This post is part of the Defending Iran Project, accessible through this link.

Until the advent of marine nuclear propulsion in the 1950s, most submarines were, in effect, submersibles that primarily operated on the surface and briefly operated in a submerged state. Iran’s approach to employing its longer-range ballistic missiles can be productively understood as the opposite of how most submarines were employed prior to the advent of nuclear-powered submarines in the early Cold War. That is, Iran’s longer-range ballistic missile launchers and their associated missiles, including reloads, primarily remain underground, and briefly exit Iran’s heavily protected underground missile bases to operate outside so as to prepare ballistic missiles for launch, launch said ballistic missiles, and afterward return inside the underground missile bases—“submerge”—so as to reload, and more generally await orders to undertake another ballistic missile launch.

The pre-nuclear propulsion submarine analogy is also analytically productive for another reason. Even the latest diesel-electric submarines have to regularly operate at periscope depth so as to raise a snorkel (prior to the increasingly widespread use of snorkels toward the end of the Second World War, submarines had to fully surface so as to run their diesel engines). Even the latest diesel-electric submarines can be more readily detected when operating at periscope depth so as to run their diesel engines and, in so doing, recharge their electric batteries. The concept of a (submarine) indiscretion rate refers to the percentage of time that a non-nuclear-powered submarine must operate at periscope depth and run its diesel engines to recharge its batteries during a deployment. To reduce their exposure to threats and enhance their survivability, commanders of submarines without nuclear propulsion want to minimize the time they (unavoidably) have to spend at periscope depth, which is to say minimize their indiscrtion rate during a deployment.

The crews of Iran’s longer-range ballistic missiles and their parent units encounter much the same indiscretion rate dynamic as their counterparts who operate submarines not equipped with nuclear propulsion, whether in Iran or in any other country. Iran’s ballistic missile launch crews must, for all practical intents and purposes, exit the considerable safety of Iran’s underground missile bases so as to prepare ballistic missiles for launch, launch said ballistic missiles, and afterward return inside the underground missile bases—“submerge”—so as to reload, and more generally await orders to undertake another ballistic missile launch. As with the submarine analogy, Iran’s ballistic missile launch crews want to minimize the amount of time that they have to spend outside of the safety of their underground missile bases.

Indiscretion Rates and Liquid-Fuel Vs Solid-Propellant Ballistic Missiles

When it comes to Iran’s liquid-fuelled ballistic missiles, specifically those of R-17 Elbrus (i.e., “Scud”) heritage, including the longer-range Ghadr family, which combust liquid kerosene-type fuel with an oxidizer, the liquid fuel is, for all practical intents and purposes, not storable, and the missiles must be fuelled before use/launch. Fuelling is preferably undertaken outside, given the hazards that the liquid fuel combination poses to the crews, not least in an indoor setting of an enclosed space such as an underground missile base. While fuelling outside is preferable in terms of avoiding accidents and, failing that, mitigating the damage and casualties resulting from an accident during refuelling, it necessarily increases the indiscretion rate of Iran’s ballistic missile launch crews operating liquid-fuelled ballistic missiles (excluding those of the Khorramshahr family, which employ a different type of liquid fuel that is storable). As demonstrated in the June 2025 Iran-Israel War and over the course of the 2026 American and Israeli war against Iran, American and Israeli military aircraft, whether crewed or uncrewed, can be lying in wait outside Iran’s underground missile bases (among other ways to target Iran’s ballistic missile launchers outside of the underground missile bases). To lower the indiscretion rate of Iran’s liquid-fuelled ballistic missile launchers and associated crews, Iran is understood to be fuelling its liquid-fuelled ballistic missiles underground despite the major risks that doing so in an enclosed space poses in terms of the safety and, in effect, the survivability of all the personnel, launchers, and missiles stored within an enclosed underground missile base.

When it comes to Iran’s solid-propellant ballistic missiles, including those of the Kheibar Shekan family, the solid propellant is storable, and the missiles do not need to be refuelled prior to launch. The launchers associated with Iran’s solid-propellant ballistic missiles can be simply driven outside an underground missile base and quickly prepared for launch and thereafter return inside to reload.

There are trade-offs when it comes to liquid-fuel vs solid-propellant ballistic missile technology, not least for Iran. While solid-propellant ballistic missiles do not need to be fuelled prior to launch and are, as such, fairly safe to store underground, casting solid-propellant rocket motors is a hazardous activity and is, therefore, almost always undertaken above ground. Given the above, Israel, and now the United States, have been far better-positioned to degrade, if not suspend, Iran’s ability to manufacture solid-propellant ballistic missiles. In contrast, Iran appears to retain the ability to produce liquid-fuelled ballistic missiles, specifically those of the “legacy” and broadly outdated Ghadr family. It is important to note that Iran has reportedly placed greater emphasis on ballistic missiles of the Ghadr family since October 2024, despite the limitations of these “legacy” ballistic missiles relative to Iran’s newer solid-propellant ballistic missile designs.

The key point here is that solid-propellant ballistic missiles are, all things considered, the better option for Iran going forward, certainly as an alternative to non-storable liquid-fuel designs such as those of the Ghadr family, when it comes to lowering the indiscretion rate for Iran’s ballistic missile force, but there are highly pertinent Iran-specific factors at play which greatly increase the appeal of liquid-fuelled ballistic missiles for Iran, notwithstanding how non-storable liquid-fuels either result in higher indiscretion rates or, alternatively, pose greater risks of major damage resulting from accidents while fueling ballistic missiles within Iran’s underground missile bases.

Other Ways to Lower the Indiscretion Rate for Ballistic Missile Launchers

While a greater reliance on solid-propellant ballistic missiles amounts to one way to lower the indiscretion rate for Iran’s ballistic missile launchers operating out of underground missile bases, there are other ways to go about this, including ways to (further) reduce the indiscretion rate for Iran’s solid-propellant ballistic missile launchers. The key issue is to increase the number of ballistic missiles that a launch crew and associated launcher can launch per “sortie”—during every (preferably brief) deployment outside the safety of the underground missile base. This requires ballistic missile launchers that can launch more than one ballistic missile at a time. Needless to say, this does not lower the indiscretion rate for a given launcher and launch crew during a given “sortie,” but it can reduce the total number of “sorties” that an underground missile base must generate over a given timeframe, and this has the effect of functionally lowering the “aggregate indiscretion rate” over the course of a war, all else being equal.

Most of Iran’s ballistic missile launchers can only launch a single ballistic missile at a time, which is to say per “sortie.” This is particularly the case with respect to Iran’s longer-range ballistic missiles, that is, the launchers associated with ballistic missiles that have a maximum range of 1000 kilometers or more. This reflects the considerable size and weight of such Iranian ballistic missiles, including the quite large warheads that many such designs are equipped with in part to partially compensate for inaccuracy when equipped with a conventional high explosive-fragmentation warhead.

With respect to Iran’s “legacy” liquid-fuelled Ghadr family, which has a diameter of 1.25 meters, it is simply not possible for a reasonably sized launcher to transport and launch more than one such ballistic missile at a time. When it comes to smaller and comparatively shorter-range ballistic missiles, such as those of the related “legacy” liquid-fuelled Qiam family, which have a diameter of 0.88 meters, it is, however, possible to design a launcher that can carry two such missiles at a time. As the following images indicate, Iran has already done so.

With respect to Iran’s solid-propellant ballistic missiles, such as those of the Kheibar Shekan family, which includes the Fattah-1 and Fattah-2, a diameter of 0.81 meters makes it possible to design a launcher that can carry two such missiles at a time. As the following images indicate, Iran has already done so.

Other extant Iranian long-range ballistic missiles, namely the (storable) liquid-fuelled Khorramshahr family, and the solid-fuelled Haj Qasem design, are simply too large and/or heavy for a single trailer-type launcher to carry more than one of the aforementioned ballistic missiles at a time. It is worth noting that Iran’s comparatively shorter-range ballistic missiles, including the ~700-kilometer-range Zolfaghar and the ~1000-kilometer-range Dezful, which are related solid-propellant designs with a diameter of 0.68 meters—to say nothing of even smaller and lighter diameter solid-propellant designs—can be used with launchers that can carry at least two such missiles at a time. While beyond the scope of this post, it is worth noting that Iran’s shorter-range ballistic missiles encounter the very same indiscretion rate dynamic.

In addition to the 610 mm diameter Fateh-110 and extended range Fateh-313, which can be used with launchers that can carry two such missiles at a time, it is also worth noting that the likes of the much smaller, lighter, and shorter-range 456 mm diameter Fath-450 (i.e., BM-250) and the 368 mm diameter Fath-360 (i.e., BM-120), which are relevant when it comes to attacking targets located in the Gulf Arab states, are particularly well-suited for use with launchers that can carry more than two such ballistic missiles at a time. The Moghadam-360 launcher, for example, can carry and launch six 360 mm diameter Fath-360 (BM-120) short-range ballistic missiles at a time. While such measures are likely to be primarily motivated by a desire to increase salvo size without significantly expanding the headcount of the units operating shorter-range ballistic missiles, this approach inherently helps to lower indiscretion rates.

Iran’s Ballistic Missile Launcher Indiscretion Rates Going Forward

All things considered, there is considerable scope for Iran to significantly lower, or at least functionally lower, the indiscretion rates for its ballistic missile launchers and associated crews operating out of Iran’s underground missile bases by developing and deploying launchers that can carry at least two missiles at a time. As explained earlier, this will not be possible with the “legacy” liquid-fuelled Ghadr family ballistic missiles that Iran is likely to heavily rely on going forward, on account of the damage that Israel and the United States have done to Iran’s solid-propellant ballistic missile industrial base. It is also not practical with the likes of the (storable) liquid-fuelled Khorramshahr family and the solid-propellant Haj Qasem simply on account of size and/or weight. Needless to say, launchers that can carry two or more ballistic missiles at a time do not directly address the limitations and risks inherent to Iran’s preferred approach to operating long-range ballistic missiles from underground missile bases. It also does nothing to directly address the threat that American and Israeli aircraft, whether crewed or uncrewed, pose to Iran’s ballistic missile launchers and associated launchers when they unavoidably and necessarily leave the safety of the underground missile bases to launch ballistic missiles of any given type. Even so, the fact remains that the situation that Iran faces is far from hopeless, and that there is scope for adaptation.

It is important to note that Iran itself unveiled trailer-type launchers capable of carrying two Qiam family or two Kheibar Shekan family ballistic missiles well before the October 2024 exchange with Israel and the June 2025 Iran-Israel War, let alone the current American and Israeli war against Iran. This strongly suggests that Iranian military planners are well aware of this general dynamic, even if they may have pursued such launchers not to lower the indiscretion rate, or even through the use of an analytical construct borrowed from submarine operations, but to simply economize on manpower, which is to say expand the number of ballistic missiles that can be launched with a given launch unit without expanding headcount.

This post is part of the Defending Iran Project, accessible through this link.

While the Defending Iran Project will not be focusing on a hypothetical Iranian nuclear arsenal, several of the analytical dynamics that I highlighted in a (very long) recent post are highly relevant to any analysis examining how Iran can adapt to the challenges that the 2026 American and Israeli war against Iran has brought to the fore, as well as what is likely to come in the future vis-a-vis Israel, the United States, and the Gulf Arab states.

In the above analysis, I made the case that acquiring nuclear weapons—becoming a nuclear-weapon state—will likely be a bad deal for Iran itself. All things considered, an incipient Iranian nuclear-weapon state will likely face very major challenges in developing, deploying, and sustaining a credible nuclear deterrent against its primary nuclear-armed adversaries, which is to say Israel and the United States. In the above analysis, I highlighted, among other things, the major challenges that Iran faces in terms of reliability, accuracy and precision, and penetration rates when it comes to employing ballistic missiles, and perhaps other strike munitions, against Israel, the United States, and Gulf Arab states. I also highlighted the vexing challenge of warhead ambiguity, which raises serious questions as to whether a nuclear-armed Iran can deploy both conventionally-armed and nuclear-armed ballistic missiles with a range of 1000 or more kilometers (i.e., ballistic missiles with the range required to target Israel from Iranian territory).

In the above analysis, I explained that

if Iran had a large and capable air force, it could, in effect, readily place a partition between nuclear capabilities and its conventional capabilities and perhaps reduce its reliance on longer-range conventionally-armed ballistic missiles. But Iran does not have a large and capable air force and is unlikely to possess such an air force anytime soon, not least vis-a-vis the formidable air combat capabilities of Israel and the United States, as well as the Gulf Arab states.

As things stand, Iran’s longer-range ballistic missiles, namely those of the Qadr, Kheibar Shekan, and Khorramshahr design families, as well as the orphan Sejjil design, are central to Iran’s conventional strike and, as such, conventional deterrence capabilities, irrespective to how much these leave to be desired in terms of reliability, accuracy and precision, and penetration rates against Israeli, American, and Gulf Arab ballistic missile defences.

Should Iran acquire nuclear weapons,

Iran will likely have to navigate an intensely unstable nuclear deterrence relationship with Israel—and the United States—all while possessing negligible ballistic missile defences, and without the ability to credibly deliver nuclear warheads of its own to targets in Israel on account of the poor accuracy and penetration rate exhibited by Iranian ballistic missiles to date in the face of Israeli and American ballistic missile defences.

All things considered, acquiring nuclear weapons will, in multiple important respects, compound and complexify the already immense challenges that Iran faces in bolstering its defences vis-a-vis Israel and the United States. The Defending Iran Project will feature posts written as if Iran will remain at some level of nuclear latency or nuclear threshold state status. As I explained in the above analysis,

many analysts succumb to the temptation of thinking in terms of “if I were the all-powerful emperor” or “if I could choose the all-powerful emperor,” or “if I could whisper into the ears of the all-powerful emperor, then I would pursue/recommend policies x, y, z.” I am not the all-powerful emperor, do not select the all-powerful emperor, and do not get to whisper in the ear of an all-powerful emperor. As an analyst, I strive to deal with the world as it is, not as I wish it would be. The current leadership of the Islamic Republic constitute the powers that be in Tehran, and those who collectively sit upon the proverbial peacock throne in Tehran alone have full control over Iran’s nuclear file, no matter what one may think of the Islamic Republic

or, indeed, of the potential benefits of Iran’s hypothetical transition to a nuclear-weapon state in terms of defending Iran in the aftermath of the 2026 American and Israeli war against the country.

This post is part of the Defending Iran Project, accessible through this link.

NB: Please treat this as a working paper that has been rather hurriedly prepared in light of recent and ongoing events. The following text was also posted on my X/Twitter account.

A lot of ink has been spilled on the Iran nuclear issue over the past thirty or so years, much of it focusing on Iran’s fissile material stockpiles, pathways to weaponization, and breakout times, as well as the possibility of a hypothetical regional proliferation cascade in response to Iran’s nuclearization. It remains exceptionally rare to come across an analysis of the potential implications of a nuclear-armed Iran for Iran itself. The allure of nuclear weapons has perhaps never been greater among Iranian officials and everyday Iranians alike, but obtaining nuclear weapons will likely only be the start of Iran’s problems, even if a hypothetical nuclear breakout attempt succeeds with or without yet another devastating round of fighting with the United States and Israel.

At some level, one must ask whether the proverbial game is worth the candle. Given the challenges that Iran will likely face in operationalizing a notional Iranian nuclear arsenal against Israel and the United States, with which Iran will likely form its two primary nuclear deterrence relationships, I contend that Iran is, all things considered, best off without nuclear weapons. This argument is, of course, contingent upon there not existing a credible threat of nuclear attack from Israel and/or the United States, which there is not at this time, and upon the non-existence of ongoing and escalating efforts to bring about state collapse in Iran. I would be remiss not to underscore that there are, of course, other plausible ways through which policy change can bring Iran, and the Islamic Republic itself, greater security without nuclear weapons, but such matters are beyond the scope of this analysis.

This analysis will sketch out my thinking on this increasingly topical issue based upon various notes and drafts, the most recent revision of which was undertaken in late October 2024, that have been “collecting dust” over the years. I will not touch on every possible issue, but this rather hastily updated draft—which should be treated as a working paper and not a polished final product—will draw attention to several issues that I find to be very important as a military and technology analyst. Before explaining my views on this matter, I stress that I merely presume, not prescribe, policy continuity in Tehran, whether in terms of domestic, foreign, or military policy, and, more to the point, policies with respect to Israel and the United States. Many analysts succumb to the temptation of thinking in terms of “if I were the all-powerful emperor” or “if I could choose the all-powerful emperor,” or “if I could whisper into the ears of the all-powerful emperor, then I would do/recommend policies x, y, z.” I am not the all-powerful emperor, do not select the all-powerful emperor, and do not get to whisper in the ear of an all-powerful emperor. As an analyst, I strive to deal with the world as it is, not as I wish it would be. The current leadership of the Islamic Republic constitute the powers that be in Tehran, and those who collectively sit upon the proverbial peacock throne in Tehran alone have full control over Iran’s nuclear file, no matter what one may think of the Islamic Republic.

For the purposes of this analysis, Iran and the Islamic Republic are necessarily one and the same. Those who contend that the distinction is of practical consequence should note that the central thesis of this analysis is that nuclearization will likely amount to a bad deal for both the Islamic Republic of Iran and the people of Iran, no matter who sits upon the proverbial peacock throne in Tehran and their choice of headgear. As I have explained in the past, Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, both material and human, and related areas, including long-range ballistic missile infrastructure, both material and human, are part of Iran’s “crown jewels” and are, as such, part of the patrimony of the Iranian people. Iran’s current leaders, who have, in effect, recently inherited said crown jewels upon taking power in wartime, and Iran’s future leaders—Iran’s current leaders are also mortal men—will have to make fateful decisions about the country’s crown jewels, including its nuclear infrastructure, both material and human. This analysis does not address the question about what should be done with Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, including whether it should be traded away in one or more negotiated agreements, and exclusively focuses on the challenges that Iran will likely face in operationalizing a notional nuclear arsenal.

Iran’s Geography, Deterrence Relationships, and Directional Dyads

Let us suppose that Iran becomes a nuclear-weapon state in the following x months or years. The first issue to be addressed concerns how many nuclear deterrence relationships Iran will become a part of. Excluding the nuclear weapons that the United States and Russia share with some of their treaty allies, there are currently nine nuclear-weapon states, Israel included. Iran’s nuclearization will bring the total to ten. Nuclear-weapon states logically cannot be in a nuclear deterrence relationship—part of a nuclear dyad—with themselves, which means that there will be 45 nuclear dyads and 90 directional nuclear dyads if and when Iran becomes a nuclear-weapon state.

