The shadow war between Israel and Iran has become an open interstate war. On 13 June, Israel launched a large-scale series of strikes across Iran, targeting nuclear facilities, missile infrastructure, air defences and senior military and nuclear personnel. Among the targets was the major uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz, while senior figures in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iranian armed forces were killed. Iran has responded with waves of ballistic missiles and drones directed at Israel, some of which penetrated Israeli air defences and struck populated areas. Israel has continued attacking Iranian targets, and both governments are warning that further escalation is coming. The immediate argument concerns whether Israel was justified in attacking a nuclear programme it has described for decades as an existential threat. The more interesting strategic problem is that Israel has launched a preventive war because it believes allowing Iran to become capable of nuclear deterrence would eventually make military action against Iran almost impossible. In other words, Israel is fighting now partly because deterrence might work too well later.
That sounds contradictory only if deterrence is assumed to benefit everyone equally. Nuclear deterrence works by making the expected cost of attacking a nuclear-armed opponent catastrophically high. If Iran acquired a deliverable nuclear weapon, Israel would have to assume that a sufficiently large attack on Iran could eventually produce nuclear retaliation. That would constrain Israeli freedom of military action dramatically. From Tehran’s perspective, this is precisely why a nuclear deterrent could be attractive. Iran is conventionally weaker than Israel and the United States, has watched Israeli forces strike Iranian-linked targets across Syria and Lebanon and has now experienced direct Israeli attacks on Iranian territory. A nuclear weapon could therefore function as regime insurance, raising the cost of any future attempt to destroy Iranian military capabilities or threaten the state itself. Israel views the same insurance mechanism as an unacceptable strategic constraint.
This creates the preventive-war paradox. If State A believes State B will become significantly more dangerous tomorrow, A has an incentive to attack today while the military balance remains favourable. But the attack itself demonstrates to B why acquiring the feared capability might have been strategically rational. Israel attacks Iran because it fears an Iranian nuclear deterrent. Iran observes that it can be attacked while lacking one and may conclude that obtaining a bomb is now more necessary than before. Military action can therefore destroy nuclear infrastructure physically while strengthening the political incentive to rebuild it.
The distinction between nuclear capability and a nuclear weapon matters enormously here. Iran has enriched uranium to levels far above what is normally required for civilian nuclear power, including substantial stocks enriched to 60% purity, which is technically much closer to weapons-grade material than ordinary reactor fuel. The International Atomic Energy Agency had also just declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations over failures to cooperate fully with investigations into undeclared nuclear material. But possessing highly enriched uranium is not identical to possessing an operational nuclear weapon. Weaponisation requires further enrichment, engineering, integration into a deliverable device and a political decision to cross the threshold.
This creates an intelligence problem because states rarely know exactly when the threshold will be crossed. If Israel waits until Iran publicly tests a weapon, the military window may already have closed. If Israel attacks too early, it may start a major war against a programme that had not yet produced a bomb and potentially accelerate the decision to weaponise afterwards. Preventive strategy therefore operates under asymmetric error costs. A false negative — incorrectly believing Iran is not close to a weapon when it actually is — could produce what Israel considers an existential security threat. A false positive — attacking because Iran appears close when it was not actually preparing a bomb — produces an unnecessary war. Governments facing perceived existential risks often become more tolerant of the second error than the first.
This is one reason Israel has historically embraced the Begin Doctrine, the principle that hostile regional states should not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. Israel destroyed Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981 and struck a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007. Those operations were comparatively contained because the targets were geographically concentrated and the adversaries possessed much weaker retaliatory capabilities. Iran is fundamentally different. Its nuclear programme is geographically dispersed, technically sophisticated and partly hardened underground. It also possesses ballistic missiles, drones and regional partners capable of retaliation. What worked as a surgical counter-proliferation strategy against Iraq therefore becomes much closer to a sustained military campaign against Iran.
