For some time, people thinking about the changing nature of military conflict—especially those examining the recent experiences of Israel and Ukraine and what they might imply for a confrontation between the U.S. and China—have been speaking about the problem of “missile math.” This new form of arithmetic primarily involves two calculations: will one side run out of missiles, rockets, and drones before the other runs out of the interceptors used to shoot them down? Or, more likely, vice versa? And does the high cost of anti-missiles systems, compared with the low cost of drones and rockets, bestow an untenable economic cost on the defenders?
Iran, like Hamas and Hezbollah once upon a time, would not want Israel and the US to run out of interceptors.
ReplyDeleteThink about it with Hamas and Hezbollah. Before the October 7 war they were contantly firing rockets at Israel. Israel intercepted almost all of them so there was rarely any significant damage and even when that happened, not enough to say "Okay, let's level Gaza." Even if Israel got mad enough to invade, the liberal Western response was "Well you've got Iron Dome so it's not like you were hurt so just keep absorbing the hits."
Then October 7 happened and Israel levelled Gaza. No Western liberal crying would have changed that.
Right now Iran is firing away but knows that the chance of a real hit - a nuclear plant, the airport, a major power plant or even a school or shopping mall, is very remote. As long as most of the missles are intercepted and the ones that get through don't cause a major catastrophe, then the war just drags on.
But if the interceptors run out, now the missles are a real threat. Imagine a signficant hit on an Israeli target. The Israelis and Americans will likely level Tehran and every other target like power plants, water treatment plants, anything they're been careful about until now. And if Iran hits an Arab target, that formally brings multiple Arab countries into the war and they would all love a chance to smack Iran around.
Iran knows this and hopefully they will slow down as they realize they are getting closer to having no interceptions.
You really do not understand them, do you?
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