A dyad refers to a pairing of countries x and y, such as the United States and North Korea. A directional dyad refers to how x may view its nuclear deterrence relationship with y (x→y) as more important than y views its nuclear deterrence relationship with x (y→x). North Korea is, for example, just one of the United States’ nuclear-armed adversaries, and a relatively minor one—relative to Russia and, increasingly, China—when it comes to matters of nuclear strategy, nuclear posture, capability development, force size, and so forth. The same cannot be said of North Korea with respect to the United States as its nuclear-armed adversary—the United States—including American military forces in South Korea and Japan—is the primary, if not the only, nuclear-armed adversary of North Korea.

For the present purposes, I will refer to the North Korea→United States nuclear dyad as an example of a strong directional nuclear dyad, one that is notably stronger than the United States→North Korea directional nuclear dyad. The North Korea→China and North Korea→Russia nuclear dyads are, by contrast, examples of weak directional dyads. All else being equal, any nuclear-armed state will also want to be in as few strong directional dyads as possible. All else being equal, any nuclear-armed state will also want to be in as few politically salient nuclear dyads—whether strong or weak in directional terms—as possible. Not all nuclear dyads are politically salient, with the France-UK, France-USA, and UK-USA nuclear dyads constituting some of the best examples of this dynamic.

A nuclear-armed Iran will, at the very least, enter into nuclear deterrence relationships with Israel and the United States. I would characterize these directional dyads involving Iran as mutually strong and exceedingly strong with respect to the Israel→Iran directional dyad. I cannot overemphasize how the intensity of the Israel→Iran directional dyad will likely make the Iran-Israel nuclear deterrence relationship an outlier in the current nuclear landscape. The terminology “nuclear deterrence relationship” captures how we are dealing with a two-sided dynamic, one in which the Iran→Israel directional dyad may be very different than the Israel→Iran directional dyad, as is the case in the North Korea-United States nuclear deterrence relationship. Here, as elsewhere, strategic empathy is required, no matter what one thinks of Iran and Israel, insofar as one cares about having a stable nuclear relationship and avoiding the use of nuclear weapons against a nuclear-armed adversary that can retaliate in kind to devastating effect.

It bears emphasis that while nuclear deterrence relationships tend to be primarily bilateral affairs, the Iran-Israel nuclear deterrence relationship may well take on a more or less trilateral form should the United States extend to Israel a “nuclear umbrella,” which is to say nuclear guarantees if Iran ever employs nuclear weapons against Israel, once Iran becomes a nuclear-weapon state. I will touch upon this profoundly complexifying potential dynamic later on. Beyond a potential trilateral or triadic dynamic, Iran will likely enter into a mutually, albeit not symmetrically, strong nuclear deterrence relationship with the United States. The United States will likely view any Iranian nuclear weapons as a threat to itself solely as a result of the threat that Iran can pose to American military bases and forces in the Middle East, even if Iran were to forgo the development and deployment of intercontinental-range ballistic missiles.

A nuclear-armed Iran will, in turn, likely have to more seriously consider the potential of American nuclear weapons being used against it. The best way to deter such an eventuality, including the possibility of American nuclear blackmail against Iran—as a nuclear-weapon state—during a crisis or war, will be to bring the continental United States within range of Iran’s nuclear weapons by developing and deploying intercontinental-range ballistic missiles. Even attempting to do so will, however, likely only intensify the United States→Iran directional dyad, thereby resulting in a likely unstable nuclear deterrence relationship until Iran’s incipient nuclear arsenal matures and/or until Iran and the United States reach a modus vivendi. It bears emphasis that developing intercontinental range ballistic missiles to target the United States, and deploying such missiles in such numbers as to credibly deter the United States, will inherently bring all other nuclear-weapon states within the range of Iran’s nuclear arsenal.

As the range of Iranian nuclear-capable ballistic missiles approaches 3500-4000 kilometers, Iran will likely enter into nuclear deterrence relationships with France and the United Kingdom. I would characterize these directional dyads as mutually weak—my simplified binary strong/weak framing does not, of course, capture all the potential levels of nuance—at the outset of Iran’s nuclearization, but asymmetrically directional, which is to say relatively stronger in the France→Iran and United Kingdom→Iran directional dyads as Paris and London come within the range of Iran’s nuclear arsenal than the Iran→France and Iran→United Kingdom directional dyads. (Iran will, at the time of nuclearization, also enter into a nuclear deterrence relationship with NATO in general and with the United States and Turkiye, which hosts American nuclear bombs at Incirlik airbase as part of a NATO nuclear sharing arrangement, in particular, but this complex issue is best put aside for another time)

Iran already borders a nuclear-weapons state, Pakistan, and will likely enter into at least a mutually weak nuclear dyad with its neighbour. Islamabad is some 1200 kilometers from Iran, and New Delhi is less than 1700 kilometers from Iran. Iran will likely also enter into a mutually weak and, as with Pakistan, not very politically salient nuclear dyad with India, even if it forgoes the longer-range nuclear delivery systems required to target France and the United Kingdom, let alone the United States.

As I have explained in the past, Iran occupies a rather “central” geographic position in the section of the Afro-Eurasian landmass that lies north of the equator. As a result, although North America may be very far from Iran, many countries are close to being Iran’s “neighbours” if and when Iran transitions from its current crop of ~2000-kilometer nominal maximum range ballistic missiles to ~3500-4000-kilometer nominal maximum range ballistic missiles.

Across the Caspian Sea lies another nuclear-weapon state that is functionally another neighbour of Iran. The southernmost parts of Russian territory near the Caucasus lie within 200 kilometers of northwestern Iran, and Moscow is just ~1900 kilometers from northwestern Iran and ~2450 kilometers from Tehran. While Iran and Russia currently have good working relations, Iran will likely enter into a mutually weak nuclear deterrence relationship with Russia that is characterized, at least initially, by low political salience.

Although Beijing is some 4900 kilometers from Iran, the westernmost parts of Chinese territory lie within 1200 or so kilometers of northeastern Iran. While Iran and China currently have good working relations, Iran will likely enter into a mutually weak nuclear deterrence relationship with China. Arguably, the China-Iran nuclear dyad will be politically non-salient to an even greater degree than the Iran-Pakistan, Iran-India, and Iran-Russia nuclear dyads.

Finally, Iran will likely enter into a particularly politically non-salient and mutually weak nuclear deterrence relationship with North Korea. A distance of 5600 kilometers or more separates Iran and North Korea.

In sum, Iran will likely enter into two intense and strong nuclear dyads with both Israel and the United States at the time of its “birth” as a nuclear-weapon state. Iran will, as such, have both a regional/proximate nuclear-armed adversary and a distant nuclear-armed adversary on the other side of the world. The closest analogy is that Iran will, at the time of its “birth” as a nuclear-weapon state, face the challenges faced by both Pakistan and North Korea at the time of their respective “births” as nuclear-weapon states. One can also draw an analogy to the context that China encountered when it became a nuclear-weapon state in 1964. While Moscow was around 4000 kilometers from the more secure parts of China’s western territory bordering the Soviet Union and some 5800 kilometers from a much more secure location in inner China, such as Xian, other parts of the Soviet Union were well within China’s reach. For context, a distance of around 7500 kilometers separates New York and Moscow, and Moscow is around 2500 kilometers from London and Paris.

Among the four more recent nuclear-weapon states, who are, not incidentally, not parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty or permanent members of the UN Security Council, Israel does not, in effect, have any nuclear-armed adversaries at this time, although it does have a latent nuclear deterrence relationship with Pakistan since 1998 and wields its nuclear arsenal as the ultimate deterrent against overwhelming conventional attacks by its neighbours (not limited to Iran).

India is part of two nuclear deterrence relationships involving China and Pakistan, respectively. Beijing is ~3200-3800 kilometers from northern India (south of the Himalayas) and ~4300 kilometers from central India, while Chongqing and Chengdu are less than 2000 kilometers from northern India (south of the Himalayas), and even closer to viable launch positions in India’s northeast (i.e., east of the Siliguri Corridor). This is all to say that India has, in effect, two “regional” nuclear adversaries and no “intercontinental” nuclear adversaries.

Pakistan, meanwhile, has, in effect, a single politically salient nuclear deterrence relationship with India, notwithstanding American recent claims and reports that Pakistan is developing intercontinental-range ballistic missiles so as to bring the continental United States within range of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Notably, the geographies and military realities of the India-Pakistan nuclear dyad are such that there remains a non-zero risk of large-scale ground combat, namely an Indian invasion of parts of Pakistan. Such a scenario has driven Pakistan’s development and deployment of so-called “battlefield nuclear weapons,” including an extremely short-range nuclear-armed ballistic missile that is seemingly intended for use against Indian mechanized formations.

North Korea, which notably borders two nuclear-weapon states that have historically been its allies and which remain its partners, however begrudgingly, has a single nuclear deterrence relationship with the United States. While some 5500 kilometers separates North Korea from Anchorage, 7300 kilometers from Honolulu, 7800 kilometers from Seattle, 10,500 kilometers from New York City, and 10,500 kilometers from Washington, DC, American forces in peninsular South Korea are all within 450 kilometers of North Korea, the entirety of “peninsular” Japan lies within 1300 kilometers of North Korea, with the American island territory of Guam being situated around 3300 kilometers from North Korea. While South Korea and Japan—beyond the American military bases that these countries host—are likely among the targets of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, these are not, of course, nuclear-weapon states themselves, and any nuclear retaliation against North Korea will have to come from the United States as part of a so-called American nuclear umbrella.

An Iranian nuclear-weapon state will be “born” into a very different situation than the other nuclear-weapon states. An Iranian ballistic missile with a maximum range of just 1300 kilometers can essentially bring all of Israel within range, and a ballistic missile with a maximum range of 2400 kilometers can essentially bring all of Israel within range when launched from Iran’s northeastern city of Mashhad. Some 7700 kilometers separates Iran’s northwest—which has notably been heavily bombed by Israel in two wars—from Alaska, with the rest of the continental United States being some 8500 kilometers away. The distance from Tabriz in Iran’s northwest to New York City is 9350 kilometers. To Washington, DC: 9680 kilometers. To Chicago or Seattle: some 10,000 kilometers. The distance from Mashhad in Iran’s northeast to Chicago and Seattle is some 10,700 kilometers. To New York City: 10,250 kilometers. To Washington, DC: 10,500 kilometers.

It bears emphasis that this discussion highlights the effects of geography and not the intensity of a nuclear deterrence relationship. For Israel, Iranian nuclear weapons will likely be viewed and treated as—irrespective of veracity—a truly existential threat in a manner not typically seen in other nuclear dyads. It also bears emphasis that bringing the continental United States within range of Iranian nuclear weapons is not only a question of the qualitative development of Iran’s nuclear arsenal but also its quantitative development. Iran will likely require a quite large arsenal of nuclear-armed intercontinental-range ballistic missiles as well as a quite large arsenal of nuclear-armed shorter-range missiles to target Israel, all in a context in which Israel and the United States have, of course, demonstrated their ability to penetrate and quite readily operate combat aircraft across Iran.

The Iran-Israel Nuclear Deterrence Relationship

While Iran will likely have multiple nuclear deterrence relationships and feature in multiple more or less politically salient nuclear dyads, the Iran-Israel nuclear dyad is likely to be Iran’s most important dyad for the foreseeable future (again, I merely presume, not prescribe, policy continuity in Tehran). While distance and technology will together strain Iran’s ability to operationalize a credible nuclear deterrent vis-a-vis the United States, Iran will paradoxically likely encounter far greater struggles when it comes to operationalizing a credible nuclear deterrent against Israel, even though a “mere” 1000 or so kilometers separates the two countries.

To state what should now be obvious to even the most ardent skeptic, we live in a world in which ballistic missile defence technology, specifically American and Israeli ballistic missile defence technology, is sufficiently advanced and reliable to offer robust protection against shorter-range and medium-range ballistic missiles, even if the longest-range ballistic missiles, namely so-called intercontinental ballistic missiles (i.e., ICBMs), remain more difficult to intercept and, as such, remain more viable as means of reliably delivering nuclear warheads. Israel’s existing ballistic missile defences are evidently not impregnable. Israel will, moreover, be unable to simply let inbound Iranian ballistic missiles set to impact “unimportant dirt” reach its territory if an inbound Iranian ballistic missile may be equipped with a nuclear warhead. Even so, Israel’s existing, let alone future, ballistic missile defences, pose a major challenge to a notional Iranian nuclear-weapon state.

As Iran’s experience in the April and October 2024 exchanges with Israel, the June 2025 Iran-Israel War, and the current American and Israeli war against Iran all indicate, the country’s decidedly heterogeneous arsenal of longer-range (i.e., 1000+ kilometer range) ballistic missiles exhibits quite poor accuracy and precision, as well as reliability. This has allowed Israel to selectively intercept inbound Iranian ballistic missiles, and compounds the low observed penetration rate of Iranian ballistic missiles against their intended targets in Israel. The very existence of Iranian nuclear warheads will, however, likely force Israel to intercept each and every inbound Iranian ballistic missile whenever potential Iranian nuclear use is suspected, which may lead to interception attempts being undertaken against each and every inbound Iranian ballistic missile. While this may appear to be a welcome development for an Iranian nuclear-weapon state, this is not only a question of numbers and resources for Iran, but will also likely create profoundly destabilizing problems in the Iran-Israel nuclear deterrence relationship for reasons that I will cover later in this post. Iran’s leaders presumably want nuclear weapons to enhance their security. As things stand, however, the challenges to operationalizing an Iranian nuclear deterrent may well have the effect of increasing Iran’s insecurity.

Can Iran improve its ballistic missile penetration rates against Israel? In principle, the answer is, of course, yes, although there are major uncertainties as to whether and when Iran can pull it off, how much such qualitatively superior ballistic missiles will cost Iran, and, as such, how many higher (expected) penetration rate ballistic missiles Iran will be able to afford. China’s conventionally-armed ballistic missiles, which are, of course, essentially untested in combat, constitute something of a gold standard in this area of military technology, not least on account of the United States long forgoing the development of such ballistic missiles due to, among other things, the constraints imposed by the now-defunct Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Treaty (INF Treaty). In principle, Iran can aspire to develop a ballistic missile with a maximum range of at least 2500 kilometers in the vein of the Chinese DF-26 to deliver a likely quite large and heavy first-generation Iranian nuclear warhead to essentially any part of Israel from a notional launch position in Iran’s extreme northeast and do so with greater accuracy and precision, as well as a higher expected penetration rate, than Iran’s current ballistic missile arsenal.

Should Iran be able to develop and deploy such a ballistic missile design(s) to deliver nuclear warheads, it will, of course, also be able to employ such a ballistic missile design(s) with conventional high-explosive warheads, and Iran would perhaps be able to deter Israel without becoming a nuclear-weapon state. Be that as it may, the fact remains that Iran is unlikely to be able to develop and then deploy in large numbers such ballistic missiles for the foreseeable future, not least on account of the extensive damage to Iran’s ballistic missile industry over the course of the current war. As a result, an incipient Iranian nuclear-weapon state will likely seek to attempt to overwhelm Israel’s ballistic missile defences, if not compensate for poor accuracy and precision, through numbers alone.

Iran can, in principle, attempt to overwhelm Israel’s ballistic missile defences by launching some number of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles alongside some number of conventionally-armed ballistic missiles. This may take the form of, for example, launching conventionally-armed ballistic missiles alongside nuclear-armed ballistic missiles at a ratio of 99:1, or 24:1, or 9:1, or just 4:1. (If this comes across as insane, consider that an alternative approach entails launching one or more large salvos of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles.) It bears emphasis that an incipient Iranian nuclear-weapon state will likely have a very small number of nuclear warheads at its disposal for, at the very least, the first 5-10 years following nuclearization (during which time Israel’s ballistic missile defences will likely evolve, but that is a topic for another time). With time and resources, however, Iran may be able to build out a sufficiently large arsenal of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles and, in so doing, outpace and offset the qualitative and quantitative enhancement of Israel’s ballistic missile defence capabilities that will likely emerge following Iran’s hypothetical nuclearization. Iran will, however, face two fundamental interrelated challenges: that of warhead ambiguity and the fact that its counterpart in its most important nuclear deterrence relationship, Israel, cannot, in effect, absorb an Iranian nuclear strike.

The Vexing Challenge of Warhead Ambiguity

Israel will, for all practical intents and purposes, be unable to discern whether a given inbound Iranian ballistic missile is equipped with a conventional high-explosive warhead or a nuclear warhead, not least in a situation in which Iran may employ a given ballistic missile design to deliver both conventional high-explosive and nuclear warheads. (It must also be said that Iranian planners also have no way of knowing exactly which Iranian ballistic missile reentry vehicle, with or without a nuclear warhead, will penetrate Israel’s ballistic missile defences and exhibit high accuracy and precision to impact near the intended target) Strictly speaking, there are ways through which Iran and Israel can manage this part of their nuclear deterrence relationship. Iran may, for example, only operate nuclear-armed ballistic missiles from certain missile bases, which is to say certain parts of Iran, and perhaps do so exclusively. This may somewhat reassure Israel, but it will not fundamentally address the issue of warhead ambiguity.

In a similar vein, Iran may launch different types of ballistic missiles that follow distinct trajectories to reassure Israel, but this will also not fundamentally address the issue of warhead ambiguity, given that Israel will have no way of knowing whether an Iranian ballistic missile is or is not equipped with nuclear warheads in the manner that, for example, the Soviet Union and the United States could have high confidence that intercontinental-range ballistic missiles launched by the other would be equipped with a nuclear warhead(s) during a crisis or conflict. Note that American and Soviet confidence on such matters did not require “trust,” only simple analytical assumptions. There will likely be no assurances that Iran can offer (via intermediaries) that Israel will readily accept, and there will be little to stop Iran from reneging on any such commitments in times of crisis or war.

Moreover, if Iran attempts to overwhelm Israel’s ballistic missile defences through, in effect, numbers alone, which is to say by launching some number of conventionally-armed ballistic missiles alongside some number of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles at whatever ratio, then warhead ambiguity will be both a bug and a feature of Iran’s nuclear posture-turned-de facto nuclear strategy. If Israel can distinguish Iran’s nuclear-armed ballistic missiles in flight from its conventionally-armed ballistic missiles and thereby selectively prioritize interceptions of the nuclear-armed Iranian ballistic missiles, then Iran’s nuclear-armed ballistic missile launches will, like Iran’s conventionally-armed ballistic missiles, have poor prospects for penetrating Israel’s ballistic missile defences. Stated differently, the more that warhead ambiguity is addressed in the Iran-Israel nuclear deterrence relationship, the greater the scope for robust Israeli ballistic missile defences against Iran, and the greater the challenges that Iran will face in credibly threatening to use nuclear weapons against Israel as a deterrent.

