Why Israel will have to balance escalation with deterrence in its response to Iran

What makes escalation scary in the Iran-Israel context is that it could be dominated by an air war in the backdrop of a nuclear overhang. The Iranian Air Force of the 1970s was a powerful one, with fighter aircraft such as the F-4 Phantom and the F-14 Tomcat forming much of its inventory. Since the Islamic Revolution, crippled by its alienation from the West, Iran immediately realised that it would be foolish to try and match the conventional aerial capability of Israel, its principal military adversary.

In its quest for an asymmetric aerial counter, Iran decided to build a missile force comprising conventional rockets of different ranges, drones, ballistic missiles, and hypersonic cruise missiles that could deter Israel. It is this asymmetric deterrent that was recently unleashed by Iran in two attempts as an escalatory response to Israel’s assassination of the Hamas and Hezbollah chiefs.

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The first attack by Iran on April 14, 2024, in response to a suspected Israeli air strike on its consulate in Damascus comprised a barrage of drones and missiles that were effectively intercepted by the multi-layered Israeli air defence network before they could cause significant damage. In hindsight, this was an effective and low-cost operation to test the efficacy of the much-feared Israeli air defence troika of the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and the Arrow.

With Israel showing no let-up in its operations against Hamas as well as concurrently targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran had to respond suitably to the assassination of Ismael Haniyeh and Hassan Nasrallah to match its rhetoric. This time around, instead of merely launching drones and conventional missiles and rockets against Israel, Iran showcased its entire range of high-end ballistic missiles and hypersonic cruise missiles during its attack on October 1, 2024.

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Though most of these missiles were shot down, it was sufficient to dent the ‘invincibility’ of Israeli air defences. However, from an operational evaluation, this is not a fair assessment considering that 180-200 missiles with different speeds and trajectories converging onto a small volume of airspace will always create small margins for error that will permit a few missiles to beat the shield. The question to ask is what damage a few missiles inflicted and whether Iran has the capacity to carry out such strikes repetitively. Unlike aircraft and aircrew, missiles are not reusable and hard to replace instantly once an inventory gets depleted—therein lies the vulnerability of Iran’s asymmetric strategy—it has a high short-term impact but cannot be sustained.

While Israel too has a varied repository of missiles, such as the Jericho family of missiles, it is highly unlikely to clone the Iranian strategy. Israel’s strengths are in carrying out cyber intrusions much like the Stuxnet attacks, targeted assassinations, and precision strikes by its sophisticated fleet of fighter aircraft with superbly trained aircrew.

The dilemma for the Israelis now is to choose the right systems to target in Iran, the destruction of which will convey Israel’s willingness to climb the escalation ladder and yet leave a window open for de-escalation. Nuclear capability, oil infrastructure, and military installations represent three Iranian target systems that could be under consideration. Of these, the safest would be to address military installations, including missile sites, and the riskiest would be to target any element of Iranian nuclear capability.

History does not always provide the right lessons, and for Israel to revisit Operation Opera, the air strike on the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, and attempt to repeat the same against Iranian nuclear facilities will be stupid. Geopolitical realities, the absence of powerful adversaries, and gross military asymmetry created conditions that allowed Israel to act with impunity and surprise in 1981. None of those conditions exist today. Israel is fighting on multiple fronts against evolved adversaries who have adapted to the changing character of war and coalesced under one powerful actor—Iran.

Ongoing attempts by the US to manage escalation dynamics in the Middle East are tantamount to locking the stable after the horse has bolted. President Joe Biden’s call for restraint on Israel’s part when it decides on how and when to respond to Iran’s recent missile attack, endorsing at the same time Israel’s right to defend itself, is a geopolitical oxymoron of sorts. Even though the US has significantly reduced its economic dependence on the Middle East for its energy needs, a defiant Iran remains a thorn in its flesh and a serious impediment to its global hegemony. Iran, on its part, has not done itself and its citizens any good in an era of serious resource constraints post-the 1979 revolution by opening three security fronts in Lebanon, Gaza, and Yemen.

Under normal circumstances, a precondition for any retaliatory and intrusive action by Israel against Iran would necessarily have to be approved by the US, and given that it is election season there, calls for restraint will fly thick and fast from Washington, DC. However, the tone of the rhetoric and notions of ‘victory’ emerging from Netanyahu’s recent speeches suggests that retaliation is inevitable and could even bypass US endorsement. Surprise and saturation of defences have always been the hallmark of Israeli military action. Are we going to see a mix of the old and the new in one concentrated dose—another set of cyber-attacks against nuclear facilities, targeted assassinations, conventional air strikes, and an experimentation with missiles? Whatever it may be, as the zone of military action shifts closer to India and could have a serious impact on its energy security, it is imperative for Indian diplomacy to get more involved in de-escalation initiatives.

The author is a retired fighter pilot who has flown both the MiG-21 and the Mirage 2000. He is also an air power analyst and military historian. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.