What can Israel expect in its next war with Iran?

Israel learned from the 2024 attacks. During the 12-day war in June, Israel focused on taking out Iranian missile launchers, and it appears many of them were destroyed in the war.

On July 17, Israel’sDefense Ministry announced that it had signed a contract to accelerate the acquisition of Arrow interceptors. The ministry said in a statement that the Arrow system, which was developed and manufactured in cooperation with the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA), “demonstrated significant interception capabilities during the Swords of Iron War, especially during Operation Rising Lion.”

The decision to acquire more of the interceptors would seem obvious. However, it’s part of the much larger series of lessons that have been learned in the recent 12-day war. A month after Operation Rising Lion, what are the technological lessons learned? What should Israel expect in a future war with Iran?

Iran launched an estimated 550 ballistic missiles at Israel between June 13 and June 24. Most of the launches took place in the early days of the war. Iran was caught by surprise by the Israeli attack. It appears that Iran struggled to keep up a volume of missile fire in the 12-day war.

This is in contrast to the two attacks Iran carried out on Israel in 2024. Iran targeted Israel with ballistic missiles and drones in April 2024. It also carried out another mass attack in October using ballistic missiles. These attacks were both planned in advance by Iran. It does not appear that there was much effort to suppress Iran’s ability to launch missiles at Israel.

Israel learned from the 2024 attacks. During the 12-day war in June, Israel focused on taking out Iranian missile launchers, and it is likely that many of them were destroyed in the war. This prevented Iran from launching large-scale attacks with hundreds of missiles simultaneously.

Instead, Iran was forced to carry out a few attacks with launchers that had to be increasingly positioned in central or eastern Iran. Israel’s ability to carry out a large number of aerial sorties over Iran, and the use of drones as part of the make-up of the sorties, successfully suppressed Iran’s threats.

Of more interest is the fact that around ninety-nine percent of the Iranian drone threat was intercepted, or failed to reach Israel. In warfare, it’s very rare to get to a 99 percent figure. For instance, for Iron Dome interceptions, the percentage is usually assumed to be in the nineties, but not 99 percent.

The interception rate of the Iranian ballistic missiles was not nearly as high; it is estimated at 86 percent. Some missiles penetrated Israel’s air defenses with devastating results. Around thirty people were killed and thousands wounded in the Iranian attacks.

In essence, the war has taught Israel that forty years of investments in air defenses have paid off. The Arrow program has its origins in the 1980s. The Scud threat, which saw Saddam Hussein launch Scud missiles at Israel in the 1991 Gulf War, showed that Israel needed air defenses.

The US-made Patriot at the time was not enough, and it was also subsequently shown not to have performed well in 1991. That showed that the US, Israel, and the West had a lot to learn. Luckily for Israel, there were no more Saddam Hussein-type regimes in the 1990s that posed such a threat. Israel had time to work on technologies for defending the country.

The Second Intifada distracted Israel a bit from this course because Israel had to deal with an insurgency in the West Bank and Gaza. The 2006 war with Hezbollah showed that Israel badly needed to play catch-up in terms of improving its air defenses. The result was the Iron Dome system. A decade later, David’s Sling, a medium-range interceptor, and then Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 were ready to see action.

David’s Sling and Arrow have proven themselves in the Iron Swords War that began with the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and in Rising Lion. Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems produces David’s Sling and Iron Dome, and Israel Aerospace Industries produces Arrow.

Air defense technology is not the only thing that Israel has seen succeed in the recent war. Israel’s Air Force also performed phenomenally in the war with Iran. Not all the technologies are known, however, some of the details have been revealed.

Israel's attacks on Iran used systems manufactured by Iran

Israel’s Channel 12 noted that “the Air Force carried out dozens of attacks on nuclear facilities in Iran and the capital of the Islamic Republic, Tehran. Today (Wednesday, July 16), it can be revealed that during the attacks by the Air Force aircraft in Iran, the aircraft were equipped with ‘self-defense suites’ manufactured by Elbit Systems, which constituted an additional and critical layer of protection against threats to Israeli fighter jets, which recorded unprecedented success.”

Israel had a lot of time to troubleshoot and learn what worked and didn’t work in the lead-up to the 12-day battle. First of all, Israel had to deal with the Hamas attack on October 7 and the subsequent war. That war has dragged on and is mostly a grueling ground war using tanks and infantry. While some new technologies were rolled out in Gaza, they are designed to deal with insurgent threats mostly.

Where Israel got to learn how the Iranian challenge might play out was in the war with the Houthis and Hezbollah. Israel carried out around half a dozen major air raids on the Houthis. These were long-range strikes over more than 2,000km. That meant that Israel used drones, various types of F-16s, F-15s, and F-35s, as well as refuelers in the strikes.

Israel also carried out long-range strikes on Iran in October 2024 in response to the Iranian attack. In addition, Israel was able to successfully suppress a large volume of missile fire by Hezbollah, partly by destroying rocket and missile stocks, and also by hitting Hezbollah command and control.

A major lesson of the conflict with Iran is that the Iranian military model is not as relevant as it seems. Iran pushed to arm its proxies in the region. The proxies are dangerous, and they have bedeviled other countries, such as Saudi Arabia. Iran also launched a direct attack on Saudi Arabia using drones and cruise missiles in 2019. This was a curtain raiser into Iran’s way of war.

Iranian-backed militias in Iraq also attacked US forces with drones and rockets. Iran may have improved its drones and missiles over time, but its arsenal is vulnerable to defeat. Iran’s drones, primarily the Shahed 136, has been exported to Russia for use against Ukraine, for instance.

However, the Ukrainians have shown that the drone threat can be mostly neutralized. This doesn’t mean they reached the 99 percent interception rate that Israel apparently achieved; however, Kyiv has been successful in stopping many drones.

Iran’s drone and missile technology may have peaked in this war. Iran will continue to try to make the missiles more precise and increase their range or their features; however, the missiles have been shown to be a false hope for Tehran. Iran has boasted in the past of developing “hypersonic” missiles.

Most ballistic missiles reach hypersonic speeds by virtue of their trajectory; however, that doesn’t mean they have the capability to maneuver. It is the maneuver element in the “hypersonic” threat that matters most. Iran likes to talk about its accomplishments, but its missiles and drones continue to show signs of vulnerability.

Missiles and drones also don’t win wars on their own. The Nazis developed the world’s first widely produced ballistic missile during the Second World War. This was the V-2. They also developed the first version of a type of cruise missile, called the V-1. The two systems terrorized the UK but didn’t win the war for Germany. Saddam’s experience with Scuds should serve as a cautionary tale for regimes that trust in this technology. It isn’t the game changer it seems to be.

Iran’s regime includes many intelligent people, and they will want to create new threats for Israel. They continue to traffic arms to the Houthis, as revealed by a recent shipment that was seized. The shipment included engines for drones and a wide variety of technology for drones and missiles.

Clearly, Iran hasn’t learned its lesson. It will continue to go down the path of missiles and drones because it doesn’t have much else to invest in. Israel should be wary of Iran’s asymmetric threats, such as plots abroad. However, Iran’s conventional forces will need to rethink their defense technology in any future round.