The physical problem is straightforward: nuclear knowledge cannot be bombed. Israel can destroy centrifuges, laboratories, power infrastructure and missile facilities. Engineers retain knowledge. Technical documentation can survive. Replacement equipment can eventually be manufactured or acquired. A military campaign can therefore delay a nuclear programme much more easily than it can erase one permanently. The strategic value of the attack depends on how long the delay lasts and what political arrangement fills that time.
Suppose Israeli strikes delay Iran’s programme by five years but convince Tehran that only an actual nuclear weapon can prevent another attack. Israel has purchased five years while potentially making the eventual weaponisation decision more likely. Suppose instead the strikes destroy critical capabilities and are followed by a diplomatic agreement involving intrusive inspections, sanctions relief and enforceable limits. The military delay then creates space for a more durable political solution. The same bombing campaign can therefore be strategically successful or unsuccessful depending on what happens after the bombing stops.
This is why regime change rhetoric would be especially dangerous. Iran’s leadership already has incentives to interpret attacks on nuclear and military infrastructure as potentially connected to the survival of the Islamic Republic itself. If Israeli or American leaders suggest that the objective is ultimately overthrowing the regime, Tehran’s incentive to seek an ultimate deterrent becomes stronger. Leaders who believe losing a conflict means losing power, imprisonment or death become less willing to compromise. This is the authoritarian exit problem applied internationally. A government needs some tolerable future under a negotiated settlement or it has fewer reasons to negotiate.
Iran’s retaliation demonstrates that it retains substantial conventional capability despite years of sanctions and Israeli intelligence operations. Ballistic missiles are particularly important because they compress decision time. A missile launched from Iran can reach Israel quickly enough that air-defence systems and political leaders must make decisions under extreme time pressure. Israel possesses one of the world’s most sophisticated layered air-defence architectures, supported by American capabilities, but no system guarantees complete interception. Even a relatively high interception rate can allow some missiles through when salvos are sufficiently large.
This is the saturation problem. An attacker does not necessarily need better technology than the defender. It can attempt to create more simultaneous targets than the defensive system can process or intercept economically. The defender therefore faces a cost-exchange problem: sophisticated interceptors can be far more expensive than some attacking weapons, and inventories are finite. The strategic question becomes not simply whether Israel can defend against tonight’s barrage but how long it can maintain high interception rates if exchanges continue for weeks.
Iran faces the inverse problem. Its missile inventories are also finite, and Israeli strikes appear designed partly to destroy launchers and production capacity. Every missile launched now cannot be used later. Iran therefore needs to balance the political requirement to retaliate against preserving enough capability for future deterrence. This creates a dynamic inventory problem on both sides. Israel consumes interceptors to prevent damage. Iran consumes missiles to impose it. The duration of the conflict changes the relative value of each remaining weapon.
The United States consequently becomes central even if it does not join Israel’s offensive campaign directly. Washington possesses air-defence assets, intelligence capabilities and enormous diplomatic leverage. Trump had been pursuing nuclear negotiations with Iran through Oman before the Israeli attack, creating a difficult American position: the United States wants Iran prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons but also wants to avoid another major Middle Eastern war. The attack therefore tests whether American and Israeli threat perceptions have diverged over timing rather than objective. Both oppose an Iranian bomb. Israel appears to believe the military window required action now. Washington had continued testing whether diplomacy could achieve the same objective without war.
This distinction matters because alliances do not eliminate differences in risk tolerance. Israel is geographically exposed to Iranian missiles and treats the nuclear issue as existential. America possesses vastly greater strategic depth. An American president can therefore tolerate a somewhat higher probability that negotiations fail because the direct consequences are smaller. Israel rationally may demand a much lower probability of failure. This is the same asymmetric alliance risk visible between America and Ukraine, but reversed: here the smaller ally may prefer greater military risk because it perceives the underlying threat more directly.
