Senior Fellow @StimsonCenter. Adjunct @GeorgetownCSS. Foreign/defense policy, alliances, airpower, and mil ops. Proud Bostonian
Jul 19 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
Some excellent reporting from the @nytimes on Iran's strikes on US forces in Jordan, including four attacks in five days, two service members killed, dozens wounded.
Three things stand out about Iranian capabilities, and US position in region. 🧵
nytimes.com/2026/07/18/wor…1/ First, US forces are now concentrated in Jordan and Israel. One way to defend against missile/drone threats is dispersing aircraft and personnel, so no single hit does much damage.
Jul 15 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
The Iran conflict has entered a new phase: the fight to control the Strait of Hormuz. Whoever wins it will get better terms at the negotiating table. But what is US strategy? A🧵.
2/ Looking at US strikes and official statements, I see three possible strategies and theories of victory: two variants of denial (break Iran's kill chain, or catch the arrows) and one of punishment (hit Iran until it stops attacking ships).
Apr 8 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
A few observations on Caine's briefing today. The numbers are striking. The questions they raise are more interesting. A 🧵.
2/80% of Iran's air defenses destroyed, 1,500 targets struck. Impressive. What's in the remaining 20%? MANPADS? Mobile launchers repositioned further east? What parts of Iran remained contested? What altitudes The Pentagon didn't say.
Apr 4 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
"Iran is deploying significant numbers of decoys," and US not sure how "many launchers it has destroyed were real." -NYT
Kosovo redux NATO claimed 120 tanks destroyed. Postwar count: 93. Serbs had fooled missiles with milk carton decoys/Yugo cars. A 🧵
nytimes.com/2026/04/03/us/…2/ The Pentagon's own 2000 Report to Congress on Kosovo shows 93 tanks confirmed destroyed out of 181 claimed, with "Decoy Strikes" as a labeled category in the official chart. Cohen/Shelton, Fig. 17, p.86. archive.org/details/Report…
Apr 3 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Iranian forces shot down a U.S. F‑15 and damaged an A‑10, and combat search‑and‑rescue helicopters were also hit, resulting in injuries to their crews.
What this tells us about air superiority over Iran? A 🧵.
2/ Air superiority ≠ air supremacy.
Air supremacy = the ability to operate without "effective interference." Translation: The enemy poses no real air threat.
Most Americans are used to thinking this is normal; the U.S. largely had it over battlefields for 30 years.
Apr 1 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Gen. Caine announced Tuesday that after 30 days of strikes, B-52s are now flying overland missions over Iran. Is that a sign it's becoming harder to achieve air superiority against US adversaries? Yes. A 🧵.
war.gov/News/Transcrip…2/ Desert Storm in 1991 provides a useful baseline. According to the Air Force History and Museums Program's Decisive Force, B-52s on night 1 made "shallow penetrations" into southern Iraq at less than 400 ft, hitting forward airfields. apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA43…
Mar 28 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Look at what Iran has been hitting since Feb. 28: radar systems, SATCOM terminals, tankers, and now an AWACS. That's not random.
It's a systematic attack on the infrastructure that makes U.S. air power function. Iran's running an asymmetric counter-air campaign. A 🧵.
2/ Since Feb. 28, Iran has hit radar and SATCOM infrastructure at 7+ U.S. bases across Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, targeting the systems used to track incoming missiles and coordinate the entire air defense network. nytimes.com/2026/03/03/wor…
Mar 28 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Iran damaged a U.S. E-3 Sentry AWACS at Prince Sultan Air Base yesterday. The USAF has 16 left, nearly 40% are already in theater, and there's no production line to replace them. This is one of the most strategically consequential losses of the war so far. A 🧵
2/ The E-3 is a flying command center that manages the entire air battle, tracking drones, cruise missiles, and aircraft across a 250-mile radius and directing intercepts in real time.
Mar 27 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
The Iran war put Gulf air defense stockpiles under pressure they weren't built to absorb alone. A thread on what the numbers show, and why the US role went far beyond supplementing regional defense. A 🧵
2/ I modeled Gulf state's pre-war Patriot, THAAD, and country-specific upper-tier interceptor stocks against confirmed ballistic missile attacks. Not every missile required an intercept; UAE MoD daily reporting showed roughly 7% fell in the sea. Used that rate throughout.
Mar 23 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
The "Iran is losing" narrative is tracking the wrong number. Yes, missile and drone launch rates are down 90%+.
But hit rate (or confirmed impacts per projectile fired) has been climbing steadily since Day 1.
A 🧵 on what the data actually shows.
2/ Raw impact counts drop sharply after Feb 28. But most of that drop is just fewer launches. That's at least partly the result of U.S./Israeli strikes destroying launchers and stockpiles.
The real question: Of the missiles/drones Iran does fire, how many are getting through?
Mar 10 • 13 tweets • 2 min read
Is Iran really losing its drone capacity? A closer look at how the US is measuring "degradation," and why the Shahed question deserves more scrutiny. A 🧵.
2/ At today's briefing, Hegseth cited "83% drone degradation" and "90% missile degradation." Impressive numbers. But how are they actually being measured? The answer should make you pause.
Mar 8 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Both sides are now running a risk strategy. The coming week could get worse. A short 🧵.
2/ Iran's logic: fire 1,500 drones at Gulf airports, oil ports, and US bases until the cost of continuing becomes greater than the cost of stopping. Make it too costly for everyone and wait for Gulf states to pressure Washington to end it.
Mar 5 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Iran fired 538 ballistic missiles at four Gulf states in the first four days of war.Gulf air defenses intercepted 521 of them = a 97% success rate. That number looks impressive. The math behind it is the problem. 🧵.
2/ The intercept ratio isn't 1:1: Usually firing 2-2.5 interceptors per missile.
Mar 1 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
UAE is shooting down ~92% of everything Iran throws at it. That's extraordinary. Yet the financial toll of sustaining that defense is enormous, raising the prospect that tactical ‘victory’ masks a costly strategic drain. A 🧵👇
2/ Since Feb 28, Iran has fired at the UAE:
I’m excited to share my latest @stimsoncenter report w/ @HunterSlingbaum and Jonathan Walker on why Chinese missile threats U.S. air bases in I-P.
BLUF: USAF could be grounded in theater in the first days and even weeks of a war. No easy answers
A 🧵 stimson.org/2024/cratering…1/ Our report models repeated Chinese missile attacks on U.S. air bases in Japan, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Pacific Freely Associated States to determine for how long China could keep the runways and taxiways closed to U.S. air operations.
May 23, 2023 • 26 tweets • 5 min read
What does the F-16 decision mean for Ukraine? BLUF: The F-16s are unlikely to be the “game changer” so many seem to believe, and it leaves important questions about strategy and goals unanswered. A 🧵 politico.com/news/2023/05/2…1/ The F-16 is an upgrade from Ukraine’s Soviet-era fighter jets (MiG-29s. Zelensky welcome the decision, saying, “this will greatly enhance our army in the sky.”But F-16s are unlikely to be the “game changer” so many seem to believe.
Mar 22, 2022 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
This article nicely documents the bravery of Ukrainian pilots, but its conception of the fight for air control strikes me as dated. Thrread below nytimes.com/2022/03/22/wor…2/ It seems to depict Top-Gun style aerial dogfights as the locus of the fight for air control. They are not. As the article acknowledges, the Russians are flying about 200 sorties per day, and the Ukrainians five to 10.
