran’s solid-propellant ballistic missile production facilities, leading to claims that Iran would require considerable time to reconstitute production capacity and expand its ballistic missile arsenal. By June 2025, however, Israel claimed that Iran was undertaking what can only be characterized as a massive expansion of ballistic missile production, including solid-propellant designs, and once again attacked Iran’s ballistic missile production facilities. By the start of the ongoing American and Israeli war against Iran, American and Israeli officials claimed that Iran had reconstituted ballistic missile production, and these facilities were targeted once more. Recent reporting indicates that Iran is, once again, reconstituting ballistic missile production, with American and Israeli officials expressing concerns that Iran may reconstitute its ballistic missile arsenal faster than the United States and Israel can reconstitute their severely depleted stocks of ballistic missile defence interceptors.

Evidently, Iran is not only intent on reestablishing ballistic missile production, but appears to do so with greater vigour after each attempt at bringing production to a stop. Observers would do well to consider why this may be the case. One important hypothesis is that Israel and, more recently, the United States, have successfully targeted the above-ground facilities and associated machinery but (A) do did critically harm the human capital associated with ballistic missile production and (B) failed to take give adequate consideration to how Iran—somehow—has access to the requisite machinery and can, with time and effort, reconstitute production by rebuilding such facilities. In October 2024, much was made about how Israel had targeted Iran’s planetary mixers and an industrial site associated with manufacturing planetary mixers. Large industrial-grade planetary mixers are a key piece of machinery associated with casting solid-propellant rocket motors and are, as such, export-controlled items. By targeting such machinery, the thinking went, Iran would struggle to reconstitute production capacity. But many failed to consider several interrelated possibilities: (A) what if Iran would not, in fact, face major challenges in securing new planetary mixers, and (B) what if Iran’s sanctions-evading and export control-overcoming procurement networks did not rest on the laurels such that Iran had, in effect, established a stockpile of unused otherwise difficult-to-acquire machinery like planetary mixers for use if and when its industrial facilities were targeted?

Iran’s repeated feat of quickly reconstituting solid-propellant ballistic missile production indicates that otherwise difficult-to-acquire export-controlled machinery such as planetary mixers may not be a durable bottleneck. All things considered, this should come as little surprise. Iranian officials would have known that necessarily above-ground solid-propellant ballistic missile production facilities are vulnerable to attack. They would have known that certain critically important types of machinery are export-controlled and can be difficult to source. They would have known that keeping additional quantities of such machinery in storage, perhaps underground, would allow Iran to quickly reconstitute production of solid-propellant ballistic missiles. It is possible that the 2011 incident that killed Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam at Bid Kaneh taught Iran the importance of positioning itself to quickly reconstitute production capacity in the event of an industrial accident or following enemy action.

There are many consequential uncertainties in this area. Observers would do well to consider the following. First, will Iran reconstitute, at least in part, solid-propellant ballistic missile production at underground facilities? This will entail assuming considerable risks, given the hazards associated with casting solid-propellant rocket motors. Tehran may, however, feel that the risks are now acceptable, given the series of attacks on the above-ground counterparts to these facilities. Second, will Iran reconstitute solid-propellant ballistic missile production at new facilities? Iran faces strong incentives to establish hardened, if not underground, facilities in the country’s extreme northeast, including around the Binalud Mountains near Mashhad. This will not provide absolute safety against Israeli attacks—the Israeli Air Force can reach Mashhad, albeit with its aircraft operating with a much reduced payload and at lower sortie generation rates, all else being equal—and will provide little meaningful difference when it comes to attacks by the United States, but it will likely improve the resilience of Iran’s ballistic missile industry relative to simply rebuilding the structures and reinstalling machinery at facilities that have already been successfully attacked several times.