The Gulf states have equally complicated incentives. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are strategic competitors of Iran and would prefer Tehran not possess nuclear weapons. They also have little interest in a regional war that could threaten oil infrastructure, shipping and investment. Their economies increasingly depend on presenting the Gulf as a stable destination for global capital, tourism and technology. A prolonged Israel-Iran conflict undermines that model immediately.
The Strait of Hormuz makes the global economic risk especially severe. Roughly one-fifth of global petroleum consumption has historically moved through this narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf with the Arabian Sea. Iran does not need to close the strait completely to affect prices. Mines, missile threats or attacks on tankers could increase insurance premiums and persuade shipping companies to delay transit. Markets price probability, not merely physical closure.
This means a war nominally about uranium enrichment can become an inflation shock in countries with no involvement in the conflict. Higher oil prices increase transport costs, manufacturing costs and household energy bills. Central banks that recently spent years bringing post-pandemic inflation under control could face another supply shock. The economic consequences therefore transmit through exactly the same mechanism Russia’s invasion of Ukraine demonstrated in 2022: geopolitics changes commodity supply expectations, which changes prices everywhere.
India is particularly exposed because it imports the large majority of the crude oil it consumes. Higher oil prices worsen the current account, increase transport and production costs and can place pressure on inflation and government finances. India simultaneously maintains important strategic relationships with Israel, Iran, the Gulf states and the United States, giving New Delhi strong incentives to favour de-escalation rather than align completely with one side. This is another situation where strategic autonomy is economically grounded rather than merely ideological. India cannot afford to treat Iran as irrelevant because geography, energy and connectivity matter. It cannot treat Israel as irrelevant because defence and technology cooperation matter. Maintaining relationships with both creates diplomatic flexibility precisely during crises such as this one.
The war could also transform the global non-proliferation regime. Countries considering nuclear weapons will study what happens to Iran closely. Ukraine surrendered inherited Soviet nuclear weapons and was later invaded by Russia. Libya abandoned its nuclear programme and Muammar Gaddafi’s regime was later overthrown after Western intervention. Iran remained formally non-nuclear and has now been attacked partly because Israel feared it was approaching nuclear capability. These cases are different, but strategic decision-makers can construct a simple lesson from them: states without nuclear weapons can be attacked; nuclear-armed states are much harder to attack directly.
North Korea provides the obvious comparison. Pyongyang possesses nuclear weapons and faces sanctions and isolation, but external governments treat military action against it with extreme caution. If Iran concludes that nuclear latency produced vulnerability while actual nuclear possession produces deterrence, the incentive structure of the non-proliferation system deteriorates. That is why diplomacy after the current conflict matters far beyond Iran. The world needs to demonstrate that remaining non-nuclear can produce a stable security equilibrium rather than simply leaving states exposed until an adversary decides their programme has become too dangerous.
This does not mean the international community should have accepted unlimited Iranian enrichment. A system in which states can approach weapons capability indefinitely while using negotiations merely to gain time would also destroy non-proliferation. The challenge is creating credible reciprocal restraint. Iran needs to accept limits and inspections strong enough that weaponisation would be detected. Israel and the United States need to make compliance valuable enough that Iran prefers remaining below the threshold. Sanctions relief, economic integration and security arrangements can provide benefits. Snapback sanctions and monitoring provide enforcement.
The alternative is permanent preventive warfare, and that equilibrium is extraordinarily unstable. Every few years Iran rebuilds. Israel strikes. Iran retaliates. The programme disperses further underground. Intelligence becomes harder. Eventually one side miscalculates. Military superiority can manage proliferation repeatedly without necessarily solving it.
Domestic Iranian politics may move in either direction. Israeli leaders may hope military pressure weakens the regime and increases public opposition. Iran has experienced major protests over economic conditions and political repression, and many Iranians deeply oppose the government. Yet foreign attack often produces a rally-around-the-flag effect, at least temporarily, because citizens who dislike their government can still oppose another state bombing their country. External coercion therefore can strengthen national solidarity around regimes it is intended to weaken.