All things considered and in the absence of high expected penetration rate Iranian ballistic missiles, the realities of Israeli ballistic missile defence effectiveness incentivize Iran to attempt to overwhelm Israel’s defences by launching some combination of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles alongside some number of conventionally-armed ballistic missiles so as to exploit warhead ambiguity, even as Iran assumes most of the inherent risks in its nuclear deterrence relationship with Israel. As noted earlier, one of the alternatives is for Iran to launch one or more large salvos of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. Such an approach is, of course, both less practical on account of, among other things, the amount of fissile material required to fabricate so many nuclear warheads, but also extraordinarily reckless on account that, given the risk of multiple Iranian nuclear warheads detonating in Israel, there will, in effect, be nothing to distinguish between a small-scale and a large-scale Iranian nuclear attack for reasons independent of the exceedingly important question of whether Israel can and will absorb any nuclear attack at all.

It bears emphasis that Iran had negligible ballistic missile defences going into this war—and going into April 2024—and is unlikely to possess the types of ballistic missile defences required to defend against Israeli nuclear-armed ballistic missiles for the foreseeable future. As a result, without high expected penetration rate ballistic missiles of its own and without a practical and low-risk approach to exploiting warhead ambiguity with the aim of overwhelming Israeli ballistic missile defences, Iran will likely neither be able to credibly deliver a nuclear warhead to Israel nor defend against reciprocal Israeli nuclear attacks. This will likely lead to a functionally paralyzed Iranian nuclear-weapon state—or a cartoonishly reckless one—that functionally derives little security vis-a-vis Israel from possessing nuclear weapons. It should go without saying that inducing, wittingly or otherwise, Israel to contemplate, let alone attempt, preemptive counterforce strikes, including nuclear counterforce strikes, against Iran’s nuclear forces during a crisis or conflict will not enhance Iran’s security.

It is worth noting that Israel is not understood to be limited to a land-based nuclear-armed ballistic missile force but also has a contextually very survivable submarine-based nuclear deterrent. Israel may well also enhance its suspected longstanding air-launched nuclear deterrent by adapting some of Israel’s rather exquisite air-launched ballistic missiles—the conventionally-armed versions have already been used against Iran to devastating effect—for use with nuclear warheads. Such air-launched ballistic missiles are limited in terms of payload size and weight, but one possible Israeli adaptation to an Iranian nuclear-weapon state may entail the development and deployment of more “usable” lower-yield nuclear weapons.

Can Israel Absorb a Nuclear Strike?

As a quite small country—in both geographic and demographic terms—with a densely concentrated and highly urbanized population, if one excludes the sparsely populated Negev Desert, and with the historical experience of the Holocaust forever in the background, Israel is particularly unlikely to absorb a nuclear strike. This may come across as “obvious” to some, but it actually makes Israel an outlier among existing nuclear-weapon states. With the partial and qualified exception of North Korea, the other nuclear-weapon states are, in both geographic and demographic terms, large enough to absorb one or more nuclear detonations and endure as functioning nation-states notwithstanding the terrible devastation brought about by even “limited” nuclear use.

Strictly speaking, the same is, of course, also true of Israel. Israel will endure even in the catastrophic event that, for example, the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, or the Haifa metropolitan area, or the Beersheba metropolitan area—let alone some sparsely populated part of the Negev Desert—is subject to one or more nuclear detonations, but the interplay of geographic and demographic realities, coupled with the shadow of the Holocaust, which, if nothing else, looms large in Israeli politics, result in a situation in which Israel will likely either initiate a—from its vantage point—preemptive nuclear strike against in Iran should I think that Iran will soon undertake a nuclear strike against Israel, and/or undertake wholly disproportionate nuclear retaliatory strikes even against a nuclear-armed Iran that may retain the ability to retaliate in kind. Israeli leaders may well convince themselves that damage limitation, a concept that has lost much of its purchase since the Cold War, is the best approach in a situation in which they cannot—or will not—contemplate absorbing even a limited and, all things considered, small-scale, Iranian nuclear strike. Here, as elsewhere, Israeli thinking on this grave matter will likely be shaped by, among other things, the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of Iran’s nuclear arsenal; Iran’s ability to credibly carry out retaliatory strikes, which encompasses the very issue of ballistic missile penetration rates that is likely to lead Iran to exploit warhead ambiguity out of necessity; and, Iran’s ability to defend against Israeli nuclear strikes, which is primarily, but not exclusively, related to Iran’s functionally non-existent ballistic missile defence capabilities.

Warhead ambiguity—Israel being unable to distinguish nuclear-armed Iranian ballistic missiles from conventionally-armed Iranian ballistic missiles—will be a byproduct of Iran’s most practical, at least in the short-term, approach to addressing the challenge posed by Israel’s formidable ballistic missile defences, but it bears emphasis that warhead ambiguity is not merely a problem for Israel. It is also a challenge—a very grave challenge—for Iran itself, and a profoundly vexing one at that, precisely because Israel is unlike the other nuclear-weapon states.

The other nuclear-weapon states can, in effect, absorb one or more nuclear strikes and lose, say, a million people in the process, without feeling so compelled to give as much consideration to promptly initiating preemptive nuclear strikes in such a scenario and/or launching wholly disproportionate nuclear retaliatory strikes against a nuclear-armed state with a residual nuclear capability. Anyone who thinks Israel is likely to, at a time of devastation and grief, show such composure and magnanimity should pause to reflect on the devastation that Israel has wantonly wrought onto Gaza and Gazans after some 1200 of its inhabitants were killed on and around 7 October 2023, some 30% of whom were military and security personnel. One should also pause to reflect on the devastation that Israel has and, as with Gaza, continues to wreak across Lebanon, as well as, not least, the devastation that Israel has and continues to wreak across Iran. Even a fairly small and low-yield Iranian nuclear weapon used outside a densely populated area—excluding desolate parts of the Negev—in Israel is likely to kill at least several thousand people.

Israel and Israeli leaders do, of course, have agency like other nuclear-weapon states and their respective leaders; Israel’s current leaders are unlikely to be wholly irrational to the level of caricature; and, more to the point, the historical experience of the Holocaust does not force the hand of any particular Israeli leader to act one way or another, much as it does not force the hand of the leader of any of group that has experienced such horrors among its recent generations. Israel’s current crop of political and military leaders nevertheless appear to be fundamentally unwilling to accept mutual vulnerability with a nuclear-armed Iran, or indeed accept much in the way of vulnerability to conventional attacks on the part of Israel’s non-nuclear neighbours and adversaries, including Iran itself. One needs to look no further than how Israel has recently initiated two wars aimed at significantly degrading Iran’s conventional military capabilities, not just Iran’s nuclear industrial base, or even just Iran’s ballistic missile industrial base. It bears emphasis that there is a case to be made that Israel cannot be in a stable mutually politically salient nuclear deterrence relationship with any nuclear-weapon state, even in a situation in which a nuclear-armed Iran may enter into stable nuclear deterrence relationships with other nuclear-weapon states, including the United States.

Israel’s Problems Are Also Iran’s Problems In A Nuclear Deterrence Relationship

Whatever the leaders of the Islamic Republic may think of Israel, they will have to make decisions in the nuclear realm that necessarily reflect unilateral Iranian strategic empathy toward Israel insofar as Iran’s leaders care about their self-interests—including self-preservation—and want a hypothetical nuclear-armed Iran to have a durably stable nuclear deterrence relationship with a nuclear-armed Israel over the years and decades to come. This is, in effect, one of the “burdens” associated with Iran becoming a nuclear-weapon state: the Islamic Republic may well employ its hypothetical “nuclear shield” to sustain its longstanding efforts via proxy against Israel, but it will almost certainly have to drop the always fanciful notion of bringing about the absolute destruction of the Israeli state and the zionist enterprise, which, of course, possesses and operates nuclear weapons of its own.

Once Iran becomes a nuclear-weapon state, it will, in effect, have Israel as a co-pilot with some level of input over the controls of the Iranian state. All states in a nuclear deterrence relationship must, out of self-interest, go out of their way to ensure that their unwanted co-pilot does not act in a reckless and unintended manner. Failing to do so will simply mean that both parties assume the risks, including risks concerning crisis stability and escalation control. Unless we are dealing with truly insane leaders with a death wish, at least a modicum of strategic empathy, tact, and compromise comes with the territory of being a nuclear-weapon state.

Failing to exhibit even a modicum of strategic empathy toward Israel—refusing to accept that Israel’s problems are also Iran’s problems in a nuclear deterrence relationship—will likely result in an extremely dangerous era of instability between two nuclear powers, one in which, Israel, is likely to use every tool at its disposal, including its nuclear weapons, in potential counterforce strikes during a crisis or war, and perhaps even a commit itself to preemptive countervalue strikes, should it perceive a credible threat of Iranian nuclear use. With Israel having conventional military strength over Iran, quite robust ballistic missile defences, decades of experience as a nuclear power, and, above all, the United States behind it, Iran will likely be poorly positioned to respond to such catastrophic scenarios, not unless it adopts an exceptionally aggressive and risk-prone nuclear strategy and posture that places great emphasis on early and asymmetric nuclear use that arguably no sane person would want to pursue, not least as a result of the particular realities of the Iran-Israel dyad hitherto discussed in this analysis.

Lay readers unaccustomed to often macabre thinking on nuclear matters may be wondering whether the primary purpose of nuclear weapons is not to simply deter attacks. In principle, attacks, including nuclear attacks, can be automatically deterred by the mere possession of nuclear weapons. In practice, however, any country in Iran’s position will require a credible nuclear deterrent, which is to say the ability to deliver nuclear warheads against the intended target(s) as and when required, all while possessing a nuclear arsenal that is resilient—survivable—in the event of potential adversary first strike attacks that seek to neutralize Iran’s nuclear arsenal (i.e., a counterforce attack), and ideally while retaining the ability to undertake a credible retaliatory second strike (if not a third strike, at least in a context in which smaller and lower-yield nuclear weapons are likely to be used). Perhaps counterintuitively, a durably stable nuclear relationship requires mutual vulnerability as well as mutual confidence in the credibility and survivability of the respective nuclear forces. In an ideal world, a (conventional) war can break out between two nuclear-weapon states without the use of nuclear weapons being seriously considered on the part of either belligerent, for as long as each side restricts itself to war aims and actions that do not pose an existential threat to the other. When such lofty ideals are not realized in the real world, instability and escalation risks arise, and the more powerful and/or more risk-accepting member of a nuclear deterrence relationship may well come to rue their actions and inactions.

While Israel and Israeli leaders are unlikely to absorb a nuclear strike, which will be Iran’s problem if and when Iran becomes a nuclear-weapon state, it bears emphasis that the other nuclear powers manage the inescapable everyday reality of (some level of) mutual vulnerability—that at least some of their major population centers may be no more within thirty or so minutes, with little satisfaction to be found out of the possibility of retaliating in kind. Can the Iran-Israel nuclear dyad not also navigate this inescapable reality in the same manner as the other nuclear dyads? At this point, it is commonplace to encounter invocations of how the Islamic Republic and its leaders are uniquely different, or even uniquely irrational and, as such, functionally immune to deterrence, whether nuclear or otherwise. I have long maintained that such commentary is typically hysterical, and often instrumentally hysterical at that, in addition to being without much merit. Iran’s leaders have exhibited a great many tendencies over the course of the June 2025 Iran-Israel War and the current American and Israeli war against Iran. Insanity, a death wish, and an inability to instrumentally calibrate coercive and deterrent acts and efforts are not among them.

This analysis has placed considerable emphasis on Israel’s likely unwillingness to absorb an Iranian nuclear strike because this is, at the end of the day, a central challenge for a hypothetical nuclear-armed Iran. Israel’s problems will be Iran’s problems once Iran becomes a nuclear-weapon state, insofar as Iran’s leaders want a durably stable nuclear deterrence relationship with Israel—and the United States. If that is not what Iran’s leaders seek or attempt to bring about through carefully calibrated actions and inactions, then Iran will likely have to navigate an intensely unstable nuclear deterrence relationship with Israel—and the United States—all while possessing negligible ballistic missile defences, and without the ability to credibly deliver nuclear warheads of its own to targets in Israel on account of the poor accuracy and penetration rate exhibited by Iranian ballistic missiles to date in the face of Israeli and American ballistic missile defences. Given the state of Iran’s current and near-term future air defences, Iran will, in the absence of strategic empathy toward Israel and significant compromises on the Israel policy file, likely also have to navigate this intensely unstable nuclear deterrence relationship with Israel without a credible retaliatory nuclear strike capability. In this particular respect and in the absence of strategic empathy toward Israel and major policy compromises on the Israel file, the nuclear game will not be worth the candle for Iran, not least on account of offering neither Iran nor the Islamic Republic greater security.

A Somewhat Brief Aside On Iran’s Ballistic Missile Arsenal and Ballistic Missile Technology

Prior drafts of this rather hastily reformulated text, which were not (re)written during an active war, included a fairly detailed discussion of Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and Iranian ballistic missile technology to offer the background required to better appreciate the practical challenges of warhead ambiguity in a hypothetical near-term Iran-Israel nuclear deterrence relationship. For the present purposes, a condensed summary will have to suffice.

Iran operates a decidedly heterogeneous arsenal of longer-range ballistic missiles, which is to say, ballistic missiles with a maximum range of 1000 kilometers or greater. As things stand, some of Iran’s existing ballistic missiles are more likely candidates for use as nuclear delivery systems than others. The large and heavy Khorramshahr ballistic missile family, which employs storable liquid fuel, is perhaps the most likely candidate nuclear delivery system, although Iran may well turn to a solid-propellant design, whether something related to the Sejjil ballistic missile or one of Iran’s larger-diameter multi-stage solid-propellant satellite launch vehicle (SLV) designs.

The Khorramshahr family has been quite extensively used against Israel over the course of the current war, which suggests that it has been operationally deployed and has been built in sizable numbers. Notably, the Khorramshahr design has the range required to target all of Israel when launched from Iran’s northeast, such as a notional base in the general area of the city of Mashhad. While the Sejjil has been used in combat against Israel during the two wars, its production and deployment status remains uncertain, and it may well constitute a legacy design with no future beyond the specimens that have been manufactured to date.

While the much smaller diameter and lighter payload Kheibar Shekan family of solid-propellant ballistic missiles, which encompasses the Fattah-1 and Fattah-2, can, in principle, be used as nuclear delivery systems against Israel, this will require higher levels of nuclear warhead miniaturization. The widely deployed Kheibar Shekan family ballistic missiles, as such, are unlikely candidates for use with nuclear warheads over the first 5-10 years of Iran becoming a nuclear-weapon state. This is, all things considered, likely a welcome development for a hypothetical nuclear-armed Iran, given how the Kheibar Shekan family serves as a critically important conventional strike munition against not only Israel but also the Gulf Arab states and American military forces therein—I will address why Iran will still need its longer-range conventionally-armed ballistic missiles in the next section.

The long-standing and widely deployed liquid-fuelled Qadr (i.e., Ghadr) design family, which does not employ a storable liquid fuel, may well be used as a nuclear delivery system, but is far less optimal for nuclear purposes than the much larger and heavier Khorramshahr design family. While I had, before the start of this war, viewed the Khorramshahr family as Iran’s most likely initial nuclear delivery system, the surprisingly large-scale use of Khorramshahr family ballistic missiles over the course of this war and the extensive targeting of Iranian ballistic missile production infrastructure may have the effect of forcing a hypothetical nuclear-armed Iran to place greater reliance on older and decidedly inferior Qadr family ballistic missiles as nuclear delivery systems than would perhaps otherwise be the case, at least in an interim basis. This is a particularly likely eventuality if Iran proceeds to exploit warhead ambiguity by launching nuclear-armed Qadr family ballistic missiles alongside some number of conventionally-armed Qadr family ballistic missiles with the aim of overwhelming Israel’s ballistic missile defences. Iran appears unlikely to possess enough Khorramshahr family ballistic missiles to undertake such an approach with these larger, higher-payload, and broadly more sophisticated ballistic missiles.

Let us suppose that a hypothetical nuclear-armed Iran initially employs Khorramshahr and Qadr family ballistic missiles as its nuclear delivery systems, even as it may work on introducing a new solid-propellant—and perhaps even new liquid-fuelled—ballistic missile(s) to deliver nuclear warheads to Israel. Whatever the benefits of introducing one or more new ballistic missile designs with sufficient range to target any part of Israel with a nuclear warhead, it bears emphasis that Iran can only both benefit from—and assume the risks inherent to—warhead ambiguity for as long as Israel struggles to distinguish Iran’s nuclear-armed ballistic missiles from its conventionally-armed ballistic missiles. Warhead ambiguity applies to the Khorramshahr family and Qadr family ballistic missiles because these are unlikely to be exclusively equipped with nuclear warheads.

If Qadr family ballistic missiles, and, more to the point, Khorramshahr family ballistic missiles—or a notional new Iranian ballistic missile design(s)—is exclusively employed with nuclear warheads, then Israel will be better positioned to selectively intercept said Iranian ballistic missiles equipped with nuclear warheads, with the likely effect of dramatically undermining the credibility of Iran’s nuclear deterrent against Israel. The only way out of this conundrum is for Iran to develop a highly reliable ballistic missile that can consistently achieve a high penetration rate against Israeli—and likely American—ballistic missile defences, which are only set to improve in both qualitative and quantitative terms if and when Iran becomes a nuclear-weapon state. Given this dynamic, a nuclear-armed Iran will likely have little choice but to exploit warhead ambiguity in its nuclear deterrence relationship with Israel (but not in its nuclear deterrence relationship with the United States).

Can A Nuclear-Armed Iran Deploy Both Conventionally-armed and Nuclear-armed Ballistic Missiles Against Israel?

For all the discussion of what Iran may gain from becoming a nuclear-weapon state—I have gone at length to explain why the benefits may be exaggerated why the game may not be worth the candle—strikingly little attention has been given to what Iran will likely have to sacrifice in terms of its conventional military capabilities as part of the price of admission for becoming a nuclear-weapon state. Warhead ambiguity is not merely an Israeli problem-turned-Iranian problem by virtue of the uncomfortable realities of any nuclear deterrence relationship. Iran will, going forward, likely have to forgo some parts of its conventional military capabilities vis-a-vis Israel, and perhaps also the Gulf Arab states, because it is difficult to envisage a scenario in which a regional nuclear power can launch hundreds of longer-range conventionally-armed ballistic missiles against its nuclear-armed adversary while maintaining some number of longer-range nuclear-armed ballistic missiles in reserve without the loss of escalation control. Stated differently, while a post-war Iranian nuclear-weapon state may, for a time, be forced to embrace warhead ambiguity with the aim of quickly developing a credible capability to deliver nuclear weapons to Israel despite Israeli ballistic missile defences, it may, going forward, have to forgo longer-range conventionally-armed ballistic missiles that can reach Israel, or at least carefully partition its nuclear-armed longer-range ballistic missiles from its conventionally-armed longer-range ballistic missile arsenal so as to help address the warhead ambiguity issue vis-a-vis Israel, a nuclear-weapon state that is unlikely to absorb a single Iranian nuclear strike.

