University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape offers a pessimistic take of “Israel’s Futile Air War” for Foreign Affairs.
Over the past week, Israel has engaged in a protracted air campaign in Iran to achieve something no other country has ever done before: topple a government and eliminate its major military capability using airpower alone. Israel’s attempt to achieve these highly ambitious goals with an air campaign and sophisticated intelligence networks, but without the deployment of a ground army, has no modern precedent. The United States never succeeded in achieving such goals just through airstrikes during the massive strategic bombing campaigns of World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the wars in the Balkans, or the Iraq war. Nor did the Soviet Union and Russia in Afghanistan, Chechnya, or Ukraine. And Israel itself has never attempted such a campaign in previous conflicts in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, or even in its most recent operation in Gaza.
Israel, the strongest military power in the Middle East, has scored numerous tactical successes using precision airpower and exquisite intelligence since Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023. The Israel Defense Forces have assassinated senior leaders in Iran’s proxy organizations, including much of Hezbollah’s mid- and high-level leadership. In a previous exchange of missile fire in April, the IDF destroyed a variety of Iran’s air defenses and missile capabilities. And its most recent attacks on Iran have killed senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders, destroyed important regime communication systems, damaged important economic targets, and degraded some of Iran’s nuclear program.
But even as it continues to score individual victories, Israel appears to be falling into the “smart-bomb trap,” in which overconfidence in precision weapons and intelligence not only allows the country’s leaders to believe that they can stop an Iranian nuclear breakout and even topple the regime of the Islamic Republic but also leaves Israel less secure than before. Airpower, no matter how targeted and intense, is not certain to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program in its entirety, nor will it clear a path for regime change in Tehran. In fact, if the historical record is any indication, Israel’s overconfidence in what its technologically advanced weapons can do is likely to harden Iran’s resolve and produce the opposite of its intended results: a more dangerous Iran, now armed with nuclear weapons. Without a ground invasion (highly improbable) or direct U.S. support (which the Trump administration may be wary to provide), Israel’s military successes in Iran and beyond could very well be short-lived.
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Israel faces three impediments to knocking out these facilities altogether. First, much of Iran’s nuclear program, including its uranium enrichment facilities, is buried deep underground. The well-developed facility at Fordow is burrowed hundreds of feet under a mountain, and a new underground facility at Natanz, at depths similar to Fordow, has been under construction for several years. Thus far, Israel has not targeted Fordow at all and has limited its attacks on Natanz to its power generation facilities rather than attempting to destroy the centrifuges and stockpiles of enriched uranium buried 75 feet under the surface. No available evidence suggests that Israel has the airpower payload capacity to carry the 30,000-pound large earth-penetrating bombs developed by the United States that would be necessary to carry out an attack to totally destroy Fordow. The fact that it has not already attempted to attack the shallower underground chambers at Natanz suggests it faces constraints, either from the United States or from its own limited firepower, against even these more vulnerable facilities. Israeli military leaders seem to acknowledge the fact that a decisive operation against Fordow would be impossible without U.S. support: former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant stressed that the United States has “an obligation” to join Israel’s military campaign against Iran’s nuclear program.
What if the United States, with its bunker-busting bombs, joins the attack? Could Israel actually knock out Iran’s weapons program with such support? Even if President Donald Trump were to take up Gallant’s request to bomb Fordow, and even if the United States’ large bunker-buster bombs could burrow all the way into Fordow’s most deeply buried chambers, the United States and Israel would still face more challenges to eliminating Iran’s ability to acquire nuclear weapons. There would be no “mission accomplished” moment in which both countries could conclude with absolute confidence that Iran could not proceed covertly. If anything, a U.S.-assisted attack on Iranian facilities would only put the United States directly in Iran’s nuclear cross hairs rather than solve the problem for good.
Second, aside from Iran’s enrichment facilities, the Bushehr reactor, which is approximately 11 miles southeast of the city of Bushehr, presents a significant challenge. The reactor can be modified to generate plutonium that could be used for nuclear weapons. This risk cannot be eliminated as long as the reactor exists. But if Israel were to destroy the Bushehr reactor, it could risk the release of a Chernobyl-like radiological plume over the city, which is home to roughly 200,000 people, as well as over population centers across the Persian Gulf. It would also invite Iranian ballistic missile retaliation against Israel’s nuclear reactor complex at Dimona.
Last, and most important, even following extensive airstrikes against the nuclear facilities, significant uncertainty about the condition of surviving elements and their ability to be reconstituted would remain. Without onsite inspections, Israel would not be able to conduct reliable assessments of the damage done to Iran’s uranium enrichment capabilities and existing stocks of enriched uranium. Iran is not likely to allow international inspectors, much less U.S. or Israeli teams, to assess the exact degree of damage to its enriched uranium stocks, determine whether usable equipment or material has been removed before or after strikes, or pinpoint the manufacturing locations for the components for Iran’s significant domestic centrifuge production. Commando teams could attempt onsite reconnaissance but would face obvious risks of attack by Iranian forces. This lack of knowledge means that Israel—even with the United States’ help—would never be confident that Iran no longer has a path to the bomb. Concerns about Iran nuclearizing in secret would fester, mirroring the fears that drove the United States in 2003 to launch a ground war to conquer Iraq in search of nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.
Pape became famous in IR circles for his 1996 book, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War. This basically ties that book’s thesis to this campaign.
As the son of a soldier who also served in the Army and spent the last dozen years working for the Marine Corps, I’m naturally sympathetic to the value of ground forces in combat. Ultimately, objectives must be seized and held.
Still, if the goal is simply setting back Iran’s nuclear program by several years, that’s likely achievable through airpower. Indeed, it may have already been achieved.
A further reasonable goal, likely achievable through an air campaign, is to force Iran back to the table for the reinstatement of the JCPOA or even an enhanced version of same. Alas, Israel seems to have no interest in that.
If the goal is regime change, that will almost surely require action by people on the ground. But not necessarily—or even desirably—Israeli or American ground forces. The obvious candidate, the military, is unlikely given the degree to which the IRGC is selected and scrutinized for loyalty to the regime. And mass uprising is a hell of a collective action problem in a police state.