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The October 2024 Israeli strikes against Iran’s solid-propellant ballistic missile production facilities, which were also targeted during the June 2025 Iran-Israel War, are likely to have offered Iran’s liquid-fuelled ballistic missile industry a renewed lease of life and, for Tehran, a newfound purpose. Iran’s fragmented ballistic missile industry has long been split along the lines of liquid-fuelled versus solid-propellant designs, and the latter appeared to have become dominant over longstanding liquid-fuelled designs derived from the Soviet R-17 Elbrus (“Scud”) from circa 2020 onward, with the caveat that the very different liquid-fuelled Khorramshahr design, which is ultimately of a different Soviet origin by way of North Korea, was largely unaffected by the rise of solid-propellant ballsitic missiles in Iran’s arsenal.

While increasingly capable solid-propellant ballistic missiles became available, Iran retained a large arsenal of liquid-fuelled ballistic missiles of Shahab-2/Qiam and Shahab-3/Ghadr ancestry, which required periodic servicing and had considerable scope for upgrades, on account of how such liquid-fuelled ballistic missiles are stored in an unfuelled state and can, as such, remain in an arsenal more or less indefinitely. The parts of Iran’s ballistic industry with vested interests in sustaining liquid-fuelled ballistic missile production also had incentives to sustain research and development activity. In this context, Iran introduced two new variants of the Qiam design, the Rezvan and Jahad, and also continued to develop the Ghadr, resulting in the Etemad.

By June 2025, if not October 2024, Iran’s ongoing production of otherwise outdated technology became a highly valuable hedge against ongoing disruptions to solid-propellant ballistic missile production on account of enemy action. Solid-propellant ballistic missiles cannot practically be produced in underground facilities, unlike liquid-fuelled designs. The ongoing American and Israeli war against Iran, which encompassed the widespread targeting of Iran’s above-ground military-industrial facilities, has only further cemented this dynamic. Going forward, Iran is likely to lean on liquid-fuelled ballistic missiles of Shahab-2/Qiam and Shahab-3/Ghadr design ancestry for longer than it may have otherwise. Iran may come to develop more sophisticated separating reentry vehicles for the Ghadr family, perhaps something in the vein of the reentry vehicles developed for the Fattah-1 and Fattah-2, two members of the solid-propellant Kheibar Shekan design family that may have otherwise come to displace production of the longstanding liquid-fuelled Ghadr design. Militaries are often creatures of contingency. Military industries are no different. Whatever plans Tehran had in these areas have likely been upended by the upheavals of October 2024, June 2025, and the ongoing war, which have unexpectedly benefitted Iran’s liquid-fuelled ballistic missile industry and have likely given it a new lease of life and newfound purpose.

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In a recent memo, I explained that Taiwan faces structural disadvantages in the current era of precision strike. The very same technological trends that are enabling Taiwan to deploy various types of strike capabilities also enable China to do much the same, with Taiwanese capabilities being primarily restricted to a finite surface area along the island’s western coastal plain, which is not very large.

It has become popular to contend that mobility and deception are viable approaches through which Taiwan can readily improve the survivability of its military capabilities, such as its mobile missile launchers. Many point to the Russia-Ukraine War for evidence. Here, as elsewhere, one of the problems with extrapolating lessons from the Russia-Ukraine War is that China is not Russia, and the present-day People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is far better-equipped and positioned than the Russian military to accomplish what Russia has not vis-a-vis Ukraine. China’s intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities vis-a-vis Taiwan are much better than Russian ISR capabilities vis-a-vis Ukraine. This is, in part, reflective of geography: the Taiwan Strait is, at its narrowest points, just 130-180 kilometers wide, and Taiwan’s western coastal plain tends to have a depth of just 25-35 kilometers. It is also reflective of how the present-day PLA is better equipped to attack time-sensitive targets in “dynamic targeting,” which is something the Russian military continues to struggle with not only on account of rigid command and control, but also qualitative and quantitative limitations in Russia’s arsenal of weapons suited for use in such missions.

Current trends, technological and otherwise, suggest that the situation will only get worse for Taiwan over the coming years. The notion that Taiwanese forces will be able to “constantly” drive around the island’s western coastal plain from one hideout to another—as if Taiwan will have an unlimited supply of fuel—without being either detected or successfully targeted by the PLA in the process strains credulity, not least in the specific military-geographical context of Taiwan’s western coastal plain. Taiwan faces a reality in which there is essentially nowhere to hide in its western coastal plain other than densely-populated urban areas, there are few meaningfully hardened facilities available in Taiwan’s western coastal plain—unlike its mountainous interior and eastern coastline, and the PLA is increasingly well positioned to promptly target Taiwan forces on the move following detection on account of the geographical proximity of Taiwan’s western coastal plain to the Chinese coastline.