As explained earlier, there are ways through which Iran and Israel can, in principle, manage this part of their nuclear deterrence relationship. Iran may, for example, only operate nuclear-armed ballistic missiles from certain missile bases, which is to say certain parts of Iran, and perhaps do so exclusively. This may somewhat reassure Israel, especially if “certain parts” of Iran refer to, for example, northeastern Iran, where Iran may forgo deploying longer-range conventionally-armed ballistic missiles, but it will not fundamentally address the issue of warhead ambiguity absent some degree of trust in the Iran-Israel nuclear deterrence relationship. In a similar vein, Iran may launch different types of ballistic missiles that follow distinct trajectories to reassure Israel, but this will also not fundamentally address the issue of warhead ambiguity, given that Israel will have no way of knowing whether an Iranian ballistic missile is or is not equipped with nuclear warheads, at least not in the absence of some degree of trust in the Iran-Israel nuclear deterrence relationship. Israel’s problems will be Iran’s problems if and when Iran becomes a nuclear-weapon state.

As Iran’s attacks, including large-scale conventionally-armed ballistic missile attacks, against Israel make clear, nuclear weapons do not automatically deter and, as such, prevent attacks against nuclear-weapon states. Nuclear weapons also do not automatically deter and, as such, prevent attacks on the part of one nuclear-weapon state against another nuclear-weapon state. If nuclear weapons had such inherent properties, Israel’s ballistic missile defences would not be so depleted as a result of sustained Iranian conventionally-armed ballistic missile launches since April 2024, and the May 2025 India-Pakistan War would not have occurred. Given such realities, a hypothetical Iranian nuclear-weapon state will require conventional military capabilities, and strong conventional military capabilities at that. As things stand, Iran’s conventional military capabilities vis-a-vis Israel are largely indistinguishable from its hypothetical near-term nuclear capabilities vis-a-vis Israel. That is, Iran is heavily reliant on its longer-range ballistic missiles, as well as cruise missiles, to deliver both conventional high-explosive and nuclear warheads against Israel. This reliance is unlikely to end anytime soon.

If Iran had a large and capable air force, it could, in effect, readily place a partition between nuclear capabilities and its conventional capabilities and perhaps reduce its reliance on longer-range conventionally-armed ballistic missiles. But Iran does not have a large and capable air force and is unlikely to possess such an air force anytime soon, not least vis-a-vis the formidable air combat capabilities of Israel and the United States, as well as the Gulf Arab states. It bears emphasis that no matter who sits upon the proverbial peacock throne in Tehran, putting together a large and capable air force will likely cost several tens of billions of dollars (I would conservatively place the price tag for such an air force in the region of at least US$30-US$40 billion). Iran will, as things stand, likely have to primarily source such an air force from China, which may not want to uncharacteristically so strongly place its proverbial thumb on the scale in light of China’s extensive economic and, increasingly, military-industrial ties with the Gulf Arab states. Russia would ordinarily be the Islamic Republic’s preferred supplier of combat aircraft, but Russia’s aerospace industry simply cannot deliver the required number of aircraft in a reasonable timeframe, given the dislocations brought about by the Russia-Ukraine War and the Russian Air Force’s own needs. Moreover, Russia cannot offer Iran combat aircraft that will be competitive vis-a-vis Israel, whereas present-day China can, should Beijing sign off on such exports to Iran, and should Iran be able to pay for such combat aircraft.

All things considered, Iran is unlikely to possess a large and capable—not least vis-a-vis Israel—air force within the next 5-10 years, even if the Islamic Republic’s new political and military leadership prioritizes the development of a conventional air force in a manner that their predecessors rejected for 47 years. In the interim, Iran cannot fully rely on nuclear weapons to deter conventional attacks. Even nuclear-weapon states in the positions of Pakistan and North Korea, who must counter the larger and/or better-equipped conventional military capabilities of their nuclear-armed adversaries, recognize that they also have to compete in the conventional capabilities arena even more vigorously now that they have more or less credible nuclear deterrents. Stated differently, becoming a nuclear-weapon state does not lead to a “game over” dynamic, but a “game on” dynamic, and, of course, a “game” in which the stakes could not be higher, and which places great demands on constitutional fitness in military and military-technological competitions, not least when faced against formidable adversaries such as Israel and the United States.

As things stand, Iran’s longer-range ballistic missiles, namely those of the Qadr, Kheibar Shekan, and Khorramshahr design families, as well as the orphan Sejjil design, are central to Iran’s conventional strike and, as such, conventional deterrence capabilities, irrespective to how much these leave to be desired in terms of reliability, accuracy and precision, and penetration rates against Israeli, American, and Gulf Arab ballistic missile defences. While an Iranian ballistic missile with a maximum range of just 1300 kilometers can essentially bring all of Israel within range when launched from western Iran, while a ballistic missile with a maximum range of 2400 kilometers can essentially bring all of Israel within range when launched from Iran’s northeastern city of Mashhad, it is important to recognize that Iran’s nominally “Israel-oriented” ballistic missiles do not only exist to target Israel. These are also required to attack targets in the ~western half of Saudi Arabia, including targets along the country’s Red Sea coast, and, more generally, to facilitate attacks against targets across the region from launch positions deeper inside Iran so as to avoid the situation in which Iranian ballistic missiles concentrated in underground missile bases located in the western third of the countries are repeatedly entombed, however temporarily, within said underground missile bases as a result of Israeli and/or American aerial attack.

It is worth considering that while Riyadh is some 600 kilometers from Iran, that is, from the closest section of Iranian territory along the northern shores of the Persian Gulf, it is some 1100 kilometers from the rather centrally positioned Iranian city of Yazd. For context, Tel Aviv is some 1100-1300 kilometers from Iranian territory along the Iran-Iraq border and some 1850 kilometers from Yazd. Jeddah is around 1350 kilometers from Iran, which is to say that it is a more distant target than Tel Aviv, but some 1900 kilometers from Yazd. Tabuk, which is home to a major airbase in northwestern Saudi Arabia, is some 1050 kilometers from the Iran-Iraq border, but some 1600 kilometers from the central part of Iran’s Persian Gulf coastline, and some 1750 kilometers from Yazd. Khamis Mushayt, which is home to a major airbase in southwestern Saudi Arabia, is some 1400 kilometers from Iran’s borders, and some 1900 kilometers from Yazd. Unless Iran restricts itself to holding targets at risk—with conventional weapons—that are located in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, as well as locations near Saudi Arabia’s Persian Gulf coastline, against which it can employ shorter-range ballistic missiles that cannot, in any event, be used to target Israel, Iran will likely require conventionally-armed ballistic missiles with a much greater range than the 1300 kilometers range threshold required to essentially bring all of Israel within range—from increasingly vulnerable launch positions in western Iran.

At some level, there is a case to be made that Iran can, in the long run, either have conventionally-armed ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel or nuclear-armed ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel. While it is hardly impossible to deploy both nuclear-armed and conventionally armed ballistic missiles—as some nuclear-weapon states already do—there tends to be a fairly clear-cut range partition that goes a long way toward addressing adversary concerns about warhead ambiguity. That is, China and Russia may, for example, deploy shorter-range conventionally-armed ballistic missiles, but primarily deploy their nuclear warheads with much longer-range so-called intercontinental ballistic missiles. Chinese and Russian intercontinental-range ballistic missiles are, with one publicly known exception, exclusively equipped with nuclear warheads. A Russian Iskander ballistic missile launched toward NATO territory, and a Chinese DF-26 launched toward the American island territory of Guam may, in principle, be equipped with a nuclear warhead and are not, as such, immune to the warhead ambiguity dynamic, but NATO and the United States will still know that the bulk of Russian and Chinese nuclear capabilities are found in nuclear warheads installed on intercontinental range ballistic missiles.

While China is reportedly developing intercontinental range conventionally armed strike munitions such as the DF-27, China can only seriously contemplate targeting the continental United States with conventionally-armed ballistic missiles of this range class now that it has initiated an ongoing large-scale nuclear buildup, which includes a very major expansion of its nuclear-armed intercontinental range ballistic missile force. China’s development and deployment of longer-range conventionally-armed strike munitions, such as the DF-27, is unlikely to be pursued as a way to take advantage of warhead ambiguity, and there is nothing in the public domain to suggest that China intends to launch some combination of conventionally-armed and nuclear-armed intercontinental range ballistic missiles against the continental United States. If anything, China’s distinct nuclear-armed intercontinental range ballistic missiles will function, in part, as a shield that facilitates the use of the likes of the conventionally-armed DF-27 against the United States in the first place. The same cannot be said of Iranian ballistic missiles in the geographically proximate Iran-Israel nuclear deterrence relationship, which will likely be affected by Israeli concerns about warhead ambiguity for as long as Iran deploys both conventionally-armed and nuclear-armed ballistic missiles of the requisite range class.

In principle, an Iranian nuclear-weapon state may be able to exclusively deploy longer-range conventionally-armed ballistic missiles in some areas, and its nuclear-armed ballistic missiles in other areas, and do so in a manner in which the former and latter do not have identical trajectories when approaching Israel. It is, for example, possible to envisage a scenario in which Iran establishes new underground missile bases in the northeastern part of its territory that will be garrisoned by units that exclusively operate nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, and nuclear-armed ballistic missiles that follow different trajectories toward Israel at that. This will perhaps allow Iran to get away with deploying distinguishable conventionally-armed longer-range ballistic missiles elsewhere in the country. It will, of course, also result in a situation in which Israel will be able to prioritize the interception of inbound Iranian ballistic missiles that are launched from Iran’s northeast, all while leaving Israel uncertain as to whether Iran has not engaged in deception by deploying some number of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles elsewhere in Iran with the aim of including one or more nuclear-armed ballistic missiles in larger salvos of conventionally-armed ballistic missiles. More generally, Israel will confront a situation in which Iran may exclusively launch nuclear-armed ballistic missiles from northeastern Iran while simultaneously launching other, conventionally-armed longer-range ballistic missiles from elsewhere in Iran, all with the aim of overwhelming Israel’s ballistic missile defences so that the nuclear-armed ballistic missiles get through.

Evidently, there are no simple solutions here for as long as an Iranian nuclear-weapon state deploys both nuclear-armed and conventionally-armed ballistic missiles with a nominal maximum range of 1000 or more kilometers—Iranian ballistic missiles with a nominal maximum range of less than 1000 kilometers are not the issue here. At the same time, Iran will require longer-range conventionally-armed ballistic missiles for use against Israel and the Gulf Arab states, irrespective of whether Iran becomes a nuclear-weapon state, for as long as Iran lacks a large and capable air force. Stated differently, a hypothetical nuclear-armed Iran will confront challenges in the nuclear domain that are rooted in the weakness of its conventional military capabilities vis-a-vis Israel and the United States.

The (tempting) notion that a nuclear-weapon state can lean on its nuclear weapons to compensate for conventional military inferiority is hardly novel, but it will likely not bode well for a stable Iran-Israel nuclear deterrence relationship and, as such, does not bode well for a hypothetical nuclear-armed Iran. We have real-world examples in the form of the India-Pakistan nuclear dyad, as well as the North Korea-United States dyad, which also inherently encompasses South Korea and, to a lesser degree, Japan. Needless to say, present-day non-nuclear Iran should not envy either Pakistan or North Korea, and the Iran-Israel nuclear deterrence relationship will likely exhibit extreme levels of instability if Iran heads in such a direction, which can be characterized as an asymmetric escalation nuclear strategy in which Iran will, in effect, rapidly run up the nuclear escalation ladder during a crisis or early in a conflict with the aim of deterring (further) conventional attacks and, more to the point, placing a cap on underway conventional escalation.

All things considered, this is unlikely to be a viable approach vis-a-vis Israel, not least on account of the challenges that Iran will face in terms of penetrating Israel’s current, let alone future, ballistic missile defences, irrespective of whether Iran’s ballistic missiles are equipped with conventional and/or nuclear warheads. It bears emphasis that Pakistan and North Korea either do not face the exact same dynamic that Iran faces vis-a-vis Israel or have managed to develop geographically specific workarounds that are rooted in sharing a border with their counterpart in a nuclear deterrence relationship (in the case of North Korea, this takes the form of of American forces in South Korea and Japan, as well as using South Korea and Japan as punching bags in light of North Korea’s very limited ability to target the continental United States short of what will likely result in an all-out nuclear exchange). The 1000 or so kilometers that separate Iran from Israel is far enough to make it hard for Iran to attack Israel with either nuclear or conventional weapons, but close enough to subject Iran to much of the Israeli air force’s (conventional) combat capabilities.

A Nuclear-Armed Iran’s Problems Will Begin, But Not End, With Israel

It is important to recognize that a hypothetical Iranian nuclear-weapon state’s problems will begin, but not end, with Israel. As explained earlier, a nuclear-armed Iran will likely enter into a nuclear deterrence relationship with the United States, and may well find itself dealing with a triadic Iran-Israel-United States nuclear deterrence relationship, instead of two wholly separate Iran-Israel and Iran-United States nuclear dyads, should the United States extend to Israel a “nuclear umbrella,” which is to say nuclear guarantees, that will activate in the event that Iran ever employs, or threatens to employ, nuclear weapons against Israel. It bears emphasis that this may well, on balance, help stabilize the Iran-Israel nuclear dyad, at least for as long as the United States imposes and strictly enforces constraints on Israel such that Israel does not, once again, treat an American military backstop as a crutch to launch an offensive (non-nuclear) war of choice against Iran, and in so doing take advantage of the United States as either a witting or unwitting enabler of such a war against Iran. Leaving aside such potential triadic nuclear dynamics, the United States will, at the very least, likely view Iranian nuclear weapons as a threat to itself solely as a result of the threat posed to American military bases and forces in the Middle East, even if Iran were to forgo the development and deployment of the intercontinental-range ballistic missiles it will require to bring the continental United States within the reach of its hypothetical nuclear arsenal.

All things considered, including the mutual long-standing animosities encountered in the Iran-United States relationship since 1979, and, not least, the legacies of the ongoing American and Israeli war against Iran, a hypothetical nuclear-armed Iran will have to seriously consider the possibility of American nuclear weapons being used against it. The best way to deter such an eventuality, including the possibility of American nuclear blackmail against a hypothetical Iranian nuclear-weapon state, will be to bring the continental United States within range of Iran’s nuclear weapons by developing and deploying intercontinental-range ballistic missiles. Leaving aside the challenges associated with developing intercontinental-range ballistic missiles with a maximum range of at least 9000-10500 kilometers, even attempting to develop and deploy such nuclear-armed ballistic missiles will likely only have the effect of bringing about a particularly unstable Iran-United States nuclear deterrence relationship—from Iran’s perspective—until Iran’s nuclear arsenal matures and/or until Iran and the United States reach a modus vivendi.

For as long as an Iranian nuclear-weapon state forgoes the development and deployment of intercontinental-range ballistic missiles that will be required to target the continental United States (excluding Alaska), as well as intermediate-range ballistic missiles required to target Western Europe and American military bases therein, Iran’s nuclear requirements vis-a-vis the United States will likely largely overlap with Iran’s nuclear requirements vis-a-vis Israel. A triadic Iran-Israel-United States dynamic will, however, likely force Iran to make even greater exertions toward improving its position in the Iran-United States nuclear deterrence relationship, which is to say developing and deploying intercontinental-range ballistic missiles so as to bring the continental United States within range of Iranian nuclear warheads.

This may well be a dynamic that the Islamic Republic considers to be inevitable and necessary, but it will amount to a massive burden on the Iranian state and dramatically raise the stakes for Iran in the nuclear arena. As things stand, the only nuclear-weapon states in politically salient nuclear deterrent relationships with the United States are Russia, China, and North Korea. Iran risks biting off far more than it can chew in a context in which it can, unlike North Korea, more plausibly carve out a path in which it remains a regional nuclear power without attempting to go head-to-head with the United States’ formidable nuclear arsenal. Iran’s resources are finite and limited, and a necessarily bifurcated nuclear arsenal oriented against both a regional nuclear adversary, Israel, and a nuclear adversary located “on the other side of the world,” the United States, will likely strain Iran’s resources and leave it less well-positioned vis-a-vis Israel, thereby increasing Iran’s insecurity even as nuclear weapons are intended to offer Iran greater security.

Is the Game Worth the Candle—For Iran Itself?

A lot of ink has been spilled on the Iran nuclear issue over the past thirty or so years, much of it focusing on Iran’s fissile material stockpiles, pathways to weaponization, and breakout times, as well as the possibility of a hypothetical regional proliferation cascade in response to Iran’s nuclearization. It remains exceptionally rare to come across an analysis of the potential implications of a nuclear-armed Iran for Iran itself, or the challenges that Iran will likely face in operationalizing a credible nuclear deterrent vis-a-vis not just Israel but also the United States. The allure of nuclear weapons has perhaps never been greater among Iranian officials and everyday Iranians alike, but obtaining nuclear weapons will likely only be the start of Iran’s problems, even if a hypothetical nuclear breakout attempt succeeds with or without yet another devastating round of fighting with the United States and Israel. All things considered, an incipient Iranian nuclear-weapon state will likely face greater challenges in developing, deploying, and sustaining a credible nuclear deterrent against its primary nuclear-armed adversaries than recent entrants to the nuclear-weapon state club. At some level, one must ask whether the proverbial game is worth the candle. Given the challenges that Iran will likely face in operationalizing its notional nuclear arsenal, Iran is, all things considered, best off without nuclear weapons.

One way to interpret this thesis is to think in terms of what Iran still has to gain from remaining at some level of nuclear latency or nuclear threshold state status, something that will likely require a negotiated settlement with the United States and perhaps other countries. Another way to interpret this thesis is to recognize that a nuclear-armed Iran will likely have to, in effect, pursue a brute force approach—beyond a nuclear breakout attempt—by exploiting warhead ambiguity vis-a-vis Israel and assuming all the risks that entails in the inherently unstable Iran-Israel nuclear deterrence relationship. Without any level of trust in the Iran-Israel nuclear deterrence relationship, and with the United States likely to involve itself in said relationship so as to establish a particularly complex and, for Iran, likely quite challenging, triadic Iran-Israel-United States nuclear deterrence relationship, the prospects for a durably stable Iran-Israel nuclear deterrence relatioship are poor, especially over the first fiven to ten years years, if not more, of Iran’s nuclearization, during which Iran’s nuclear arsenal will likely be far from mature.

