Operation Rising Lion: Initial Assessment and Implications

Israeli air superiority, the failures of Iranian grand strategy, and strategic-level targeting

Picture: Ministry of Defense Israel

Escalation in the Middle East has reached a new high. Following multiple exchanges between Israel and Iran throughout 2024, Israel has now launched a major military campaign aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

This post offers initial analytical insights into the Israeli campaign and the Iranian response that is now unfolding. As the operational picture remains incomplete, the focus here is on broader trends and implications rather than detailed operational developments.

What happened

Between June 12 and 13, Israeli forces launched “Operation Rising Lion”, conducting large-scale airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and related assets in an effort to halt Iranian nuclear proliferation.

The operation targeted over 100 sites, including nuclear facilities at Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan, as well as ballistic missile and command centers in multiple cities. Initial battle damage assessments indicate that above-ground nuclear infrastructure, such as the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz, and critical electricity assets, including transformer stations and backup generators, sustained heavy damage. Underground facilities, however, appear to have remained intact after initial strikes.

The strikes also killed several senior Iranian military officials, including IRGC head Hossein Salami, Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri, missile program commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh, and six nuclear scientists.

In direct response, Iran initiated “Operation True Promise III”, firing several hundred ballistic missiles in several volleys. Israel’s missile defense system managed to intercept the majority of incoming projectiles, though several ballistic missiles “leaked”, killing at least three civilians and injuring several dozen more.

Both sides have now been launching attacks for several consecutive days, with no clear end in sight.

Israeli air superiority and Iranian grand strategic failure

One of the most striking aspects of Israel’s operation is the level of air superiority it achieved in a short period. Early in the campaign, Israel appears to have neutralized key air and missile defense systems using long-range strike assets, particularly air-launched ballistic missiles, before entering Iranian airspace with minimal resistance.

Since then, Israeli aircraft, including fourth-generation platforms like the F-15, which lack the stealth features of fifth-generation systems such as the F-35, have operated with relative freedom over Iranian territory.

The unfolding of the operation closely mirrors Israel’s preferred theory of victory (similar to the United States and NATO’s): first establish air superiority, then achieve air dominance, thereby denying the adversary meaningful freedom of movement and initiative from the outset.

At the same time, the episode exposes a profound failure in Iranian grand strategy, particularly in its inability to prevent Israel from executing its preferred theory of victory. Iran’s decades-long focus on arming and politically empowering regional proxies, while underinvesting in critical components of its own armed forces, notably air defense, has left it vulnerable.

Iran has developed a credible and capable missile arsenal and extended this capability to proxy forces, which has provided it with coercive leverage in crises and sub-conventional conflicts. However, this strategy appears to offer little utility in the current context. Iran can retaliate to some degree, but it cannot defend its territory effectively. Its regional proxies (most notably Hezbollah), meanwhile, have failed to mount any decisive action in support of Tehran.

To be sure, there is a plausible argument that any attempt by Iran to symmetrically counter Israel’s airpower through advanced air defense system — mirroring how Russia has responded to NATO airpower — was unlikely to succeed, given Israel’s access to superior domestic and imported technologies. Still, Iran’s current allocation of resources appears clearly suboptimal.

Iranian retaliation and Israeli air interdiction

Israeli missile defense appears to have performed relatively well in response to Iran’s retaliatory strikes, though not without shortcomings. As with Iran’s last large-scale ballistic missile attack in October 2024, saturation tactics seem to have allowed some projectiles to bypass Israeli defenses and reach their targets.

The most notable aspect of Israel’s missile defense, however, has been its offensive air interdiction effort. Rather than relying solely on defensive systems, Israel preemptively targeted Iran’s ballistic missiles, launchers, production and storage facilities, and related infrastructure.

So far, well over a dozen videos have surfaced, showing Israeli aircraft employing guided bombs to destroy loaded Iranian transporter-erector launchers, likely prepositioned for swift retaliation. Additional footage confirms strikes on missile storage facilities triggering secondary explosions, presumably from stored missiles.

According to reporting from the New York Times, Iran initially planned to retaliate with a massive salvo of up to 1,000 ballistic missiles, a volume that would have almost certainly overwhelmed Israeli missile defenses. I’m somewhat skeptical of that figure, given that Iran’s overall MRBM arsenal was estimated at around 1,000 missiles, likely a bit more. Still, there is a strong likelihood that Iran initially intended to retaliate both more massively and more quickly than what ultimately occurred.

Iran’s retaliatory plan was likely disrupted by Israel’s large-scale and effective air interdiction campaign, which delayed, degraded, and destroyed key elements of Iran’s ballistic missile forces, preventing the attack from materializing.

Crucially, this interdiction effort was only possible because Israel had already established air superiority — and arguably air dominance — over large parts of Iran, enabling direct engagement of critical infrastructure and assets. Such operations would not have been feasible if Israel had been limited to stand-off munitions.

There are also reports, though still unconfirmed and somewhat speculative, that Iran may be facing a shortage of launcher platforms, limiting its ability to generate large ballistic missile salvos. If accurate, this would mean Israel’s interdiction efforts would continue to have a disproportionate impact, even if Iran retains substantial missile stockpiles in underground tunnels and mountain facilities.

Iraninan countervalue strikes

Iran’s eventual response in the form of ballistic missile volleys also warrants attention. Several videos circulating on social media show warheads impacting in downtown Tel Aviv.

In my initial assessment, I described this as the largest conventional countervalue strike conducted with ballistic missiles in history. A countervalue strike targets civilian population centers, critical infrastructure, and economic assets with the aim of inflicting maximum societal damage.

This framing was criticized by some analysts, who argued there is no clear evidence that Iran deliberately targeted civilian or economic sites, suggesting the intended targets were military infrastructure. I agree that right now there is no evidence of deliberate countervalue targeting.

However, even if the strike was not countervalue in intent, it clearly was in effect — and Iran must have been aware of this. Given the demonstrated inaccuracy of its medium-range ballistic missiles in past engagements, Iranian targeting planners and political leadership knew that such an attack risked significant civilian harm.

At the very least, the strike signals a marked loosening of Iran’s previous constraints. Iran was not deterred by the possibility of generating countervalue effects. That said, there is clearly a qualitative difference between engaging countervalue targets as primary objectives and causing countervalue effects as collateral outcomes, which my initial reaction did not fully acknowledge.

Israeli decapitation attempts

Lastly, as part of Iran’s interdiction effort as well as its broader strategic-level effort to undermine Iran’s regime stability, Israel appears to have conducted a rather impressive and effective counter-leadership campaign aimed at degrading Iran’s military and political command and control.

Counter-leadership — sometimes referred to as decapitation — strikes have long held a prominent place in U.S. airpower doctrine. Most notably, Colonel John Warden placed enemy leadership at the center of his widely discussed (and controversial) “five rings model”, which outlines the most important targets that must be prosecuted in a strategic air campaign.

In practice, however, counter-leadership targeting has rarely delivered decisive results. Political and military leaders often prove too elusive, avoiding elimination, while command-and-control structures remain resilient and adaptable. Even when leadership is neutralized, disruption tends to be limited, with replacements stepping in quickly and effects failing to cascade rapidly enough to produce meaningful tactical or operational-level effects.

While the full impact of Israel’s counter-leadership strikes remains to be seen, early reporting indicates that the removal of key figures across military, political, and scientific sectors may have left the Iranian leadership unprepared to respond decisively, and effectively disrupted its immediate military reaction.

If this reporting is confirmed, Israel may have executed one of the most effective state-to-state counter-leadership campaigns in history, and, in fact, one of the rare cases where such targeting may have delivered strategically decisive results.