John Raine, Fabian Hinz, Nick Childs & Julia Voo
Tehran’s attack on Israel on 13–14 April and Israel’s reciprocal attack on Isfahan on 19 April marked a sharp escalation in the decades-long conflict between the two states: from indirect to direct confrontation. This escalation set a precedent for a new phase in which the two states attack each other’s sovereign territory directly through conventional military means. The attacks raised the possibility of ‘all-out war’ between the two states, which became, if not imminent, then at least conceivable in the new paradigm. All-out war could take the form of direct attacks on sovereign territory and infrastructure to settle a conflict, as witnessed recently in the Russia–Ukraine war and the second Nagorno-Karabakh war.
But despite the recent escalation there remain critical constraints on the ability of both Iran and Israel to escalate further to a level of conflict which might qualify as all-out war. These constraints are determined not only by political and geostrategic considerations but by the military balance between the two states.
Not built for major warWhile both sides have relatively large defence establishments, they are structurally offset (with each force emphasising different capabilities) and neither side possesses adequate military capabilities to fight a sustained and direct conflict with the other. Excluding Israel’s undeclared nuclear capability, both sides arguably lack the ability to overwhelm militarily the other. Iran’s physical size, the dispersal of its assets and its arsenal of asymmetric proxies give it a resilience which compensates for it being outgunned by Israel. The latter has shown that it has not only sophisticated defences but also partners willing to supplement them with critical capabilities.
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