Surgical strikes leading to a successful regime change or will we see a ‘Mission Accomplished’ moment in the Middle East once again? ⬇️
No doubt many who read our content spent at least some of the weekend ‘monitoring the situation’. Operation Epic Fury has seen numerous strikes by the US and Israel across Iran. Iran has responded with attacks targeting US forces in the Middle East and a wide range of strikes in places such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in his office in Tehran in one of the early strikes, a clear indication that the United States is keen to achieve a regime change with a limited conflict. Of course, the unintended consequences of initiating conflict are always lurking in the fog of war.
What to watch as conflict continues will be when bins start to run empty. It has long been feared that interceptors will be exhausted before Iran’s stocks of drones and missiles run dry. Will the US and its allies be able to degrade Iran’s strike complex before Air and Missile Defences in the region start to falter? As the Wall Street Journal reports:
“When the U.S. military’s top general laid out the risks to President Trump of launching a major and extended attack on Iran, one of the issues flagged was America’s stockpile of munitions. Now that is being put to the test, as the U.S. races to destroy Iran’s missile and drone force before it runs out of interceptors…”
It is also important to remember that what we see unfolding in the Middle East is most certainly applicable in our own region. The proliferation of precision strike launched from air, land or sea means that defending against missiles and drones will be a critical capability to Homeland Defence and indeed force protection for our deployed forces.
This is exactly why the Defence Strategic Review highlighted the need to accelerate procurement and introduction into service of a layered and integrated system to defence against attacks like we are seeing unfold on an hourly basis in the Middle East:
“Defence must deliver a layered integrated air and missile defence (IAMD) operational capability urgently. This must comprise a suite of appropriate command and control systems, sensors, air defence aircraft and surface (land and maritime) based missile defences.“
What’s happening to Dubai can just as easily happen in Darwin. Long range strikes on the Australian mainland happened throughout WWII and will happen again if competition turns to conflict in our region.
Food for thought as always and articles mentioned are in the comments.
📷 via Responsible Statecraft