For all of the attention given to the nature of the Islamic Republic and what it may or may not do vis-a-vis Israel, its other neighbours, and the United States once it possesses nuclear weapons, this analysis highlights an important but often underappreciated dynamic: it key issue is not the case that the Turkiye and the Gulf Arab states, and perhaps a country like Egypt, cannot live with a nuclear-armed Iran, or that the United States cannot have a more or less stable nuclear deterrence relationship with a nuclear-armed Iran. The fundamental challenge that a hypothetical Iranian nuclear-weapon state poses to the world is rooted in how Iran’s primary nuclear-armed adversary, Israel, is unwilling, and plausibly unable, to absorb even a single nuclear strike. This makes Israel an outlier among nuclear-weapon states and a country that is perhaps uniquely incapable of, in effect, being in a strong nuclear dyad with any nuclear-weapon state, let alone a hypothetical Iranian nuclear-weapon weapon that that is some 1000 kilometers of Israel and with which Israel has a long-standing mutually acrimonious relationship, not least on account of the present American and Israeli war against Iran.

Over the course of the Cold War, the survivability of nuclear arsenals—the existence of more or less secure second strike capabilities—was increasingly treated as a given in many influential circles. The Cold War was not, however, characterized by the existence of widely deployed ballistic missile defences, let alone ballistic missile defence systems that are demonstrably effective against the types of non-intercontinental-range ballistic missiles that Iran can and likely will use for the purpose of holding targets in Israel at risk with nuclear warheads. A nuclear-armed Iran will be born into a very different nuclear world than the existing nuclear-weapon states, with the partial and qualified exception of North Korea. The floor for what amounts to a credible nuclear deterrent in a regional nuclear dyad has risen dramatically, and the question of whether Iran can realistically launch one or more nuclear-armed ballistic missiles against Israel with a high probability of penetration takes precedence over the comparatively more mundane question of whether Iran can develop and deploy a survivable nuclear force, at least vis-a-vis Israel. An incipient nuclear-armed Iran will likely have no option but to exploit warhead ambiguity vis-a-vis Israel, with the result of establishing an exceedingly intense Iran-Israel nuclear deterrence relationship. Iran is unlikely to benefit from an increase in security in such a situation—because Israel’s problems are necessarily also Iran’s problems in a nuclear deterrence relationship—for as long as a hypothetical nuclear-armed Iran wants to have a durably stable nuclear deterrence relationship with Israel, and with the United States, over the years and decades to come. As things stand, the game may not be worth the candle for Iran itself.

Commentary-themed posts are intended to broach or highlight a specific issue, not limited to recent and ongoing events. These posts will typically be much shorter and less detailed than analysis-themed posts.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/02/01/iran-missiles-persian-gulf-trump-military-buildup/

Why do many seem to think that Iran's 23 June 2025 retaliatory strike against American forces at al-Udeid airbase was a "symbolic barrage?" As best as I can tell through publicly available information, Iran launched a total of fourteen ballistic missiles against American forces in Qatar, at least one of which impacted near a very large American satellite communications antenna. What were the intended target(s)—the discrete aim points/coordinates of the intended point of impact—for the thirteen other ballistic missiles that Iran launched? Without knowing the answer to this question, on what basis can anyone operating with publicly available information confidently claim that Iran only launched a "symbolic barrage"? Is this an inherently problematic post hoc outcomes-based determination?

To be clear, I don't know what the intended targets of the fourteen Iranian ballistic missiles were on 23 June 2025, and I will go so far as to say that there exists a low but nevertheless non-zero probability that the observed impact near the American satellite communications antenna may reflect chance/luck. Note that we do not know what type(s) of ballistic missiles Iran launched, why one of the fourteen Iranian ballistic missiles ended up as a leaker that by definition evaded American and Qatari Patriot ballistic missile defence interceptors, and, among many other things, whether any qualitative variance in the types of Iranian ballistic missiles employed explains why there was only one observed impact.

Perhaps all fourteen ballistic missiles launched by Iran were aimed at the American satellite communications antenna. Perhaps the thirteen other Iranian ballistic missiles were aimed at other, potentially more consequential and less "symbolic" targets. I do not know, and I imagine that most of the people who are calling Iran's 23 June 2025 retaliatory strike "symbolic" don't know either. If nothing else, it is fair to say that greater intellectual humility and analytical rigour are in order. Explicating what we do not know and the uncertainties of what we think we know is a very good place to start.

Commentary-themed posts are intended to broach or highlight a specific issue, not limited to recent and ongoing events. These posts will typically be much shorter and less detailed than analysis-themed posts.

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One of the more curious dynamics currently at play concerns how the interplay of geography and Iranian maritime strike capabilities has divided the American naval presence in the Middle East into three separate components that are risky to concentrate into a single more capable force. The United States Navy now finds itself in a situation that is broadly similar to the everyday reality of the Russian Navy: subunits that cannot readily concentrate as a result of the interplay of geography—and, in the American case, Iranian maritime strike capabilities deployed in Iran itself as well as in Yemen through the services of Ansarallah.

There are three Independence-class littoral combat ships and two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers that are, in effect, "trapped" inside the confined, narrow, and shallow waters of the Persian Gulf. The Strait of Hormuz is a bona fide maritime chokepoint—it is the only way in and out, and Iran is very well positioned to threaten any ship that attempts to force a transit.

All things considered, and notwithstanding the formidable air and ballistic missile defence capabilities of the two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers in the Persian Gulf, these warships are best extricated from that confined body of water and are ideally sent to the Arabian Sea so that they can operate alongside the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and the three Arleigh Burke-class destroyers that serve as that aircraft carrier’s escorts. This will require these two American destroyers currently in the Persian Gulf to run the proverbial Iranian gauntlet when undertaking an outbound transit of the Strait of Hormuz.

The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Delbert D. Black recently made an unpublicized transit of the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean into the Red Sea, with its most recent port of call being the southern Israeli port of Eilat. This destroyer is likely to stay put in the northern half of the Red Sea to intercept ballistic missiles launched against Israel from Iran and/or ballistic missiles launched against Israel by Ansarallah in Yemen, alongside the two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers that remain in the eastern Mediterranean to do the same. Even so, the U.S. Navy encounters a parallel risk should it dispatch the USS Delbert D. Black to transit into the Arabian Sea via the Bab al-Mandeb, which will entail running the gauntlet established by Ansarallah's primarily Iranian-supplied maritime strike capabilities.

If the United States is going to send additional warships to join the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its three escorts in the Arabian Sea, it will have to decide whether American warships will force the Bab al-Mandeb and run Ansarallah’s gauntlet. The aircraft carrier USS George Bush—which is currently undertaking training activities off the American east coast—is one of the carriers that may be sent to reinforce the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea. Another candidate is the USS Gerald Ford, which continues to operate near Venezuela. Transiting to the Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility via the Mediterranean in the shortest possible time will necessitate a transit of the Suez Canal and the Bab al-Mandeb. The alternative is for the aforementioned aircraft carriers to take a very lengthy detour around the southern tip of Africa so as to avoid running Ansarallah's gauntlet, not least in the event of open war with Iran and its non-state allies, including Ansarallah in Yemen. Alternatively, the United States can dispatch an aircraft carrier from the American West Coast, although that entails a very long journey across the Pacific.

While the United States has many options, and the American naval presence near Iran remains formidable, the de facto forward deployment of Iranian terrestrial and maritime strike munitions in Yemen through the services of Ansarallah has fundamentally transformed military dynamics in the region in ways that the current crisis is putting on public display.

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A newly released video seemingly offers documentary evidence of Iranian ballistic missiles—of the (very) short-range variety—in the hands of Iran's Iraqi non-state allies. The timing of this deliberate disclosure amid the ongoing crisis between Iran and the United States is unlikely to be a coincidence. While American military forces are reported to have recently departed from all facilities in the parts of Iraq controlled by the federal government in Baghdad, American forces remain in the parts of Iraq controlled by the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government.

It is important to note that documentary evidence already exists for Iran's Iraqi non-state allies being in the possession of Iranian-supplied long-range cruise missiles and propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones. Both of these types of strike munitions—but not ballistic missiles—were launched against Israel over the course of 2024.

While Iran’s Iraqi non-state allies have previously claimed to operate a different Iranian short-range ballistic missile design (the above image to the right) under the designation al-Quds 1, the missile seen in the above video appears to be an Iranian-made Ababil/Arman, and the sole publicly available image of the al-Quds 1 may not have even been photographed in Iraq.

The newly unveiled Qare’e would likely have been deserving of the name “Al-Asad shekan“ before the very recent withdrawal of American forces from al-Asad airbase, which was subject to an Iranian retaliatory ballistic missile attack in January 2020 following the assassination of Qasem Soleimani by the United States.

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Iran hosted the "Security Belt 2025" naval exercise, which included a Chinese and Russian naval presence, at the southeastern port of Chabahar in March 2025. A forthcoming trilateral naval exercise was reported well in advance of recent events in Iran and the current crisis with the United States. Any forthcoming Chinese presence off the Iranian coast will almost certainly entail the presence of ships from the PLA Navy's 48th escort group, two of the three ships of which recently participated in a multinational naval exercise hosted by South Africa. Any forthcoming Russian presence off the Iranian coast will entail the deployment of a corvette and accompanying logistical support ship from the Baltic Fleet that recently participated in the same multinational naval exercise hosted by South Africa and/or will require the frigate Marshal Shaposhnikov, which recently made an appearance at a naval exhibition in Qatar, to make a port of call in Iran instead of returning home to the Pacific Fleet. The attached images are from the 2025 naval exercise.

Commentary-themed posts tend to deal with recent developments. These will typically be much shorter and less detailed than my analysis-themed posts, for which commentary-themed posts may serve as “building blocks.”

The Iranian exhibit at the recent Partner-2025 military-industrial exhibition in Belgrade, Serbia, marked the first presence of the Iranian Ministry of Defence delegation at a foreign military-industrial event since the June 2025 Iran-Israel War. Iran previously promoted a diverse array of military equipment at military industrial exhibitions held in Iraq, Malaysia, and Belarus earlier this year. The Iranian exhibits at such foreign events offer a window into what Tehran is and is not comfortable with exporting to paying customers, a dynamic that is of particular importance given the damage that Israel inflicted on parts of Iran’s military industrial capabilities.

The Iranian exhibit was used to promote:

• Small arms.

• Anti-tank guided missiles. This notably includes the Almas-1, which employs a fiber-optic cable for communication uplink/downlink so as to enable a lofted, non-line-of-sight, and top-attack human-in-the-loop mode. The Almas family was employed by Hizballah in Lebanon against Israel from early 2025 onward to seemingly good effect, albeit at what appears to have been a very limited scale. Israel notably targeted a facility associated with the production of the Almas family, a purposeful targeting decision which likely reflects how seriously Israel takes the threat that this particular type of surface-to-surface missiles/anti-tank missiles—which are the reverse-engineered Iranian derivatives of the Israeli Spike family that Hizballah reportedly captured in 2006—pose should they appear in very large numbers in the hands of Hizballah in Lebanon.

• Small guided glide bombs.

• A guided 120 mm mortar shell equipped with a semi-active laser homing seeker.

• Air Defence radars. Even though Iran is promoting its air defence radars to prospective export customers, it is unlikely to be in any position to deliver such systems any time soon, given the large-scale losses of this essential type of military equipment in the June 2025 Iran-Israel War.

• Surface-to-air missile systems. This notably includes the Majid, which is a passive short-range air defence system that is best used against higher-flying and larger fixed-wing ISR drones. Short-range air defence systems like the Majid were notably either not deployed in western Iran in meaningful numbers at the outset of the June 2025 Iran-Israel War or were neutralized by Israel in that sector at the outset of the conflict. Given the threat posed by Israeli armed fixed-wing ISR drones to Iranian ballistic missile launchers and launch operators in the war, the promotion of the Majid and other surface-to-air missiles more generally to prospective export customers is somewhat surprising.

• Coastal defence systems, including subsonic anti-ship cruise missiles. Serbia is, of course, a landlocked country, and Iran’s subsonic anti-ship cruise missiles hardly stand out as largely undifferentiated, essentially commoditized systems in an increasingly crowded market segment.

• Two short-range—sub-300 kilometer range—ballistic missiles. Iran promoted the BM-120, which is a 368 mm diameter solid-propellant design that can deliver a 150 kilogram warhead over 120 kilometers, and the BM-300, which is a 610 mm diameter solid-propellant design that can deliver a 450 kilogram warhead over 300 kilometers. BM-120 and the BM-300 are the respective export designations for the Fath-360 and the Fateh ballistic missiles. It is worth noting that missiles of this range class are reported to have been transferred to Russia at some point during the Russia-Ukraine War, but this cannot be independently confirmed.

Iran notably did not promote the Shahed-136 propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drone at Partner-2025 in Serbia in the same manner that it did at the IQDEX-2025 and LIMA-2025 military-industrial exhibitions that were respectively held in Iraq and Malaysia earlier this year. While this may reflect sensitivities concerning the promotion of the Shahed-136 in Europe at a military-industrial exhibition that was attended by many Western delegations, it may also reflect Iranian efforts to stockpile propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones following the large-scale use thereof in the Iran-Israel War and, perhaps more importantly, disruptions to ballistic missile production as a result of the damage that Israel very purposefully inflicted.

This extensions-themed post is an extension of material that has appeared in another newsletter/section and other parts of my website more generally. While my newsletters/sections are primarily categorized by region, these can only appear in one newsletter/section, given how the Substack platform is configured, even as these may be highly relevant to readers who are primarily interested in other parts of the world.

I have long been of the view that Iran and Ansarallah in Yemen prematurely activated the latter’s Iranian-supplied strike munition arsenal against Israel in October 2023. That is, Ansarallah went to war with Israel with the strike munition arsenal it had at hand, not necessarily the strike munition arsenal that the Yemeni armed group and its Iranian sponsor envisaged had more time been available for further transfers of armaments. Much can be said of this widely overlooked dynamic, which highlights the role of contingency in military planning—carefully thought-out plans are often upended by real-world developments. I have covered Ansarallah’s Iranian-supplied ballistic missiles, which the Yemeni group regularly launches in quantities of one and two against Israel, in several writings posted on this website.

Anyone following current events in the Middle East will likely be familiar with Ansarallah’s regular use of Iranian-origin propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones to travel distances of 1800 or more kilometers in order to target the southernmost Israeli city of Eilat, which lies along the Gulf of Aqaba, as well as other locations in Israel—Tel Aviv included—more generally. Ansarallah has recently conducted several successful strike drone launches—successful in the sense that these somehow bypassed Israel’s forward defences as well as its point defences despite the heavy concentration of air defence capabilities that Israel has deployed to the Eilat area since October 2023. While I may get around to uploading one or more posts covering such attacks, which I hold to be useful data points for other countries around the world, this extensions-themed post is intended to highlight an approach that Ansarallah is not publicly known to have so far pursued, but one that it may come to pursue and perhaps one that it had planned to pursue with Iranian support prior to the premature activation of its strike capabilities against Israel in October 2023.

In several recent posts, I have discussed how China can use uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) and/or uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs) as forward launch platforms for various strike munitions for use against not only Taiwan but also far more distant targets, such as Papua New Guinea, Australia, and the South Pacific more generally. The second of the following posts notably gives mention to what appears to be an Iranian encapsulated submerged-launch capable propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drone/loitering strike drone, a design that is seemingly intended for use with Iranian submarines and perhaps Iranian UUVs.

Ansarallah operates both USVs and UUVs, which are likely to either be designs of wholly Iranian origin or designs that have been built in Yemen with considerable Iranian assistance and Iranian-supplied components, and has used both against shipping in the Bab al-Mandeb area. Ansarallah also operates a wide range of Iranian strike munitions, including propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones and loitering strike drones of various range-payload classes and cruise missiles. Much of what is publicly known about the scope of Iranian arms transfers to Ansarallah since circa 2022 comes from Ansarallah’s occasional disclosures and the interdiction of shipments being sent from Iran to Yemen.

It does not take much imagination to envisage how Ansarallah may launch some of its strike munitions from vessels such as USVs. In its simplest form, a sea launch capacity for (some of) Ansarallah’s strike munitions can entail the use of a (crewed) fishing boat or perhaps a (crewed) dhow. With USVs and, to a lesser degree, UUVs already constituting parts of Ansarallah’s arsenal, it does not require much of a leap of imagination to envisage the use of USVs as a forward launch platform. Should such USVs be used in the Red Sea, Ansarallah can significantly reduce the range requirements for its propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones against Israel. This will facilitate the launch of much larger salvos than is possible when the distance to the southernmost Israeli city of Eilat is over 1800 kilometers if Saudi airspace is avoided. The forward launch of propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones will also facilitate the targeting of Israel from the west along its Mediterranean coastline with a more diverse array of strike munitions. Ansarallah is understood to currently rely on the Iranian-origin extended-range Yafa propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones to attack very distant targets such as Tel Aviv.

It is important to recognize that none of this is beyond the realm of possibility. A USV along the lines of those that Ukraine is employing against Russia in the Black Sea, which is to say USV designs with a maximum range of 800-1000 kilometers—Ukrainian designs that are optimized for a high maximum speed—can follow the Sudanese coastline to a launch position that is more or less across the Red Sea from Jeddah. Eilat is some 1000 kilometers from such a notional launch position, while Tel Aviv will be around 1350 kilometers from such a notional launch position, providing that the propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drone flies over the Sinai Peninsula to reach the Mediterranean. Should Ansarallah and, by association, Iran pursue such an approach, they will be able to reshape the regional air defence environment once more.

While this post focuses on Ansarallah’s strike capabilities, it is very much intended to highlight how we are dealing with nothing other than universal dynamics, which is not incidentally the title of this website. Technological change and the diffusion of knowledge and capacity to develop and build many types of armaments, more generally, is fundamentally reshaping military dynamics worldwide. It is inaccurate to say that we are approaching a situation in which essentially anyone and everyone may possess some form of long-range strike capability, given that this is essentially the world as it currently exists, not least at a time when commercial satellite internet providers such as Starlink are dramatically lowering the technological hurdles encountered to developing a long-range USV, a long-range propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drone, or a long-range USV that can be used to launch a long-range strike drone.