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Starlink’s low earth orbit (LEO SATCOM) service has offered Ukraine a very significant military advantage over Russia on account of how Starlink is a low-cost and widely available low-latency and high-bandwidth non-line-of-sight radio frequency datalink with tremendous military applications, including a datalink through which strike drones and other munitions can be remotely monitored, if not remotely piloted. While Russia has been able to make limited use of Starlink to varying degrees over the course of the Russia-Ukraine War, it made an important decision to pursue an alternative approach to similar ends, namely mesh radio network modems. Mesh radio networks are no true substitute for LEO SATCOM and are, all things considered, best viewed as a complement to LEO SATCOM, but nevertheless allow Russia to remotely monitor, if not remotely pilot, its strike drones, cruise missiles, and uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) over a distance of 200-300 kilometers from the international border/frontlines (in principle, a large-enough mesh radio network can be used over greater range, albeit with more complexity).

In a recent memo, I explained that China’s development of analogues to Starlink’s massive LEO SATCOM constellation poses a major threat to Taiwan on account of how it will enable, among other things, China to do to Taiwan many of the things Ukraine does to Russia.

In another recent memo, I explained that China can, more generally, do everything Russia and Ukraine do to one another to Taiwan, and at a much larger scale. Chinese vendors supply many of the components going into the “new weapons” Russia and Ukraine are employing against one another in hitherto unimaginable numbers. For the present purposes, this notably includes mesh radio network modes that are enabling Russian Shahed-136/Geran-2 strike drones, as well as their turbojet-powered derivatives—which notably employ commercially-sourced low-cost Chinese-built turbojet engines—in the form of the Geran-3 and Geran-4, to overcome the effects of Ukrainian electronic warfare capabilities on satellite navigation systems and, no less importantly, to attack mobile targets.

The Taiwan Strait is, at its narrowest points, just 130-180 kilometers wide, and Taiwan’s western coastal plain tends to have a depth of just 25-35 kilometers. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will eventually get a lot of mileage out of Chinese LEO SATCOM constellations, but it can readily employ mesh radio network modems to attack both stationary and mobile targets across Taiwan through cruise missiles, propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones of various sizes and weight classes, multirotor drones, uncrewed surface vessels, uncrewed ground vehicles, and so forth. Chinese Mesh radio network modems are not some hypothetical and prospective component going into Chinese armaments in the manner of Chinese LEO SATCOM terminals, which are, at this time, a question of when, not if. Mesh radio network modems are being built on a very large scale by Chinese vendors at this very moment, are being used by Russia against Ukraine at this very moment, and evidently have decidedly non-zero applications and implications for Taiwan.

All of the following dynamics will be affected by the use of mesh radio network modems by the PLA:

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It is no exaggeration to say that Starlink’s low earth orbit satellite communications (LEO SATCOM) service has been one of the most—if not the most—transformative technologies employed in the Russia-Ukraine War. The so-called “first-person view” (FPV) multirotor drones built using commercial off-the-shelf components are, in comparison, rather uninteresting, at least if one views Starlink not as a satellite internet service but a low-cost and widely available low-latency and high-bandwidth non-line-of-sight radio frequency datalink with tremendous military applications. Starlink and LEO SATCOM more generally is a truly transformative technological change, at least until measure-countermeasure dynamics catch up and degrade—likely not wholly negate—the transformative effects of LEO SATCOM.

