The central military dynamic of the current phase of Iran’s war with the US and Israel can be summarized as a race to the bottom of their aerial munition stockpiles.
Iran is seeking to deplete regional missile defense arsenals while inflicting damage on strategic and high-profile targets. In contrast, the United States and Israel are attempting to locate and destroy Iranian transporter erector launchers (TELs) before they can fire, while also degrading command and control and Iranian missile production capacity.
“TEL hunting,” as this mission is commonly described, has historically proven extremely difficult. Efforts during Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom produced limited results. But Israel’s air campaign against Iran last year arguably marked the first instance of an air interdiction campaign successfully targeting enemy TELs at scale.
That success now appears to be repeating itself, with dozens of videos published by US and Israeli official channels showing the destruction of Iranian mobile launchers. The Israeli Air Force has stated that it alone has destroyed over 300 missile launchers since the beginning of the war.
That appears to have been aided by Iran’s decision to hide missiles in large underground bunkers. It’s presumed that a large number of medium- and high-altitude US-Israeli drones are operating above Iran with near-impunity. These can provide continuous surveillance so that forces can detect their emergence and aid their destruction.
Successful counter-TEL operations are also likely enabled, to a large degree, by pre-war intelligence on TEL storage bases and dispersal routes.
As expected, Iran has responded with missile and long-range drone attacks against US bases in the region, Israel, and regional neighbors, particularly Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Targets have included military and civilian infrastructure, as well as population centers.
Although much remains obscured by the fog of war, compared to the 12-Day War in June 2025 and earlier missile exchanges between Iran and Israel, Iran’s ballistic missile launches have appeared more unevenly spaced, significantly smaller in scale, and less coordinated. This likely reflects the effects of the ongoing US and Israeli strike campaign, which has degraded not only TEL availability but also command and control, complicating theater-wide coordination of missile operations.
As a result, Iran has presumably had to rely more on increasingly small units operating under pre-delegated authority to execute pre-authorized strike plans, while at times acting on their own initiative.
In total, Iran probably launched a total of around 600 to 700 ballistic missiles in the first six days of the war, which is comparatively limited. During the 12-Day War, Iran appears to have expended roughly 500 to 600 ballistic missiles. However, in that conflict, it relied entirely on medium-range ballistic missiles needed to strike Israel and did not employ its short-range variants.
Given that, in the present conflict, short-range ballistic missiles are a viable means of striking regional US allies, and that the confrontation is arguably more existential from a regime-survival perspective, one would, in principle, expect incentives for more extensive use.
Whether the United States and regional allies can outlast Iran until its ballistic missile capabilities are sufficiently degraded depends to a large extent on allied interceptor depth.
Given that the intensity of Iranian ballistic missile attacks appears to have declined sharply, very likely due to TEL attrition, the situation now appears bearable. While it may still be premature to dismiss Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities entirely, most of the Gulf states can expect that they can endure the conflict without approaching interceptor exhaustion.
Indeed, rather than ballistic missiles, long-range drones have exposed capability gaps in the defense postures of the Gulf states. They and the US have relied on manned aircraft to intercept incoming Shahed-type drones.
Nevertheless, individual drones have repeatedly penetrated defenses and struck military and symbolic targets, including the US embassy in Riyadh and Amazon Web Services facilities, which hardly reflects well on the US and allied militaries.
Fabian Hoffmann is a Doctoral Research Fellow at the Oslo Nuclear Project (ONP) and a Non-Resident Fellow with CEPA’s Transatlantic Defense and Security program. His research focuses on missile technology, nuclear strategy, and European deterrence. His PhD project examines the implications of conventional long-range strike weapons on strategic stability. His research and commentary have been published in the Journal of Strategic Studies, European Security, War on the Rocks, and The Washington Post, among others.
This is an edited version of an article that first appeared on Substack (Missile Matters — with Fabian Hoffmann).
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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