Wars are not decided by intent alone; they are decided by sustainability. The United States today faces a decision matrix in which military capability is not the central question. Escalation control is. American forces in the Arabian Sea signal readiness. Diplomacy through Oman signals restraint. Yet readiness and restraint can coexist only until the first irreversible exchange. The closer Washington moves toward punitive action against Iran, the more it must calculate not how to begin a conflict, but how to prevent it from expanding beyond design.
Punitive strikes on critical assets of Iran would be a prolonged game of strikes and counterstrikes that would demand, not merely in munitions, but in political stamina and economic resilience. For the domestic audience, it will also bring the sensitive trauma of body bags, which remains a national sensitivity.
Any sustained American operation would almost certainly extend beyond nuclear facilities. Iranian command nodes, internal security organs and military infrastructure would be targeted. US planners are under no illusion that such action would go unanswered. Retaliation is assumed, not feared as a remote contingency. A cycle of strikes and counter-strikes would follow. Once begun, the tempo and escalatory ladder would be difficult to regulate. That is precisely the challenge the USA faces.
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From Washington’s perspective, any approach toward Iran is anchored in three enduring priorities. The first is preventing Iran from fielding an operational nuclear weapon. The second is protecting Israel and Gulf partners from missile and proxy attacks. The third is avoiding a large-scale Middle Eastern war that drains resources and attention from long-term competition elsewhere. A sustained, theatre-wide conflict with Iran would collide with all three priorities simultaneously.
Iran is not a permissive target for decisive military coercion. Geography alone complicates the use of airpower. Key facilities are dispersed, hardened, and layered within dense defensive networks. More importantly, Iran’s deterrence posture is not designed to win wars quickly. It is designed to make wars last.
The prevailing misconception in Western commentary is that overwhelming force produces rapid resolution. Iran has structured its defence posture to challenge that assumption. Tehran’s objective is not to win quickly. It is to deny its adversary the comfort of a short war. It is to saturate the battlespace with precise mass standoff warfare.
Iran’s preference is for a punitive response rather than a defensive shield, which exposes the asymmetry. Interceptors are cost-prohibitive, vulnerable and finite. Missiles and drones are cheaper, scalable and easier to replenish. Even high interception rates impose a cost if salvos continue over time. The strategic question is therefore not whether defences can hold on the first day, but whether inventories can sustain effectiveness over weeks. Iran does not need to overwhelm defences; it needs only to ensure that depletion becomes a constraint and duration becomes a weapon.
Recent confrontations in the region demonstrated how quickly interceptor stocks can be drawn down. Replenishment timelines stretch well beyond a single budget cycle. Every system deployed in the Middle East reduces flexibility elsewhere, particularly as strategic competition in Asia intensifies. Iran does not need to overwhelm American defences. It only needs to ensure that depletion becomes a constraint and saturation becomes an asset.
Iran’s strike doctrine rests on diversification. Ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones are deployed not as isolated tools but as a layered network. Drones force constant air patrols. Cruise missiles complicate radar coverage and airspace management. Ballistic missiles strain interceptor inventories. Even unsuccessful attacks generate economic and psychological pressure. The goal is steady attrition.
This logic extends beyond land-based strikes. The maritime environment in the Gulf is inherently restrictive. Narrow waterways favour land-based missile systems and complicate naval manoeuvres. American carriers can operate at a distance, but distance comes at a price. Sortie rates fall. Dependence on tankers and long-range munitions rises. Operational tempo becomes harder to sustain. None of this requires dramatic losses. Friction alone reshapes outcomes.
The economic dimension is equally significant. Iran’s leverage over regional states does not rest solely on oil infrastructure. Airspace is an overlooked vulnerability. Gulf aviation hubs depend on uninterrupted commercial traffic. The presence of cruise missiles and drone forces requires precautionary closures even when interception rates are high. In such a situation, disruption creates financial volatility, a rise in energy prices with rerouting, and regional fallouts. Regional governments understand this exposure. Their mediation efforts reflect calculation rather than sentiment.
Israel’s posture adds volatility. Israeli leaders maintain a far lower tolerance for Iranian nuclear latency than Washington. Should Jerusalem judge diplomacy exhausted, unilateral action remains plausible. In that scenario, American involvement would follow, though not necessarily as an open-ended campaign. The United States would likely seek to limit escalation while reinforcing Israeli defence.
Regional escalation remains a real risk, which could have a spillover effect and involvement of out-of-region forces. Iran’s strategic asset in terms of non-state actors in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen could make them active theatres. Maritime traffic in the Red Sea could face renewed disruption. Energy markets would face the shock within hours. What began as a limited counter-strike action could create complexities, as in the past in Afghanistan and Syria, with a protracted war.
External powers are not neutral observers. The new emerging axis of China- Russia-Iran (North Korea??) remains to be tested, yet cannot be ignored. Moscow has little incentive to see Washington entangled in a protracted conflict, but it has even less incentive to be a silent observer of American unilateralism. Collusive support by way of Intelligence sharing, diplomatic shielding or calibrated material support to Tehran cannot be ruled out if hostilities escalate. Russia’s interest lies in complicating US calculations without becoming directly exposed.
China approaches the situation from a different angle. Beijing’s primary concern is the stability of energy flows and trade routes on which its economy depends. Open war in the Gulf would damage those interests. Iran has presumably received some Dongfeng 17 missiles from China reshapes deterrence signalling. The introduction of hypersonic technology like the DF-17 into this region would be a massive shift in the strategic balance. If true, it definitely changes the calculus for missile defence in the Middle East. Yet China also observes that the US's prolonged distraction in the Middle East will be at the cost of its strategic space in Indo-Pacific and a dent in the American economy. Thus, while its preference remains a call for restraint for its energy security, it arms Iran and will exploit American strategic bandwidth if it narrows elsewhere.
This wider context matters as the strategic competition is not restricted to one theatre, and resources, particularly interceptors, are limited. Every additional carrier deployment compresses maintenance cycles and stretches personnel. Every extended deployment carries opportunity costs that are felt beyond the Middle East. That reality tempers appetite for escalation.
Domestic politics reinforces these limits. Public tolerance in the United States for prolonged Middle Eastern conflict is low. Any prolonged conflict will create economic turbulence, test public tolerance, and complicate broader strategic objectives that require concentration rather than dispersion of resources.
A war in Iran poses severe economic, political and diplomatic challenges for India. Energy security and crude costs would escalate immediately. Diplomatically and politically, the balancing of Washington, Tehran and Gulf partners could create complexity. India’s national interest lies in the stability, even if it is a strategic unease rather than an escalation.
Together, the present arithmetic and strategic wisdom point toward sustained pressure and coercive diplomacy rather than a war. External powers will hedge. Regional actors will mediate. War remains an option, but not a preferred instrument. The decisive variable is not American capability, nor Iranian resolve. It is a duration. If conflict begins, it will not be settled by the first exchange, but by the side that sustains escalation at an acceptable cost. Under present conditions, Washington seeks leverage without entanglement. Restraint persists not from trust, but from calculation. The arithmetic of escalation favours endurance over impulse.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.