Starlink’s LEO SATCOM service first became available in October 2020. By the time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Starlink was still in its infancy, but nevertheless offered Ukraine something that Russia could not match: a low-cost and widely available low-latency and high-bandwidth non-line-of-sight radio frequency datalink, one that was also difficult to readily degrade through electronic warfare. Through Starlink, the American near-monopoly on LEO SATCOM was never likely to last long. Other Western providers, such as OneWeb, were already developing rival LEO SATCOM constellations. Useful as LEO SATCOM may be to China, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was always unlikely to make itself reliant on foreign commercial LEO SATCOM providers, which can deny service over areas of interest to China and to China-linked terminals. Chinese industry is, however, developing two massive LEO SATCOM constellations of its own, namely the Guowang and Qianfan, and Chinese industry is also advancing reusable satellite launch vehicles (SLVs) in the vein of those employed by SpaceX, Starlink’s parent company, with the aim of lowering launch costs and facilitating launches at a similar scale and cadence to SpaceX. China is, as such, rushing toward deploying its own analogues to Starlink, and the pertinent question for Taiwan is when—not if—the PLA will begin to take advantage of the many benefits of a low-cost and widely available low-latency and high-bandwidth non-line-of-sight radio frequency datalink in the form of LEO SATCOM.

Chinese LEO SATCOM constellations pose an immense risk to Taiwan, not least on account of Taiwan’s geography: the Taiwan Strait is, at its narrowest points, just 130-180 kilometers wide, and Taiwan’s western coastal plain tends to have a depth of just 25-35 kilometers. LEO SATCOM is one of two ways through which the PLA can employ many of the same approaches that Russia and Ukraine employ against one another against Taiwan.

LEO SATCOM also poses much greater threats to Taiwan beyond cross-strait strike dynamics. LEO SATCOM has the potential to fundamentally transform China’s regional strike capabilities, which is to say vis-a-vis Japan, the Philippines, and, among others, the United States throughout the Western Pacific as well as, more generally, essentially anywhere in the world. A low-latency and high-bandwidth non-line-of-sight radio frequency datalink allows essentially anything and everything to be teleoperated. LEO SATCOM will bolster Chinese external operations capabilities against Taiwan and other countries. It will allow China to attack Taiwan through novel means and, no less importantly, from novel directions/threat vectors against which Taiwan’s defences are not prepared. The proverbial genie is already out of the bottle, and Chinese LEO SATCOM already exists in the form of satellites in orbit. The only uncertainty concerns how many Chinese LEO SATCOM satellites will be in orbit by the time that a major war breaks out in the Pacific over the fate of Taiwan.

All of the following dynamics will be affected by the availability of LEO SATCOM to the PLA:

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There is a well-known aphorism along the lines of “If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem.” A similar dynamic applies to Taiwan in the current era of precision strike capabilities, not least on account of how the Taiwan Strait is, at its narrowest points, just 130-180 kilometers wide, and on account of how Taiwan’s western coastal plain tends to have a depth of just 25-35 kilometers. A modified aphorism for Taiwan goes as follows: “When Taiwan wants to hide a hundred missile launchers in its western coastal plain, that is China’s problem. When Taiwan wants to hide a thousand missile launchers in its western coastal plain, that is Taiwan’s problem.”

The surface area on the island of Taiwan in general and its western coastal plain in particular is fixed. As the number of systems, including but not limited to missile launchers, Taiwan deploys in its western coastal plain increases, so does the density of targets for China to detect and attack. This will, all things considered, reduce the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) challenges that China will face in degrading This has significant implications for the survivability of Taiwanese capabilities, such as missile launchers, and the efficacy of measures to improve survivability, such as deception. By virtue of its geographic proximity to China, Taiwan is at a structural disadvantage in the current era of precision strike. The very same technological trends that are enabling Taiwan to deploy various types of strike capabilities, including maritime strike capabilities, also enable China to do much the same. Geography, after all, cuts both ways, while China remains the larger country (even if one focuses on the terrain along China’s maritime frontier) with incomparably greater resources and industrial capacity to bring to bear.

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Russia’s primarily Soviet-built bomber force has been not only heavily attrited but also heavily taxed over the course of the Russia-Ukraine War. These elderly aircraft are burning through flight hours at a time when Russian industry is poorly positioned to further extend the service lives of these aircraft, let alone reestablish long-dormant production lines, a dynamic attested with the Tu-160M2. Russia does, however, have another option, at least with respect to launching conventionally armed cruise missiles against Ukraine and NATO.

