The Lesson of Israel’s Success in the Air

https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/archive/2025/07/israel-iran-airstrikes-success/683443/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social&utm_content=edit-promo

Posted by theatlantic

7 comments

  1. Mark Bowden: “It’s doubtful that the state-of-the-art stealth technology cloaking American B-2 bombers as they attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities on the night of June 21 was even necessary. Iran’s airspace, by then, was like a red carpet. With two heavy blows—one last October and one in mid-June—Israel had already destroyed Iran’s air defenses and taken control of its skies.

    “President Donald Trump claimed that the air strikes he ordered ‘obliterated’ Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which they probably didn’t. The air strikes have certainly set those ambitions back. But the accomplishment was not America’s. It was Israel’s.

    “Leaving aside questions about the wisdom and efficacy of the Israeli and American attacks on Iran, this much is clear: The Israelis achieved complete air supremacy days before the B-2s took off. How did they do it? What does it say about Iran’s fate, or about air war in the 21st century? During the past several days, I posed these questions to some former top military officers, most of them only recently retired.”

    Read more: [https://theatln.tc/g9iP41FK](https://theatln.tc/g9iP41FK) 

  2. Surely the most obvious lessons here are:

    1. Have the full backing of a superpower

    2. Make sure your enemy doesn’t

  3. Mostly a high level article but the biggest takeaway is the successful combat validation of the F-35, and more specifically the success of the Adir variant, to which the US allowed significant data access to. So much for Elon calling the F-35 obsolete

    > In their cockpits, they were immersed in visual displays, both projections inside their helmet visors and, directly in front of them, a large touch-screen monitor. The images integrated the steady flow of data from the airplane’s multiple sensors, giving a complete, moving, spherical, 360-degree picture of the airplane’s surroundings. Pilots can “see” an enemy fighter or ground-to-air missile battery well before they are in visual or targeting range, and they are also alerted immediately if their jet has been “painted” by enemy radar

    Putting $400k helmets to good use I assume.

  4. One lesson might be that the Drone centric warfare in Ukraine is the product of neither side having air superiority, not a completely new paradigm in war.

  5. Not trying to oversimplify things but the main lesson is don’t be a paper tiger

    If you’re a group like Hezbollah, Hamas or a state like Iran and you know you’ve got limited ways to fight back then don’t start a war even if it’s supposed to be a proxy one against rivals such as Israel or the US.
    If you don’t have the right tools, logistics and economy to support it, DON’T start a conflict with a country that clearly has all of that and in massive capacity.

  6. The lesson.

    Step 1 – spend decades infiltrating and manipulating the government and media of the world’s unilateral superpower.

    Step 2 – get a blank cheque for the latest and greatest tech and munitions as well as blanket immunity on the world stage.

    Step 3 – success in the air. How did they do it 🤔

    Americans – aren’t you tired of being Israel’s puppet?

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