Iran is not the only country other than Belarus and Russia to participate in Zapad-2025—the presence of foreign military attaches as observers is customary and an altogether different matter than formal participation, however small and limited, in a military exercise such as Zapad-2025. It is worth noting that India is known to have sent a fairly large—that is, non-token—military contingent to actively participate in—not merely observe—Zapad-2025, specifically in the activities held at the training facilities deep inside Russian territory, such as Mulino.

One of the most notable and oft-overlooked characteristics of Iran’s military is how insular it is. Iranian military personnel have had very little exposure to any of their foreign counterparts since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought Iran’s American-aligned monarchy to an end. While military attaches represent Iran in many countries, very few Iranian military personnel train with their foreign counterparts, whether on foreign or Iranian territory, and the bilateral or multilateral activities that the Iranian military does occasionally participate in tend to be very performative, public relations-oriented events. There is a case to be made that Iranian military thinking and practices have, in most respects, stagnated as a result. Training events serve as conduits for the diffusion of lessons learned, including the hard-earned lessons that stem from combat experience and which are paid for in blood. The scope of Iranian participation in Zapad-2025 remains to be seen, as does the scope of military cooperation—beyond the now two-way transfer of armaments and the components thereof—between Iran and Russia going forward.

To entice customers, Starlink offers fairly inexpensive antennas, which are required to communicate with one or more of the ever-expanding number of Starlink satellites in LEO, as well as fairly inexpensive subscription plans. While Starlink can be used to access the internet from remote locations—in jurisdictions that formally permit the American company to make use of the relevant parts of the electromagnetic spectrum on and above their territory—Starlink antennas can also be used as a SATCOM datalink to monitor, if not directly control, various types of military equipment, including both fixed-wing and multirotor drones. Starlink can also be used to help aircraft, whether crewed or uncrewed, navigate if and when global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals, such as the American Global Positioning System (GPS), are inaccurate or unreliable. As a result, the advent of Starlink and other LEO SATCOM constellations more generally has profound implications for governments and militaries worldwide. Governments, including those of the Gulf Arab countries that are the focus of this post, have to decide whether the benefits of commercially available LEO SATCOM outweigh the inherent threat that these can pose when utilized by state and non-state adversaries alike.

As the above maps indicate, Starlink’s LEO SATCOM service is not currently available in much of the Arabian Peninsula. All commercially-motivated LEO SATCOM providers face an inherent incentive to find as many paying customers as possible in every part of the world, given how the capacity to offer satellite internet over essentially the entire planet is an intrinsic attribute of any large satellite constellation in LEO—satellites in LEO do not remain stationary relative to a given position on the planet in the manner of GEO communications satellites. The Gulf Arab countries also amount to a potentially lucrative market for Starlink and other commercial LEO SATCOM providers, given how these are characterized by quite high disposable incomes, high internet utilization rates, and, in the case of the larger countries, a proclivity of a substantial part of populations to spend time outdoors in remote areas that are often beyond the coverage areas of mobile/cellular phone providers. Whatever the incentive structures that Starlink and other commercial LEO SATCOM providers encounter, the governments on Earth, not the companies that own the satellites in orbit, regulate the use of the electromagnetic spectrum on and above their territories under the regulatory frameworks of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which is a specialized agency of the United Nations. As a result, the above maps ultimately reflect the fact that Starlink has not yet received regulatory approval from the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

While I am not privy to the deliberations among decision-makers in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, it is important to recognize that the relevant decision-makers are likely to be concerned about the inherent threat that Starlink and commercially available LEO SATCOM more generally will pose if and when it is employed by Iran and Iran’s non-state allies across the Middle East. Much as Ukraine has equipped both multirotor and fixed-wing drones, as well as uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs), among other military systems, with Starlink LEO SATCOM antennas for use against Russia, Iran and its non-state allies can readily make use of Starlink’s satellite internet service to greatly improve the accuracy of their strike munitions—when flying over countries in which Starlink is readily accessible—to target the Gulf Arab countries.

As things stand, Starlink and LEO SATCOM more generally hold the potential to greatly enhance the accuracy of Iranian strike munitions. The core components of Iran’s regional strike capabilities are the country’s ballistic missiles, its land-attack cruise missiles, and its propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones. All three core components of Iran’s regional strike capabilities—especially the country’s propeller-driven strike drones, which likely constitute the bulk of its strike munition arsenal—are heavily reliant on the availability of accurate and reliable GNSS positioning data, which can be denied through GNSS jamming and/or spoofing using electronic warfare systems. Like other countries, Iran employs GNSS signals to augment the onboard inertial navigation system (INS)—which are built to different price points and, as such, different levels of sophistication and accuracy—given how INS systems are subject to drift—compounding inaccuracy—over time. This is a particular challenge when it comes to the employment of fairly slow propeller-driven fixed-wing strike drones like the Shahed-136, which is powered by a small 50-horsepower four-cylinder piston engine and has a cruise speed of just ~170 kilometers per hour while having a nominal maximum range of ~2000 kilometers. This results in a maximum flight time of around 12 hours and a lot of scope for inaccuracy when the INS is not corrected by accurate and reliable GNSS signals over the flight path.

Countries which encounter adversary strike munitions that are heavily reliant on the availability of accurate and reliable GNSS positioning data have an incentive to invest in electronic warfare systems that can be used to jam and/or spoof GNSS signals. Jamming and/or spoofing GNSS signals, however, tends to be highly indiscriminate and has increasingly profound fratricidal effects in a world in which so many consumer devices and pieces of industrial equipment and similar are reliant on the availability of accurate and reliable GNSS signals, which notably provide Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT). As a result, governments must decide when and where to jam and/or spoof GNSS signals. Facing a major threat from Iranian-supplied strike munitions in the arsenal of Hizballah in Lebanon and, to a lesser extent, Iranian-supplied strike munitions in the arsenals of Iran’s various Iraqi non-state allies as well as Ansarallah in Yemen, Israel decided to jam and spoof GNSS signals as part of its (ongoing) air defence efforts from October 2023 onward. As a consequence, Israeli civilians and the country’s economy more generally have been operating in a degraded GNSS environment. This has negatively affected the Israeli economy, given the everyday reliance of residents and companies on the availability of accurate and reliable GNSS positioning data for PNT, including fairly mundane tasks such as navigating roads and requesting a taxi. The fratricidal effects of Israeli electronic warfare efforts have notably extended to neighbouring countries, including Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt.

Despite the above dynamics, the Gulf Arab countries appear to be unwilling to readily undertake wide-area GNSS jamming and/or spoofing efforts, at least not short of an all-out conflict with Iran. The accuracy and reliability of GNSS signals appear to have been largely unaffected in the Gulf Arab countries during the June 2025 Iran-Israel War. This notably includes Qatar, which was the target of a one-off and very brief Iranian ballistic missile attack directed against American military forces garrisoned at al-Udeid airbase. Qatar appears to have decided that the costs of denying Iranian strike munitions accurate and reliable GNSS positioning data—the fratricidal effects on its inhabitants and economy—outweighed the benefits, at least given the threat posed by what is understood to have been a limited-scale Iranian ballistic missile attack for which advance notice was given.

When it comes to Starlink and LEO SATCOM more generally, the Gulf Arab countries encounter a broadly similar dynamic even as the stakes are in important respects much greater. LEO SATCOM is not merely a potential substitute for accurate and reliable GNSS positioning data; it can enable the employment of existing strike munitions in entirely new ways. Not jamming and/or spoofing GNSS signals will mean that an Iranian Shahed-136 propeller-driven strike drone will, for example, be able to accurately navigate a fairly complex pre-programmed flight path of some 1500 kilometers from Iran to Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coastline or a less complex flight path of some 400 kilometers from Iran toward the southern coast of the Persian Gulf. Enabling Starlink, however, will not only offer the Shahed-136 accurate and reliable positioning data while flying over the Gulf Arab countries but also allow Iranian military personnel to remotely monitor and, if required, directly control the Shahed-136 so as to attack a target of opportunity, attack moving/mobile targets including air defence systems, and more generally detect and avoid air defences. In other words, readily available LEO SATCOM is a much greater threat when integrated onto strike munitions than readily available PNT through GNSS could ever be.

As with all actively emitting radio frequency systems, Starlink and other LEO communication satellites more generally can, in principle, be jammed and spoofed. In practice, this is far more complicated than jamming and/or spoofing GNSS signals, not least as a result of the higher power signals being emitted by satellites located some 550 kilometers from the planet—in LEO—as opposed to over 20,000 kilometers from the planet. When it comes to Starlink and other LEO SATCOM systems more generally, governments that have good relations with both Starlink and its parent company SpaceX and, above all, the United States government, are likely to prefer something in the vein of a “kill switch” that allows governments to terminate availability of LEO SATCOM over their territory, at least to non-government users/receivers, when required. Such measures will, of course, have fratricidal effects on civilian life and the economy, especially as Starlink and other commercial satellite internet providers come to play an increasingly central role in a country’s telecommunications infrastructure. Without such a “kill switch,” the Gulf Arab countries are likely to face a significantly enhanced threat from Iranian strike munitions, including those operated by Iran’s various non-state allies across the Middle East.

While this post focuses on the Gulf Arab countries, it is important to recognize that the implications of Starlink and LEO SATCOM more generally are much the same worldwide. Countries that allow Starlink to offer satellite internet service to paying customers on and above their territory are assuming non-zero risk. For most countries, the risks are fairly small, given that the threat posed by strike munitions operated by state and/or non-state adversaries is also very small. The use of Starlink in the Russia-Ukraine War, including Ukraine’s use of Starlink to remotely operate USVs to target Russian warships at sea in the manner of a remotely piloted surface-running torpedo, should serve as a cautionary tale to decision-makers worldwide. Unlike cellular data services through which mobile phones connect to the internet, which can be readily disabled on demand, governments have very little control over the availability of LEO SATCOM internet services on and above their territory beyond the formalities of the ITU, and LEO SATCOM is also accessible in international airspace and international waters, which presents its own set of challenges.

PS: While Starlink’s satellite internet service is available in Bahrain and Qatar, it is important to recognize that these are not “transit countries” when it comes to Iran’s employment of strike munitions such as the Shahed-136, and Iran can readily target these countries with strike munitions that only fly over the Persian Gulf. These countries also lack the territorial depth of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. If Starlink and LEO SATCOM more generally become available across the Arabian Peninsula, then Iran can send the likes of the Shahed-136 on very circuitous routes to, for example, target Abu Dhabi (UAE) and the Dammam metropolitan area (Saudi Arabia) from the ~south, following lengthy transits over primarily unpopulated desert.

Note: The following text was originally posted on my X/Twitter account.

A new Wall Street Journal article offers additional information on how Israel targeted HAMAS' political leadership in Qatar. Israel appears to have launched air-launched ballistic missiles from F-15I strike fighters over the Red Sea, seemingly without flying through Saudi airspace. Unsurprisingly, the WSJ article claims that the U.S. military detected the infrared signatures of these ballistic missile launches through its space-based infrared system (SBIRS) satellites. There is no mention of the American-built Qatari UHF-band AN/FPS-132 ballistic missile early warning radar. It is also worth noting that publicly available videos are not indicative of ten or more (as originally reported by Israeli media) munition impacts. It is therefore unclear whether there was a target other than that particular compound used by HAMAS' political leadership. Perhaps one or more of the Israeli missiles failed in flight. While it is possible that one or more of the Israeli missiles were intercepted, people on the ground in the region would have likely noticed ballistic missile defence interceptor activity.

Note: The following text was originally posted on my X/Twitter account.

Some observations regarding the reported Israeli airstrike in Qatar earlier today:

Israeli media reports indicate the use of 10+ Israeli air force fighter aircraft of unknown type and 10+ munitions of unknown type. Available images and videos suggest the use of smaller/lighter munitions. One candidate munition is the (American-built) GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB), which has the advantage of offering a considerable standoff range, or even smaller/lighter. Note that while we do not currently know, the Qataris will likely find out—if they have not already—as there will be debris from the munitions used in the attack. Candidate aircraft are F-15I strike fighters and F-35I low-observable fighters. The F-16I fleet is also a possibility, but that aircraft type is more limited in terms of payload-range. Assessing the performance of Qatari air defences and those of other Gulf Arab states more generally requires information on the munitions and aircraft employed in the reported Israeli airstrike, as well as information on the flight path of Israeli aircraft—more to follow.

Supposing that Israeli media reports—which are, of course, sourced from the Israeli military and the Israeli government more generally—are accurate, I am unsure of the advantage of using 10+ fighter aircraft to release what appears to have been a small number of small/light munitions. The two-way flight distance from Israel to Qatar is immense—more to follow— and this reduces the practical payload of Israeli fighter aircraft even with aerial refuelling en route. We are likely dealing with a situation in which multiple Israeli fighter aircraft—of unknown type—were primarily, if not exclusively, equipped with a small number of air-to-air missiles to escort the aircraft equipped with the air-to-ground munitions. Note, however, that Israeli planners likely built some redundancy into the strike package. I would not be surprised if a larger percentage of involved Israeli fighter aircraft flew part of the route and turned back, likely while within Syrian or possible Iraqi airspace—more to follow.

There is a lot of discussion as to what the United States and Donald Trump did and did not know and when, and what the United States and Donald Trump did/did not do—or try to do—about it, supposing that Israel provided advance notice. In any event, today's incident reflects poorly on Qatar's military despite the tens of billions of dollars Qatar has spent on providing it with a (rather irrationally) diverse array of the latest armaments primarily sourced from the United States and Europe. While I will wait for additional information as to how Israel carried out this apparent airstrike against such a distant target, I am inclined to think that Israeli aircraft launched munitions over the Persian Gulf, which is to say from a direction/threat axis that should have been surveilled and covered by Qatar's air and ballistic missile defences.

Supposing that Israeli aircraft were flying over the Persian Gulf, these should have also been detected by Iraqi, Saudi, Kuwaiti, and Bahraini air defences, as well as by forward-deployed American military units based in the Gulf Arab states (independent of the timing and nature of the advance notice that Israel is reported to have provided the White House). Note that we do not know what the United States did with any advance notice, including whether American military units—including both air defence systems and fighter aircraft—based at al-Udeied Airbase outside Doha were placed on alert. If this incident had happened a decade or so earlier—especially in Doha, Qatar, given the aerial blockade-type situation that Qatar encountered for a time—there would have been limited coordination among the Gulf Arab states. In recent years, however, the Gulf Arab states are reportedly to have greatly increased coordination in air and ballistic missile defence—through United States Central Command's (CENTCOM) 609th Air Operations Center (AOC), which is located at al-Udeid Airbase in Qatar, which serves as the hub for these arrangements. It should be noted that American and Israeli reports in the aftermath of Iran's single-day April 2024 cruise missile, propeller-driven strike drone, and ballistic missile attack on Israel indicated that there was some level of coordination—at least the sharing of sensor coverage—between at least some Gulf Arab states and Israel via CENTCOM. This was, in part, made possible by the transfer of Israel from the United States European Command (EUCOM) to CENTCOM in 2021 following the 2020 Abraham Accords, which did not include Qatar.

What route did Israeli fighter aircraft take? Supposing that Israel did not fly through Jordanian and Saudi airspace without permission—and supposing that neither Jordan nor Saudi Arabia would have permitted Israeli fighter aircraft to fly through their territory, the most likely flight path was northern Israel-->Syria-->Iraq. I am inclined to think that Israel would have avoided Kuwait airspace—Kuwait is also home to a considerable American military presence—but hosting American military forces does not appear to carry much weight these days. Israeli aircraft may have flown over the narrow section of Iraqi territory with access to the sea and thereafter flown over the Persian Gulf. We do not know which munitions were used and, as such, the standoff range of said munitions. It is, therefore, currently difficult to say whether Doha was attacked from the west, north, or east. In any event, such a route would entail over 1900 kilometers of flight. Depending on the munitions used, the flight distance would have been reduced to some extent or another.

Unless Israel employed air-launched ballistic missiles or very long-range air-launched cruise missiles, the primary alternative to the above flight path would entail flying in Saudi airspace, including highly surveilled and—ordinarily—well-defended sections of Saudi airspace—most of Saudi Arabia's oil and natural gas extraction facilities are in the country's east and relatively close to the Persian Gulf. Note that we are still dealing with a flight distance of over 1800 kilometers. Another possibility is a flightpath that originated in southern Israel and included transiting through both Jordanian and Saudi airspace. Not that we are still dealing with a flight distance of over 1700 kilometers.

As with most events, we know very little about what transpired at this time. Anyone operating with publicly available information encounters considerable uncertainty. As I said in a recent post on another subject, it can take weeks if not months to (imperfectly) reconstruct what transpired, let alone divine the immediate and longer-term implications of what little is known about recent/ongoing events. Sobriety, cognizance of uncertainty, and intellectual humility are in order.

Update:

There is new information on the Israeli air/missile strike targeting HAMAS' political leadership in Doha, Qatar, from the Wall Street Journal. Key points for anyone interested in the military aspect of the Israeli operation:

• "More than 10 Israeli jet fighters fired long-range munitions at the house, causing explosions heard across the capital."

• "Israel assigned at least 10 warplanes to the operation, each carrying long-range “over the horizon” missiles that could hit their targets from a safe distance."

• "The distance from Tel Aviv to Doha is well over 1,000 miles. But the jets could get close enough to use long-range guided missiles without flying directly over the sensitive airspace of Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates."

• "As the jets moved in to strike, Israel’s military told their American counterparts that an attack on Hamas targets was coming minutes before missiles were launched but didn’t disclose an exact location, according to U.S. officials. The U.S. military officials saw the missiles launch and inferred the target."

• "The Israeli planes launched more than 10 missiles at Hamas’s Doha offices from outside Qatari airspace."

There are multiple candidate long-range "over the horizon" standoff munitions that Israel could have used—Qatari officials will have likely made a determination based on debris at the impact sites. Given how the Wall Street Journal characterizes the United States' ability to "see" the missiles launch, I would not be surprised if Israel used air-launched ballistic missiles—broadly defined—of one sort or another that were detected by American Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) satellites, which have infrared-band sensors that can detect the infrared signatures of highly energetic missile boosters. It is worth noting that Qatar is home to a very high-end American-built AN/FPS-132 UHF-band ballistic missile early warning. This radar is understood to be highly integrated with United States Central Command's (CENTCOM) Combined Air Operations Center, which is located at al-Udeied airbase outside Doha.

There are at least two ways to interpret the following text: "But the jets could get close enough to use long-range guided missiles without flying directly over the sensitive airspace of Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates." The first option is that Israeli aircraft flew over the Persian Gulf, which would allow launches against Doha without flying directly over Saudi (let alone Emirati) airspace. The other option is that Israeli aircraft flew over the Red Sea and targeted Doha from the ~southwest. Depending on which air-launched munition the Israeli aircraft launched, such an operation may have entailed flying over Saudi territory.