While the Russian bomber force has a so-called strategic nuclear delivery role (with respect to the Tu-95 and Tu-160 fleets, but not the Tu-22M fleet), Russian bombers primarily function as launch platforms for conventionally armed cruise missiles of the Kh-101 family, which have been heavily used against Ukraine. Russia is now also building and employing a series of new lower-cost and lower payload-range cruise missiles, some of which are air-launched designs. These include the Banderol, Geran-5, and S-71K.

With the Il-76MD-90A heavy military transport aircraft in active production, Russia may come to deploy these cruise missiles or derivatives thereof as air-launched cruise missiles via an air-dropped palletized launch mechanism in a manner similar to the American Rapid Dragon and FAMM-P efforts. The Kh-101 itself may be adapted for launch through such a method, not least on account of how inefficient the operating concept for Russian bombers is vis-a-vis Ukraine. An air-dropped palletized launch mechanism will amount to a path through which Russia can quickly reconstitute its bomber force without making heavy investments toward truly reconstituting the Tu-160M2 production line or fully developing and manufacturing the long-expected next-generation PAK DA. While there is a case to be made that the massed use of air-launched cruise missiles is inefficient for Russia in a post-INF Treaty world and in the absence of stronger Russian offensive air-to-air combat capabilities vis-a-vis NATO, the Russian Aerospace Force appears intent on retaining this capability set.

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As things stand, any country interested in new-build heavy military transport aircraft has to turn to China and Russia for the Y-20 and Il-76MD-90A, respectively. To state the obvious, much of the total addressable market in this important but rather niche market segment is off-limits to Chinese and Russian vendors. In this market segment, as with so many others, China and Russia will be competing for sales and essentially cannibalizing one another’s potential export markets. Whereas a country like Algeria could previously be expected to order new-build Russian Il-76 airframes, Algeria now has the option of instead ordering the Chinese Y-20 aircraft. With the total addressable market for Chinese and Russian vendors being quite small to begin with, competition for sales to the Algerias of the world is unwelcome to Russia, although Moscow benefits from China’s adversarial relations with several countries, above all India but also smaller potential customers such as Vietnam, for whom there is no substitute to the Il-76MD-90A.

The countries holding the proverbial short end of the stick as a result of the end of Boeing C-17 production in 2015 are primarily the United States and NATO member states, as well as several non-NATO allies of the United States, such as Australia. If and when the United States funds the development and production of a new heavy military transport aircraft, or perhaps a restart of (updated) C-17 production, the total addressable market is likely to shrink beyond the list of countries that will not order a Chinese or Russian offering. Large numbers of Soviet-built Il-76 aircraft, whether possessed by state/military or civilian operators, will have to be replaced over the coming years, including for the important civilian ramp-equipped oversized air cargo market. The Russian Il-76MD-90A and Chinese Y-20 are likely to capture considerable market share before an American and/or European vendor enters this market segment.

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While the ongoing American and Israeli War against Iran and the regional externalities thereof can be interpreted as offering evidence that Iran has the wherewithal to overcome adversary ballistic missile defence (BMD) capabilities, the fact remains that Iran faces major challenges going forward for reasons beyond the damage inflicted on its ballistic missile industry. One such challenge was put into motion long before the June 2025 Iran-Israel War, let alone the ongoing conflict.

As a general matter, the Gulf Arab states accurately discerned the trajectory of qualitative and quantitative advances in Iranian ballistic missile technology and capabilities and proactively built up their BMD capabilities in response. Gulf Arab efforts ramped up after Iranian material support to Ansarallah in Yemen, which included ever-expanding support in the realm of ballistic missiles, fundamentally reshaped air defence and BMD dynamics in the region over the 2015-2020 timeframe, which is notably before Iran made the very major strides in its ballistic missile technology that led to the present-day Iranian arsenal.

Before the start of the June 2025 Iran-Israel War, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were set to eventually deploy a total of nine THAAD batteries and some 600 associated MIM-401 Talon interceptors between them, with well-resourced Qatar expressing interest in following suit. As a result, Iran faced a daunting long-term challenge in the realm of longer-range ballistic missiles, which are, all else being equal, not only more expensive and more complex to procure, but also less accurate relative to shorter-range ballistic missiles that have the range to cross the 200-300 kilometer-wide Persian Gulf.