This is why predicting regime collapse from air strikes is dangerous. Authoritarian systems often look fragile because public dissatisfaction is high. Their survival depends more heavily on security institutions, elite cohesion and the absence of an organised alternative than on ordinary popularity. Bombing can weaken military infrastructure while strengthening the government’s nationalist narrative. Again, tactical damage and political effect do not necessarily move in the same direction.
Israel faces domestic constraints too. The war in Gaza remains unresolved, hostages remain a central political issue and Israeli forces have operated across several fronts since October 2023. Opening a sustained conflict with Iran increases military expenditure, reserve mobilisation and civilian risk. The Israeli public may initially rally behind action against a widely perceived strategic threat, but support could change if missile attacks continue or the campaign lacks a clear endpoint.
That endpoint is currently the largest unanswered question.
What would constitute Israeli success?
Destroying Natanz?
Eliminating Iran’s current enriched uranium stock?
Destroying ballistic-missile production?
Obtaining a new nuclear agreement?
Regime change?
A temporary delay?
Without a clear answer, military operations can continue because every additional target appears relevant to preventing future threats.
This is mission expansion through strategic ambiguity.
The narrower the objective, the easier it is to know when force has achieved it.
If the objective is “Iran must never be capable of threatening Israel”, no military campaign can conclusively finish.
Iran is a country of roughly ninety million people with substantial scientific and industrial capacity.
It cannot be permanently disarmed from the air.
A sustainable Israeli strategy therefore eventually requires an Iranian state whose incentives make particular capabilities unnecessary or too costly to pursue.
That is diplomacy’s role.
This may sound premature while missiles are still flying.
It is exactly when the question becomes necessary.
Wars are easiest to start when governments possess clear immediate targets.
They become difficult to end when military success does not define the political settlement afterwards.
Israel has demonstrated extraordinary intelligence and operational capability repeatedly over the past year, from Hezbollah’s leadership to Iranian air defences and now nuclear infrastructure. The remaining question is whether operational superiority can be converted into a stable regional order.
Iran has demonstrated that it retains enough missile capability to impose costs despite Israeli superiority.
Neither fact produces a political solution.
The best plausible outcome may therefore resemble coercive diplomacy rather than complete victory: Israel demonstrates that approaching weaponisation carries unacceptable military risk; Iran demonstrates that attacks on its territory carry substantial retaliatory cost; both eventually accept an internationally monitored nuclear framework because continued confrontation becomes more expensive than restraint.
That would not create friendship.
It would create mutual deterrence below the nuclear threshold.
The worst outcome is the opposite. Israel’s strikes convince Iran that only a bomb guarantees survival. Iran’s retaliation convinces Israel that Iran cannot safely be allowed even latent nuclear capacity. Each side therefore interprets the other’s behaviour as proof that its own most aggressive strategy was correct.
That is a self-confirming security dilemma.
Israel says: Iran’s missiles prove why its nuclear programme is intolerable.
Iran says: Israel’s attack proves why we need an ultimate deterrent.
Both arguments can become internally rational.
Together they create an increasingly dangerous region.
The next several days will focus on missiles, casualties, commanders and nuclear facilities. Those details matter. The longer-term outcome will depend on something less visible:
what lesson Iran learns from being attacked before it possessed a nuclear weapon, and what lesson Israel learns from discovering that preventing one may require a war whose endpoint air power alone cannot define.
If Iran concludes that nuclear weapons are now more necessary, the strikes may have delayed the programme physically while accelerating it strategically.
If the conflict instead produces an enforceable agreement that leaves Iran non-nuclear and Israel more secure, the military campaign may ultimately be judged very differently.
That distinction will take years to establish.
For now, the Middle East has crossed another threshold.
The Israel-Iran shadow war is no longer in the shadows.
And once states begin attacking the capabilities designed to deter future wars, they face the central paradox of preventive strategy:
sometimes the attempt to stop an adversary from acquiring deterrence becomes the strongest argument for why the adversary wanted deterrence in the first place.