Future reporting may reveal the flight path taken by the Israeli fighter aircraft and which countries' airspace was transited, whether wittingly or unwittingly. This will, in turn, allow us to eliminate some of the candidate—publicly known—Israeli air-launched munitions that may have been used in this very long-range aerial operation.

Additional points that I made in the comments:

• Qatar does not currently operate THAAD batteries—only the UAE and Saudi Arabia have received THAAD batteries at this time. I suspect most of Qatar's Patriot batties and associated MPQ-65 radars are oriented toward Iran following the June 2025 Iranian ballistic missile attack on American forces at al-Udeid Airbase, and given the limited threat posed by Ansarallah in Yemen to Qatar relative to other Gulf Arab countries.

• Qatar's AN/FPS-132 ballistic missile early warning radar has three faces offering a 360° field of view. Any air-launched ballistic missiles used in the attack were presumably detected by the AN/FPS-132 radar. The extent of early warning will have been determined by the distance at which any air-launched ballistic missiles were launched.

The baseline Kheybar Shekan is a single-stage solid-propellant ballistic missile design that is optimized to target Israel from western Iran. The baseline Kheybar Shekan lacks the range required to target Israel from Ansarallah-controlled territory in northwestern Yemen. The southernmost Israel city of Eilat is over 1600 kilometers away, the Jerusalem metropolitan area is over 1800 kilometers away, and the Tel Aviv metropolitan area is over 1850 kilometers away. While Ansarallah's arsenal includes the longer-range Toufan, which is a rebranded Iranian liquid-propellant Ghadr ballistic missile, it appears to be regularly using an extended-range version of the Filisteen to target Israel (alongside an extended-range version of the smaller-diameter Zulfiqar liquid-propellant ballistic missile, which appears to be a rebanded extended-range version of the Iranian Rezvan).

While Iran's pursuit of submunitions dispensing payloads for its ballistic missiles has been public knowledge for over a decade, these were thought to have been associated with Iran's larger diameter and greater payload liquid-propellant ballistic missile designs. The first public indication of the existence of a Kheybar Shekan ballistic missile version equipped with a submunition dispensing payload emerged during the June 2025 Iran-Israel War. This particular Iranian version appears to have been used to release a smaller number of larger and heavier submunitions as opposed to a much larger number of much smaller and lighter submunitions. The number and size/weight of submunitions—and the design of the submunitions more generally—carried by a munition reflects the target classes against which it is optimized.

Ansarallah's apparent employment of an extended-range version of the Filisteen—extended-range so as to have the range required to target Israel when launched from northwestern Yemen—capable of dispensing submunitions raises questions about the nature of this modification to the Kheybar Shekan-2 design and the scope of Iranian involvement in this adaptation. The simplest way to increase the range of a ballistic missile and other munitions more generally is to decrease the mass of the payload. A larger fuel tank is ideal, but that is a complex undertaking when it comes to solid-propellant—as opposed to liquid-propellant—ballistic missile designs (it is a far simpler process when it comes to cruise missiles and propeller-driven strike drones).

Although there is presently no indication that Iran has itself deployed the extended-range version of the Kheybar Shekan-2 deployed by Ansarallah in Yemen as the Filisteen, one of the lessons that Iran's IRGC Aerospace Force likely learned from its disappointing performance in the June 2025 Iran-Israel War is the importance of having ballistic missiles that can target Israel from bases in central Iran and, ideally, in eastern Iran, so as to greatly reduce the exposure of ballistic missile launchers and bases to Israeli combat aircraft. The extended-range version of the Kheybar Shekan-2—the Filisteen in Ansarallah's service—amounts to one option that Iran may pursue. The apparent availability of the extended-range version of the Kheybar Shekan-2 with a submunition dispensing payload is something else that Iran may pursue going forward.

Note: The following text was originally posted on my X/Twitter account.

This newly released video from Tasnim News features, among other things:

• Footage of the nose-mounted sensor version of the Shahed-136.

• A Shahed-136 with a radio antenna that is indicative of a human-in-the-loop operating mode, which makes sense if/when the version with the nose-mounted sensor is used.

• Lots of Shahed-131 launch footage, which indicates that the Shahed-131 remains deployed to attack more proximate targets.

• Multiple instances of a Shahed-131/136 being launched from a pickup truck speeding down a runway.

• An underground facility storing a large number of Shahed-131/Shahed-136, simple rail launchers, and the pickup truck-based launchers.

It is unclear whether the smaller, lighter, and shorter-range Shahed-131 properller-driven fixed-wing strike drone—which forms the basis for the larger, heavier, longer-range and better-known Shahed-136—remains in production. While the Shahed-131 can be productively employed in a niche role of its own, Iran—specifically the IRGC's Aerospace Force—may have turned to a reduced-range, heavier-payload version—with a 90 kg vs. a 50 kg warhead—of the Shahed-136 for use against more proximate targets. It is, therefore, possible that the Shahed-131 specimens featured in the video merely reflect the presence of "legacy" equipment in Iran's arsenal.

The challenge that Iran—and every else—faces is that measure-countermeasure dynamics are driving up the cost and complexity of what used to be very inexpensive low-end strike munitions, with the cost growth being primarily driven by the need for GPS/GNSS antenna arrays that are more resilient to evolving electronic warfare capabilities (i.e., more resilient against GNSS jamming and spoofing). If the guidance system used on a Shahed-131 costs as much as the guidance system used on a Shahed-136, the appeal of the larger, heavier, longer-range strike drone design increases, not least in a context in which there is considerable scope to trade range for payload—install a 90 kg vs a 50 kg warhead. With the Shahed-136 likely to have been built in much larger numbers than the preceding Shahed-131, Iran may well have determined that economies of scale and much greater operational flexibility—as well as a substantially greater payload-range—justify the procurement and deployment of the Shahed-136 for use against more proximate targets even if it is likely to be somewhat more expensive than the Shahed-136.

Note: The following text was originally posted on my X/Twitter account.

Iran is currently undertaking a two-day naval exercise. Day 1 has been uneventful in terms of the systems and capabilities that have been publicly displayed—the full scope of the exercise is not, however, public knowledge. The naval balance in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea has been transformed over the past five or so years in ways that do not receive adequate attention. While this reflects in part developments in the military capabilities of Iran vis-a-vis the collective military capabilities of the United States and the Gulf Arab states (not necessarily to Iran's advantage), it is, for the most part, reflective of what is now a very limited presence of U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf following the withdrawal of most American forces from Iraq and, more recently, the total withdrawal of American forces fom Afghanistan.

Simply stated, American aircraft carriers and large amphibious warships are no longer a regular presence in the confined waters of the Persian Gulf, and Iran's naval capabilities have to evolve in response to the unavailability of such lucrative "captive"—but extremely formidable—targets located within 300 or so kilometers from the Iranian coastline. While Iran's so-called sea denial capabilities in the Persian Gulf are often treated as a given, the situation is a lot more complex than it used to be, and there is a case to be made that the growth in Iran's naval—including maritime strike—capabilities has lagged well behind the growth in Iran's short-, medium-, and long-range terrestrial strike capabilities, which are afforded by its long-range guided artillery rockets, ballistic missiles of various types and range classes, cruise missiles, and propeller-driven strike drones of various types. It is important to note that there is some overlap between Iran's terrestrial strike and maritime strike munitions.

While there is a lot more to fielded military capabilities than the technical particulars of munitions and other military systems, it is nevertheless worth noting the capability areas that do not appear to have been displayed or tested on the first day of the ongoing naval exercise:

• Iran's very slowly evolving submarine force.

• Iran's reportedly operational supersonic anti-ship cruise missile.

• The use of Iran's expanding array of loitering strike drones in maritime strike roles.

To match evolving adversary capabilities and advances in naval technology more generally, Iran needs to significantly enhance its maritime strike capabilities. The systems and capabilities that have been publicized on day 1 of the ongoing two-day naval exercise are, however, little different than what Iran deployed throughout the 2010s. With the credibility of Iran's terrestrial strike capabilities undermined following the two single-day operations against Israel in 2024 and the June 2025 Iran-Israel War, Iran will likely have to heavily lean on its naval capabilities to coerce and deter its adversaries. That will likely require a major qualitative expansion of naval and maritime strike capabilities that Iran has not publicly displayed so far.

This large-scale maritime interdiction has notably taken place in the aftermath of not only the June 2025 Iran-Israel War, which has left Iran more reliant on Ansarallah than ever before, but also the aftermath of Ansarallah’s direct military standoff with the United States, which began in October 2023 and peaked in intensity during the United States’ March-May 2025 Operation Rough Rider. Simply put, both Iran and Ansarallah are likely to have desperately wanted this and other shipments—the denominator of dispatched shipments of similar, smaller, and/or greater size and significance is not public knowledge—to uneventfully bypass the webs of maritime interdiction efforts, and the timing of the interdiction is likely to be viewed as particularly inopportune. This post will cover some of the highlights from the display of interdicted munitions and other pieces of military equipment organized by the Yemeni National Resistance Forces, a display that was notably publicized in turn by the United States military.

Shahed-107 Strike Drone (Iranian designation)

While the interdicted shipment included many Iranian systems that Ansarallah has long been known to operate and longstanding Iranian systems more generally, it also included some systems that Iran has only recently unveiled. One such system is the Iranian Shahed-107 single-use propeller-driven strike drone, which amounts to an enlarged derivative of the preceding Shahed-101 strike drone design. The Shahed-107 is distinguished by the cruciform—X-shaped—tail fins, which are V-shaped on the Shahed-101.

It is important to note that Iran only unveiled the Shahed-107 during the June 2025 Iran-Israel War. The Shahed-107 offers Ansarallah yet another means of targeting Saudi Arabia and American military bases in Djibouti, but lacks the range required to target Israel from northern Yemen. The specimens interdicted en route to Yemen may or may not have been configured and intended for use in a maritime strike role.

Small Piston Engines For Fixed-Wing Drones

The interdicted shipment included a large number of small piston engines for use with propeller-driven fixed-wing drones, a grouping that includes both strike drones and unarmed ISR drones. Ansarallah is known to operate a variety of Iranian single-use propeller-driven drones and has been reportedly assembling, if not manufacturing, one or more strike drone designs within Yemen. According to reports, local assembly, if not manufacture, within Yemen draws upon imported commercially-sourced piston engines built by Chinese companies. While unconfirmed, this shipment may have included piston engines built in Iran, which may perhaps have been intended for drone designs that are not assembled, if not manufactured, in Yemen.

Noor/Ghader/Ghadir Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles (Iranian designations)

Several disassembled specimens of Iranian Noor/Ghadr/Ghadir family anti-ship cruise missiles were included in the display of interdicted munitions. While built in Iran, the underlying design is the Chinese C-802, which Iran initially produced under licence until it absorbed the technology to such a level as to build upon the C-802/Noor design and develop the larger and longer-range Ghader and Ghadir. The Ghadir is designated al-Mandab-2 in Ansarallah’s service.

Sejjil Anti-Ship Cruise Missile (Ansarallah designation)

The Sejjil is a turbojet-powered anti-ship cruise missile that is equipped with an active radar homing seeker. It is reported to have a nominal maximum range of 180 kilometers while equipped with a 100-kilogram warhead, which is fairly small for a ground-launched anti-ship cruise missile. Ground-launched cruise missiles that use air-breathing turbojet engines are typically launched with a solid-propellant rocket booster. The Sejjil’s booster can be seen installed on the interdicted specimen. Note the air intake, the distinctive control surfaces on the Sejjil, and the cruciform fins on the solid rocket booster.

Ansarallah previously displayed the Sejjil at a parade in Sana’a.

It is important to note that this Iranian anti-ship cruise design has not been publicly displayed within Iran and first showed up in the hands of Ansarallah in Yemen. The Sejjil has a very curious design and is notable as a small and presumably low-cost anti-ship cruise missile that is better optimized for harassment strikes, given that the warhead is too small to sink most major warships, let alone very large merchant ships. The existence of an air intake integrated into the fuselage is also notable, given that Iranian designers do not hesitate to mount turbojet engines outside of the fuselage in order to maximize the internal fuel load and, as such, range. This is the case with the Iranian Paveh cruise missile design, which is known as the Quds in Ansarallah’s service. Ansarallah notably operates anti-ship cruise missile versions of the Quds that it designates the Sayyad and Quds Z-0.

Kowsar-222 Short-Range Anti-Ship Missile (Iranian designation)

The presence of the Iranian Kowsar-222 anti-ship missile, which is better characterized as a short-range multi-role surface-to-surface missile with a possible secondary surface-to-air mode, amounts to a new development, given that the presence of this missile in Yemen was not public knowledge. The Kowsar-222 is a peculiar rocket-powered missile that was only recently publicized in Iran, where it is primarily used to arm small naval vessels.

The Kowsar-222 is far too small to severely damage, let alone sink, a warship or a large merchant ship. It does, however, enable highly targetet close up attacks on vessels of all sizes, such as a strike against the radar, bridge, or main gun of a warship, or the bridge and armed security guard positions of a merchant ship. Supposing that the Kowsar-222 has a surface-to-air mode, it can also be used against helicopters—it doesn’t take much to outrange the machine guns and/or autocannons used to arm helicopters or pod-mounted unguided rockets launched from a low altitude. This small and unassuming Iranian missile may, as such, play an outsized role in Ansarallah’s maritime strike and coastal defence capabilities going forward.

Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile/Guided Rocket Seekers

While discussions of anti-ship ballistic missiles typically refer to ballistic missiles that are equipped with active radar homing seekers in much the same manner that most anti-ship cruise missiles are equipped with active radar homing seekers, Ansarallah’s anti-ship ballistic missiles/guided rockets are primarily equipped with electro-optical seekers. This is a uniquely Iranian practice that takes advantage of the typically high-visibility atmospheric conditions encountered in the Persian Gulf and the Bab al-Mandeb. While fairly rudimentary electro-optical seekers can only be used in daylight—use at night requires the presence of a more expensive imaging infrared seeker—both Iran and Ansarallah are well positioned to take advantage of short flight times and predictable movements by the target ships in narrow and confined bodies of water.

Taer-2 Surface-to-Air Missile (Iranian designation)

Ansarallah deploys what is best characterized as a “guerrilla air defence” capability set that makes use of remaining former Republic of Yemen stocks captured during the Yemeni Civil War and various systems supplied by Iran. This “guerrilla air defence” capability set capitalizes on the mountainous geography of northwestern Yemen and Ansarallah’s preferred approach to warfare.

While Iran has supplied Ansarallah a variety of entirely passive sensors and surface-to-air munitions, it has also supplied Ansarallah radar-guided surface-to-air missile systems. Among the interdicted systems on display is the seeker of an Iranian Taer-2 medium-range surface-to-air missile. The presence of just a Taer-2 seeker on display raises the question of where the rest of the surface-to-air missile is. The Taer-2 uses a solid-propellant rocket motor. While Iran is understood to have helped Ansarallah establish the industrial capacity required to produce some components of various missiles and other munitions, even the most basic surface-to-air missiles are fairly complex designs. While unconfirmed, the presence of just a Taer-2 seeker may indicate that Ansarallah can produce a suitable solid-propellant rocket booster within Yemen.

Quds Land-Attack/Anti-Ship Cruise Missile (Ansarallah designation)

Included among the many interdicted non-assembled munitions components were turbojet engines associated with the Iranian Paveh land-attack cruise missile, which Ansarallah designates Quds. It is important to note that Ansarallah operates anti-ship cruise missile versions of the Quds that it designates Sayyad and Quds Z-0.

Relative to the Taer-2 surface-to-air missile, Ansarallah is far better positioned to assemble the Quds from a combination of more complex components shipped from Iran, including the turbojet engine, and less complex components manufactured in Yemen. While unconfirmed, shipments of components are likely indicative of the establishment of a final assembly “line” within Yemen that may or may not draw upon some components that are built in Yemen.

Ballistic Missile Components

Included among the many interdicted non-assembled munitions components were various ballistic missile components, including an inertial navigation system and many fins. While the presence of such components suggests the existence of a—at a minimum—final assembly “line” within Yemen, it is important to note that ballistic missiles tend to be far too large to be shipped on a dhow. The multifaceted challenges encountered in attempting to ship fully assembled ballistic missiles of various range classes are likely to have been Iran’s original impetus for helping establish production—or at least final assembly—facilities and capacities within Yemen.

Qaem-118 Surface-To-Air Missile (Iranian designation)

Perhaps the most exotic of the interdicted munitions and munitions components is the Qaem-118, a small turbojet-powered surface-to-air missile that Iran only unveiled earlier in 2025.

The Qaem-118 is either a reverse-engineered American Coyote Block 2 turbojet-powered surface-to-air missile or a very close emulation of this very distinct American design, which primarily exists to intercept propeller-driven strike drones and similar aerial threats.

The presence of the Qaem-118 in the interdicted shipment may indicate how important Iranian decision-makers consider Ansarallah’s military capabilities to be for Iran’s own security. All countries assume risk in transferring armaments beyond their borders, and Iran is no exception. The Qaem-118 appears to be a very new design, and it is possible that this interdiction amounts to the first time that Iran’s adversaries have been able to put their hands on a real-world specimen, a dynamic that is likely to drive countermeasure development and thereby diminish the effectiveness of the Qaem-118 in its current configuration.

While the interdicted shipment included Qaem-118 surface-to-air missile specimens, there is no indication that the shipment included the launcher, launch cannisters, and radars with which the Qaem-118 is associated within Iran. It is possible that there are multiple ways to employ the Qaem-118 and/or that Iran has developed a different approach for Ansarallah to employ the Qaem-118 as part of its “guerrilla air defence” capability set. It is worth noting that the wheeled Iranian Aras-3 based launcher seen in the above image set is understood to also be capable of launching Ra’ad-2 loitering strike drones, a system that I have covered in the past:

Various Pieces of Air Defence Equipment

Passive sensors of various types appear to be the backbone of Ansarallah’s “guerrilla air defence” capability set, which is notably designed to take full advantage of northwestern Yemen’s mountainous terrain. This includes electro-optical and imaging infrared sensors as well as signals intelligence/electronic intelligence sensors, which also have applications for Ansarallah’s maritime strike capabilities. The interdicted shipment included many such systems.