Although the ongoing American and Israeli war against Iran and the regional externalities thereof highlight how Iran is able to pressure American, Israeli, and Gulf Arab air defences and ballistic missile defences, it is important to bear in mind that Iran’s adversaries do not require perfect defences for BMD to make a difference, not unless Iran is to employ nuclear-armed ballistic missiles against which BMD systems must, in practice, be 100% effective. Iran may well be able to once again induce the depletion of Gulf Arab BMD systems such as THAAD and Patriot with or without American BMD support to the Gulf Arabs, but the existence of nine or more THAAD batteries on the Arabian Peninsula alongside hundreds of MIM-401 interceptors is very far from nothing if one takes the role of an Iranian military planner. Going forward, the well-resourced Gulf Arab states can only be expected to double down on Patriot and THAAD, as well as other systems. Once Saudi Arabia receives its full consignment of THAAD batteries, the aggregation of Gulf Arab THAAD batteries will have significant effects on Iranian military planning, even with de facto forward-deployed Iranian strike munitions in Yemen—through the services of Ansarallah—providing Iran a promising way to even the odds.

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In 2012, Qatar requested a possible sale of two THAAD ballistic missile defence (BMD) batteries with 12 launchers, two AN/TPY-2 radars, and 150 MIM-401 Talon interceptors. The proposed sale did not go through, but the issue of a Qatari procurement of THAAD was resurrected in May 2025, when U.S. President Donald Trump announced a massive arms sale package to Qatar that included an unspecified quantity of THAAD systems and associated interceptors. If and when the deal goes through, Qatar will become the third Gulf Arab country to operate THAAD, with the UAE already operating two THAAD batteries and Saudi Arabia set to eventually deploy a total of seven THAAD batteries.

The question of when Qatar would receive its as-yet-unordered THAAD systems became more interesting in the aftermath of the June 2025 Iran-Israel War on account of the American BMD backstop to Israel’s own depleted BMD interceptor stockpile. The United States Army had by that point undertaken something of a procurement holiday when it came to MIM-401 interceptors as well as the various components required to assemble a THAAD battery. In part, this reflected budgetary allocations toward other areas, but it also reflected how production capacity was being primarily allocated toward export customers in the form of the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The unspoken gambit, then as now, was that THAAD exports to the Gulf Arab states would eventually reduce demand for American THAAD batteries in the Middle East and, in so doing, free up the United States’ eight THAAD batteries for use elsewhere, above all in the Western Pacific vis-a-vis China and, to a lesser degree, North Korea. The ongoing American and Israeli war against Iran has, however, thrown a wrench into such planning.

Although the United States was putting into motion a major expansion of MIM-401 production capacity (but not an expansion of THAAD battery component production) before 28 February 2026, present-day circumstances would suggest that the United States will likely allocate the vast majority, if not the entirety, of near-term MIM-401 production slots to itself. Should Qatar seek to proceed with procuring THAAD systems, it may not receive its batteries and the full complement of MIM-401 interceptors until the 2030s. This will come at a time when Doha is likely to have engaged in serious thinking as to how it can significantly enhance its BMD capabilities vis-a-vis Iran. Iran’s 18 March 2026 targeting of internationally significant natural gas infrastructure at Ras Laffan demonstrated that Iran has the capacity to penetrate Qatar’s otherwise robust BMD “shield” in a high-priority planned operation. As a higher-end BMD system with a greater operating altitude and larger defended footprint, THAAD is a good fit for Qatari needs, but may not be available in a desirable timeframe.

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As explained in a recent memo, the de facto forward deployment of Iranian strike munitions in the areas of Yemen controlled by Ansarallah has long fundamentally reshaped military dynamics in the Middle East.

