Israel demonstrates new aerial superiority.

In the month of June, 2025, Israel had engaged in a protracted air campaign in Iran, what they have attributed as “Operation Rising Lion”, 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 has 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 said aerial capabilities have seriously undermined the relentless rhetoric’s by military theorists and political scientists vetting that airpower is overrated and, in some ways, outmoded. Some point to the proliferation of small, cheap unmanned drones as evidence that traditional air superiority, the ability to control the skies has been rendered obsolete. According to this view, technological innovation has made “air denial” merely restricting an adversary’s ability to operate freely in the air, a sufficient replacement. These critics argue that airpower alone cannot achieve political objectives and in fact often leads to endless, pointless bombing campaigns. Political scientists have asserted that “no strategic bombing campaign has ever yielded decisive results”. Underneath these critiques is a clear message: airpower is too limited, too expensive, or too reliant on the promises of technological innovations to matter much.

The widely acclaimed Operation Rising Lion, an air campaign against Iran, just in 12 days, Israel’s air force had flown around 1,500 combat sorties, conducted more than 600 aerial refuelling, and struck over 900 Iranian targets, including hardened nuclear facilities, missile batteries, and military command centres. The results were decisive: Iran’s nuclear program was significantly disrupted, key elements of its air defense network were shattered, and Tehran’s military leadership suffered serious blows. All the while, not a single manned Israeli aircraft was lost. Although Israel remained short of eliminating Iran’s nuclear capabilities, however its air campaign delayed, degraded, and deterred Iran’s ambitions, and further transformed the Middle East’s political landscape.

Rising Lion was a stunning demonstration of what a modern air force, backed by sound strategy and political resolve, can accomplish. It reaffirmed airpower’s ability to achieve meaningful political outcomes without a drawn-out ground war.

Defence experts have reiterated the fact that Israel’s strategy in executing Operation Rising Lion drew inspirations from the 1991 U.S. led Desert Storm air campaign established the tenets of modern air warfare: gain air superiority, simultaneously strike key enemy centers of gravity, use stealth and precision, and prioritize desired effects over attrition of forces alone.

Israel adapted those lessons, and has used stealth F-35I fighter jets to suppress and destroy Iranian surface-to-air missile batteries. These aircraft provided real-time targeting information to non-stealth F-15I and F-16I fighters, which carried out precision strikes on additional targets. Uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) collected intelligence, jammed communications, and allowed Israel to deliver additional precision-guided munitions. This devastating combination of stealth, precision, and persistent surveillance allowed Israel to quickly gain and maintain air superiority.

By degrading Iranian defenses, Israel also cleared the way for the United States’ Operation Midnight Hammer, in which B-2 stealth bombers struck deeply buried nuclear facilities at Fordow and Natanz, reachable only by U.S. Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs. Although critics pointed out that the campaign failed to destroy all of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. But Israel’s objective in Operation Rising Lion was to disrupt and delay Iran’s nuclear weapons program while retaining the ability to strike again, and not to eradicate it.

Rising Lion was not an air-only campaign. It was a tightly integrated, multidomain operation. Cyber-operations disrupted Iranian command and control. Space-based and airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms provided near-real-time targeting data. Electronic warfare helped disrupt enemy radars. Covert ground teams inside Iran used small drones to suppress defenses and relay coordinates. And an extensive set of military actions waged over several years in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria had already severely degraded Iran’s regional proxies, blunting Tehran’s ability to retaliate.

Airpower capabilities have improved markedly since Desert Storm, when aircraft lacked accurate sensing technology, real-time connectivity, and all-weather munitions. Today’s fifth-generation fighters, such as the F-35, can integrate data from a variety of onboard sensors, fuse it into accurate targeting information, and share it with other aircraft. F-35s function as integrated intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance sensor-shooters, giving users more information and digital connectivity that they can use to precisely strike targets as they are revealed. Their stealth allows them to operate inside contested airspace. As a result of these innovations, fewer fifth-generation aircraft are needed to achieve what would otherwise require dozens of less capable non-stealth aircraft. Technological advances are not restricted to modern combat aircraft, however. Air defenses have become cheaper and more adaptable than ever.

Artificial intelligence, autonomous weapons systems, and advanced information integration are changing the character of warfare. In the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, for example, Azerbaijan used a network of Bayraktar TB2 drones, loitering munitions, and real-time targeting data to devastating effect against Armenian forces. But even in the face of evolving modes of warfare, airpower’s inherent advantages endure. Airpower can still be used to change adversary behavior, enforce strategic redlines, and reshape regional military balance—all without bleeding a country’s treasury or excessively risking its sons and daughters. In fact, Russia’s inability to achieve air superiority over Ukraine turned what the Kremlin assumed would be a fast and simple invasion into a grinding war of attrition. Israel, by contrast, used modern airpower to avoid such a trap. It did not involve significant ground forces and has thus avoided falling into an endless war—Washington’s fate in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Team Maverick