Almas Fiber-Optic Non-Line-of-Sight Surface-to-Surface/Anti-Tank Missiles (Iranian designation)

While the Iranian systems that were indicted have received a lot of attention, it is also important to reflect on the fairly long list of Iranian systems that are not publicly known to be deployed by Ansarallah or included in this interdicted shipment. Simply stated, Iran appears to be very selective in terms of what it supplies Ansarallah. In part, this may reflect Iran’s prioritization of its own needs in some areas and the suitability of a given system for Ansarallah’s purposes. Other considerations are also likely to be at play, above all the needs of Hizballah in Lebanon. It is notable that there is no indication in the public sphere that Iran has transferred any specimens from its Almas fiber-optic guided non-line-of-sight (NLOS) surface-to-surface/anti-tank missile design to Ansarallah.

The Almas family refers to the Iranian derivation of the Israeli Spike family of NLOS surface-to-surface/anti-tank missiles, which Iran is understood to have accessed following the capture of several specimens by Hizballah in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War. As of this writing, the Almas has only appeared within Iran and in the hands of Hizballah, which employed Almas family missiles against Israel over the course of 2024. Israel notably targeted the factory in Iran that builds Almas missiles during the June 2025 Iran-Israel War, a data point that likely reflects how seriously Israel appears to be taking the difficult-to-counter threat posed by these small NLOS surface-to-surface missiles against not just Isreali military vehicles but also stationary sites/facilities near the Israel-Lebanon border.

While Ansarallah does not encounter anything like the Israeli Merkeva Mk4 tanks that Hizballah encounters along the Israel-Lebanon border, the Almas family is best understood as a family of NLOS surface-to-surface missiles. NLOS missiles are very well suited to areas with mountainous terrain, which includes northwestern Yemen. The Almas family is, however, likely to be quite expensive, limited in supply, and prioritized for Hizballah. While this is speculative, it is possible that Ansarallah remains below Hizballah on the pecking order in areas in which Hizballah also has need. Consider, for example, how Hizballah does not, in effect, compete with Ansarallah for deliveries of Iranian long-range ballistic missiles but likely competes with—and comes out on top of—Ansarallah for deliveries of the likes of the Almas family.

While Iran’s ballistic missiles regularly make headlines, Iran is hardly the only country in the Middle East to deploy ballistic missiles and several countries in the region are capable of manufacturing ballistic missiles. Included in this grouping is Turkiye, which is not only capable of designing and manufacturing conventionally-armed ballistic missiles but is also developing and seemingly deploying conventionally-armed ballistic missiles with a maximum range approaching 1000 kilometers while planning to ultimately deploy ballistic missiles with a maximum range of 2000 or more kilometers.

Most operators of conventionally-armed ballistic missiles tend to focus on designs with a maximum range of no more than 300-500 kilometers for various reasons. Turkiye has much grander ambitions and appears intent on developing a conventionally-armed ballistic missile force of unknown size that will, in purely qualitative terms, likely be akin to the arsenals of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force. Although Turkiye’s development of ballistic missiles is hardly breaking news—we are simply witnessing the fruits of over thirty years of concerted investment and research and development activity—the expanding reach of Turkish ballistic missiles is likely to be a contributing factor to the collision course that Israel and Turkiye are currently on following recurring Israeli attacks on the Turkish-aligned new Syrian government in Damascus and in light of the restructuring of power dynamics in the region following the Iran-Israel War. During the Iran-Israel War, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan notably announced that his country would be accelerating its efforts to deploy medium- and long-range missiles.

Turkiye’s dynamic and fast-evolving military industry recently displayed its latest products at the biennial IDEF military industrial exhibition in Istanbul. One of the highlights at IDEF 2025 was the unveiling of Tayfun Block 4 ballistic missile. According to its manufacturer Roketsan, the Tayfun Block 4 weighs 7200 kg, has a length of 10 meters, and, importantly, has a diameter of 938 mm. The solid-fuelled Tayfun Block 4 is a large ballistic missile by any standard, and likely has a maximum range in the region of 750-1000 km.

It is important to note that the Tayfun Block 4 is a much larger ballistic missile than the J-600T Yıldırım, a Turkish-made solid-fuelled 610 mm diameter ~2000 kg ballistic missile design of Chinese origin, as well as the newer 610 mm Bora/Khan ballistic missile.

When it is deployed by the Turkish military and supposing that it has a maximum range in the region of 750-1000 km, the Tayfun Block 4 will allow Turkiye to readily target all of Israel, the western half of Iran, and much of southwestern Russia. Reports indicate that Turkiye is developing an even larger and longer-range ballistic missile called the Cenk, which appears to have a target maximum range of 2000 kilometers. Such a ballistic missile will allow Turkiye to, among other things, target Moscow.

Appreciating the implications of Turkiye’s development of a long-range conventionally-armed ballistic missile arsenal requires a holistic appraisal of Turkiye’s military-geographical context. Turkiye, a NATO member state, is not only in a complex neighbourhood, but it also has limited strategic depth on its north-south axis. The country’s peculiar geographic layout shapes the implications of the Tayfun Block 4 and prospective longer-range Turkish ballistic missile designs. Two particularly important points to consider are that Tel Aviv is just ~450-475 kilometers from Turkiye, and that a Turkish ballistic missile with a maximum range of just ~700-750 kilometers can reach the southernmost Israeli port city of Eilat. The following map features range rings in 250-kilometer increments.

A Turkish conventionally-armed long-range ballistic missile force is likely to complicate Israeli military planning, independent of the fact that Turkiye is a NATO member state. To appreciate why this is the case, it is important to recognize that all individual radar antennas have a field of view of no more than 120°. This includes the individual highly specialized radars that Israel uses to detect incoming ballistic missiles. Simply stated, Israel requires ballistic missile detection radars with different orientations to detect ballistic missiles launched from various countries.

The following map features three wedges that illustrate the fields of view required from Israel’s network of ballistic missile detection radars to detect ballistic missiles that are respectively launched from Lebanon and Syria, Iran, and Ansarallah-controlled areas in Yemen. Note that the following map does not show the actual real-world coverage offered by Israel's various ballistic missile detection radars or the American AN/TPY-2 radar that is permanently forward-deployed in Israel (Turkiye is itself home to a permanently forward-deployed American AN/TPY-2 radar, which is understood to either directly or indirectly transmit sensor data on ballistic missiles launched by Iran to Israel). Should Turkiye deploy ballistic missiles in the western half of its territory, Israel will have to reorient its existing ballistic missile detection radars—or simply expand its network of such radars—to first detect and then—in very short order—intercept ballistic missiles approaching Israel from this new and previously unthreatened direction.

Although Turkiye's development of progressively longer-range ballistic missiles predates is hardly a new phenomenon driven by the recent Iran-Israel War, the war has nevertheless reshaped regional security dynamics and appears to have expedited the collision course that Israel and Turkiye were previously primed for.

Despite over two decades of effort, Iran has only made eleven successful orbital satellite launch attempts, placing into LEO a total of just fourteen small satellites in the process. As the following chart highlights, Iranian launch attempts have been sporadic, and the country’s space launch efforts only took off in 2024, which is to say fifteen years after Iran successfully placed its first satellite in orbit.

The effects of the June 2025 Iran-Israel War—which included the targeting of industrial sites associated with the production of both liquid-propellant rocket engines and solid-fuelled rocket motors used on Iranian ballistic missiles and SLVs alike—are unclear, and Iran’s dual-use space launch program(s) may have been dealt a major blow that will result in further delays. While the Iran-Israel War offers a proximate explanation as to why Iran may be unable to reliably place even small satellites into LEO, let alone beyond, over the coming years, Iran’s reliance on Russia to place larger satellites into the higher bands of LEO is reflective of longstanding dynamics and Iran’s continued inability to realize its ambitions in space despite years of sustained effort.

A Brief History of Iranian Satellite Launch Vehicles

Although the origins of its space program remain unclear, Iran has been pursuing an independent space launch and satellite design capability for over two decades. In 2004, Iran formally established the Iranian Space Agency (ISA) and began adapting its then recent breakthroughs in long(er)-range ballistic missile technology toward a civilian space program. In 2008, Iran began suborbital tests of an SLV with a first stage derived from the liquid-propellant Shahab-3/Ghadr long-range ballistic missile that was later unveiled as the Safir. In February 2009, a Safir SLV placed Iran’s first satellite into orbit.

Much like the Soviet Union’s Cold War-era Sputnik satellite, Iran’s first satellite, the 27-kilogram Omid, was a technical achievement but had very little practical value for either civilian or military purposes. The small size of the Omid reflected Iran’s limited satellite design and manufacturing capacity as well as the fact that the two-stage Safir SLV was incapable of placing substantially larger or more useful payloads into LEO, let alone beyond. The outdated liquid-propellant first-stage used on the Safir, which was derived from the 1960s-origin technology found on Soviet R-17 Elbrus “Scud” ballistic missiles by way of North Korea, offered little scope for performance growth, making it an evolutionary dead end. Iran, therefore, began to develop the Simorgh, an SLV built around a cluster of four liquid-propellant rocket engines derived from the Shahab-3/Ghadr for its first stage.

At the time of its unveiling in 2010, the Simorgh SLV appeared to offer Iran’s space program a path toward placing larger and more useful satellites, whether civilian or military, into orbit. The development of the Simorgh SLV was, however, beset by technical challenges. While a Simorgh SLV undertook a successful suborbital flight in 2016, it proved to be an unreliable design, with all known orbital launch attempts failing between 2017 and 2024. Following years of troubleshooting, Iran conducted its first successful Simorgh SLV orbital launch in January 2024 and conducted the second-ever successful Simorgh SLV orbital launch in December 2024. A February 2025 orbital launch with what is reported to be an experimental payload and a very different orbital target did, however, fail. As of late July 2025, there have been no reports of additional Simorgh SLV launch attempts.

Notwithstanding the two breakthrough successes of the Simorgh SLV in 2024, Iran’s space program appeared to be in trouble by the turn of the decade. At the time, it looked like neither the Safir SLV nor the Simorgh SLVs were likely to offer Iran a reliable and militarily useful space-launch capability. Iran had, after all, spent years regularly announcing new satellite projects that it could not independently place into orbit, all in a context in which international sanctions and diplomatic dynamics more generally essentially cut Iran off from commercial space launch services. While Iran had the option of outsourcing its satellite launches to Russia and perhaps China by the mid-2010s, Iranian decision-makers were hesitant to become wholly dependent on either of these highly self-interested and highly transactional countries that had exhibited little hesitation in treating their bilateral ties with Iran as a bargaining chip with the United States and other countries. Iran, therefore, doubled down on developing its indigenous and sovereign space launch capabilities, and the results became public knowledge from 2020 onward.

In April 2020, Iran unexpectedly announced that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—and not the ISA—had placed a military imaging satellite, the Noor-1, into orbit using a new, previously unknown three-stage SLV developed by the IRGC’s Self-Sufficiency Jihad Organization (SSJO), the Qased. While the Qased SLV, like the Safir SLV and Simorgh SLV, used the outdated but functional and readily available liquid-propellant rocket engine from the Shahab-3/Ghadr ballistic missile for its first stage, it used new IRGC SSJO-developed solid-propellant rocket motors for its second and third stages. As of this writing in late July 2025, the Qased SLV has been used in three known orbital launch attempts in 2020, 2022, and 2023, all of which successfully placed small and light—CubeSat class—military imaging satellites into LEO. Iran notably undertook a suborbital experimental launch of a Qased SLV on 21 July 2025. This is the first publicly known launch of an Iranian ballistic missile or SLV launch since the formal end of the June 2025 Iran-Israel War.

Building off the surprise breakthrough in Iranian solid-propellant rocket motor technology that was unveiled in the form of the Qased SLV, in November 2022, Iran undertook a suborbital test of a related new SLV design, the Qaem-100, which was notably also developed and operated by the IRGC’s SSJO and not the ISA. Whereas the Qased SLV is equipped with a liquid-propellant first stage in the same manner as the Safir SLV and Simorgh SLV, the Qaem-100 SLV employs a new solid-propellant first stage, thereby making it an exclusively solid-propellant SLV and, as such, an SLV design with far greater practical military applications and implications—for use in a longer-range ballistic missile—than either the Safir SLV or the Simorgh SLV. As of late July 2025, the Qaem-100 SLV has been launched in a successful suborbital test flight in 2022, an unsuccessful orbital launch attempt in 2023, and two successful orbital launches in 2024, which were used to place an imaging satellite as well as an experimental technology demonstrator satellite into LEO.

The unveiling of the Qased SLV and Qaem-100 SLV received considerable international attention, not least because both these SLVs were developed and are operated by the IRGC’ SSJO and not the ISA, meaning that Iran has parallel space-launch and satellite programs. While the extent to which the ISA and IRGC’s SSJO share technology, expertise and industrial capacity is unclear, there are indications that the IRGC, which operates Iran’s ballistic missiles, is undertaking an independent technology development which, as previously noted, has far greater practical military applications and implications than preceding Iranian SLV designs. Attesting to the apparent absence of coordination between the ISA and the IRGC’s SSJO, in February 2021, Iran unveiled the Zoljanah, a new three-stage SLV design with a solid-propellant first and second stages that appears to be a partial replacement for the ISA’s unsuccessful liquid-propellant Simorgh SLV. As of this writing in late July 2025, the ISA’s Zoljanah SLV is understood to have only undertaken two suborbital test flights—in 2021 and 2022—and no orbital launch attempts, which is to say that the ISA’s Zoljanah SLV seemingly remains in development and is not operational.

Iran’s Qased SLV and Qaem-100 SLV, as well as the refined Simorgh SLV version(s) used in the only two successful orbital launch attempts using that cumbersome SLV design, have provided Iran’s civilian and military space programs a renewed lease of life to move beyond the decade plus of disappointment that followed the placement of the Omid, Iran’s first satellite, into LEO. That said, the satellites that Iran has independently placed into (low Earth) orbit to date are small and light designs, and Iran’s operational SLVs other than the unreliable Simorgh SLV are unsuited to placing more meaningful payloads to the higher bands of LEO. Furthermore, Iran’s operational SLVs are limited in terms of the payload fairing diameter, which restricts the dimensions of the satellites that Iran can independently place into orbit.

The Qased SLV, for example, has been used to place three CubeSat-class imaging satellites in orbit (in three successful orbital launches). The largest of the three satellites, the Noor-3, has a reported mass of just 24 kilograms. As a result of this very small size, the Noor satellites are equipped with small and light low-end imaging sensors that can only capture low-resolution imagery. Because these satellites are so small and light, it is not practical to install an onboard power source to counteract orbital decay in LEO. As a result, these small and light Iranian satellites have a short service life that amounts to a waste of a fairly expensive SLV such as the Qased. While CubeSat-class imaging satellites are very popular worldwide, these are primarily economical to place into LEO when there is an opportunity for placement as a secondary—in practice often tertiary—payload on a large payload SLV such as the Russian Soyuz that is primarily paid for by other customers.

The Nahid-2 communications satellite, which was launched by a Russian Soyuz SLV in July 2025, was placed into LEO as a secondary payload. Despite having a mass of just 110 kilograms and being placed into LEO at an altitude of 500 kilometers, Iran was unable to independently launch the Nahid-2 in the absence of a reliable refined version of the troubled Simorgh SLV. Satellites are not inexpensive, and Iran cannot afford to risk losing satellite payloads to an unreliable SLV. For context, consider that the January 2024 Qaem-100 SLV launch placed the 50-kilogram Sorya satellite into LEO at an altitude of 750 kilometers while the September 2024 Qaem-100 SLV launch placed the 60-kilogram Chamran-1 satellite into LEO at an altitude of 550 kilometers.

Iranian decision-makers and engineers are well aware of the limitations of the country’s currently operational SLV designs. While the IRGC SSJO’s Qaem-100 offer a greater payload capacity than its smaller Qased, the payload fairing diameter remains the same. Although the ISA’s Zoljanah SLV has a larger diameter payload fairing and greater payload capacity, it has not undertaken a successful launch attempt since its first suborbital test flight in January 2021. Iran’s ambitions in space, therefore, remain dependent on the still unreliable Simorgh SLV.

In recognition of the limitations of the aforementioned Iranian SLV designs, Iran’s two parallel space programs have set ambitious targets that have not yet been realized. The ISA has previously announced grand plans to develop much larger and more powerful SLVs designated the Sarir, Soroush-1, and Soroush-2 so as to offer Iran a sovereign means of placing large and heavy satellites in geostationary orbit (GEO), which is to say an orbital altitude of around 36,000 kilometers. In so doing, Iran will be able to independently place communications satellites into GEO—communications satellites that will, among other things, offer the Iranian military reliable access to a sovereign beyond-line-of-sight communication capability.

The IRGC’s SSJO, meanwhile, has announced plans to build upon the success of the Qaem-100 with the introduction of an as-yet veiled higher payload SLV designated the Qaem-105. In so doing, the IRGC’s SSJO will also develop an SLV with far greater practical military applications and implications. Unlike the ISA’s future SLV designs, the IRGC’s SSJO is likely to continue down the path of developing solid-propellant SLV designs that have far greater practical military applications and implications—for use in a longer-range ballistic missile. This development trajectory is, of course, at a greater risk of being curtailed by Iranian decision-makers due to concerns about military and diplomatic sensitivities, not least in the aftermath of the Iran-Israel War.

While the July 2025 placement of the Nahid-2 satellite by a Russian Soyuz SLV draws attention to Iran’s reliance on Russia to place larger and heavier satellites into the higher bands of LEO, it is important to note that Iran also remains limited in terms of its ability to design and manufacture militarily useful satellites, independent of its ability to place said satellites in orbit. This is underscored by the fact that the most capable Iranian-owned satellite currently in operation, the Khayyam, is Russian-built and was placed into orbit using a Russian Soyuz SLV in August 2022. The Khayyam is a dual-use imaging satellite, which reportedly offers a resolution of one meter, has a mass of 600 kilograms, and is situated at an orbital altitude of 500 kilometers. Not only was Iran incapable of independently designing and building such a satellite—which could have still been placed into orbit using a Russian Soyuz SLV—but Iran could not have placed the Khayyam satellite or its hypothetical Iranian equivalent into orbit even if the Simorgh SLV were a proven and reliable design.

In February 2024, Iran marked the fifteenth anniversary of the successful placement into orbit of the Omid satellite. Even with a record four successful orbital satellite launch attempts in 2024, which placed a total of eight small satellites into LEO, Iran’s space program had a long way before the country can place militarily useful satellites into LEO, let alone beyond, and do so in a consistent manner. Iran’s grand ambitions for its interrelated civilian and military space program(s) largely remain unfulfilled, and Iran is reliant on Russia to place larger, heavier, and more militarily useful satellites in orbit. Short of major breakthroughs in Iranian SLV development, Iran is, as such, likely to turn to the Russian Soyuz SLV to place larger and heavier satellites into higher altitude orbits for the foreseeable future.