The American and Israeli war against Iran, and the regional externalities thereof, have amplified the effects of Ansarallah’s Iranian-supplied strike munition arsenal, not least following the turbulent changes in Yemen in the December 2025-January 2026 timeframe, which amounted to a major rupture between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the withdrawal of Emirati forces—including Emirati air defence systems—from Yemen, and the severe weakening of pro-secessionist actors and forces in southern Yemen.

Since the de facto resumption of the Yemeni Civil War in recent weeks, Ansarallah has launched strike drones against its Yemeni adversaries as well as Saudi Arabia. This includes the use of (very) short-range ballistic missiles against the port city of Mocha from a reported launch position located some 100 kilometers away. The use of ballistic missiles in such a manner is hardly new in Yemen, with the practice being first established in the 1990s and repeated multiple times in the ongoing Yemeni Civil War, including against Saudi and Emirati forces that intervened in the conflict.

The Gulf Arab states responded to the de facto forward deployment of Iranian strike munitions of ever-increasing range and greater sophistication to northern Yemen by reorienting part of their air defence and ballistic missile defence capabilities against threats originating from the south and southwest, while Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also deployed air defence systems, including Patriot batteries, to Yemen with the aim of protecting their foward-deployed forces and allied forces against quite accurate short-range ballistic missiles launched by Ansarallah, as well as strike drone attacks.

As things stand, the reported depletion of Gulf Arab, as well as American, surface-to-air missile and especially ballistic missile defence interceptor stocks means that Ansarallah is likely to have what amounts to a free hand when it comes to deploying ballistic missiles and their analogues, namely short-range guided artillery rockets, against targets across Yemen in the manner it has undertaken strikes against Mocha. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are exceptionally unlikely to deploy, for example, one or more Patriot batteries to such areas, not unless a firm peace takes hold vis-a-vis Iran, and Ansarallah’s ballistic missiles are likely to go unintercepted. The United States, which is grappling with the consequences of its own depleted stock not only vis-a-vis Iran but also vis-a-vis China, is also unlikely to get involved, and will likely have to judiciously expend naval ballistic missile defence interceptors should hostilities resume between the United States and Ansarallah.

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The de facto forward deployment of Iranian strike munitions in the areas of Yemen controlled by Ansarallah has long fundamentally reshaped military dynamics in the Middle East. While Yemen borders Saudi Arabia, most lucrative targets are quite far from Yemen. Saudi Arabia’s extreme southwest is, however, very close to Ansarallah-controlled territory, and this geographical proximity amplifies the threat that Ansarallah’s Iranian-supplied strike capabilities pose to Saudi Arabia.

The distance between Sa’dah, Ansarallah’s stronghold, and Jizan, a coastal Saudi city with a population of around 200,000, is approximately 125 kilometers. The inland Saudi city of Najran, which has a population of around 400,000, is approximately 85 kilometers from Sa’dah. The combined population of the inland Saudi cities of Abha and Khamis Mushait, which are locted is approximately 190 kilometers from Sa’dah, is around 1,000,000. These locations are, of course, much closer to what amounts to the frontier between Ansarallah and Saudi Arabia (Sa’dah is further inland), and a significant portion of Saudi Arabia’s population resides within just several hundred kilometers of Ansarallah-controlled territory. For context, the coastal city of Jeddah is around 650 kilometers from Ansarallah-controlled territory, while Riyadh is around 850 kilometers from Ansarallah-controlled territory.

The barriers to entry are much lower when it comes to attacking targets situated within 100-200 kilometers with strike drones, cruise missiles, and even smaller short-range ballistic missiles. The amplified effects of geography in this area amount to a major source of advantage for Ansarallah and, as such, for Iran, vis-a-vis Saudi Arabia, not least in a context in which the American and Israeli war against Iran and the regional externalities thereof have reportedly resulted in the severe depletion of Gulf Arab, as well as American, ballistic missile defence interceptor and surface-to-air missile stocks. A major source of Iran’s structural military advantages vis-a-vis the Gulf Arab states is rooted in how the Persian Gulf is no more than 200-300 kilometers wide in most areas. In southwestern Saudi Arabia, some 4,000,000 Saudis reside within a similar—if not significantly less—distance of Iran’s de facto forward-deployed strike munitions in northern Yemen.

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