The Spread of Cheaper Ballistic Missiles Rips Up Decades of Military Thinking
Wall Street Journal
November-11-2026
Technological advances making ballistic missiles cheaper and more precise have allowed Iran and the Houthis of Yemen to strike foes across the Middle East.
The development and spread of these weapons, once the preserve of nuclear superpowers, mean that military doctrines around the globe will need profound change—fast.
Along with the drone revolution unfolding in Ukraine, this transformation has strategic implications worldwide, including for the U.S. military posture in Europe and Asia as key military and infrastructure assets become increasingly vulnerable.
Thanks to advances in ballistic missiles, “even nonstate actors are able to operate at significant ranges, redefining what the deep battle space is,” said retired British Air Marshal Martin Sampson, who now heads the Middle East office of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. And, he said, defenses against these missiles have yet to catch up with the transformation. “Everything that is fixed is a target now.”
This year, Iran managed to inflict serious damage on U.S. military bases, forcing the abandonment of key American installations in the Persian Gulf. American military compounds along the corniche here in Bahrain’s capital are dotted with the charred hulks of destroyed radars and communications installations.
Meanwhile, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis are continuously striking Saudi airports and energy facilities, putting economic pressure on their immensely wealthier adversary.
Both the U.S. and its allies in the region are starting to run short of interceptors for Patriot and Thaad systems, the main defenses against ballistic missiles. Farther afield, this global shortage has left Ukraine unprotected against salvos of Russian missiles aimed at its energy grid and key bridges and factories.
The implications of this imbalance are profound for the way the U.S. military operates. Since World War II, Washington has used a network of bases around the globe to protect its allies and keep rival powers in check.
Today, it turns out, these bases are vulnerable even to third- and fourth-rate military forces like those of Iran and the Houthis that are located hundreds or even thousands of miles away.
China, Russia and North Korea possess much bigger and more sophisticated ballistic-missile arsenals. Their current production of these missiles heavily outpaces the manufacturing of interceptors by the U.S. and allies. The Pentagon, asked about this challenge, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
“What the war in Iran has shown is that not only is the U.S. military fragile in terms of its stockpiles, but also the way that the U.S. plans to fight doesn’t work in the current era. Military power has been democratized,” said Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at the Defense Priorities think tank that advocates restraint in American foreign policy. “The U.S. way of war relies heavily on the ability to operate from forward bases and protect these bases. But we see from the Middle East that these bases, the way they have been constructed, are simply not defensible, even against a weak adversary.”
While the war in Ukraine has focused everyone’s attention on the drone revolution, drones carry relatively small warheads and are relatively easy to intercept. They can be extremely effective against flammable targets, such as Russian or Saudi oil refineries. But, unlike ballistic missiles, with their powerful charges that can penetrate hardened structures, drones usually can’t destroy power plants, fortified aircraft hangars or military production lines.
U.S. and allied military officials acknowledge that the new ballistic-missile threat must lead to a rethinking of America’s military posture worldwide, especially considering the shortage of interceptors, which the U.S. military-industrial base won’t be able to rectify for several years. No decisions on how to adapt have been announced so far, however.
One senior Western defense official said nations that are capable of providing their own ballistic-missile defenses would become locations of choice for U.S. military facilities in the coming years. Something like this has already happened in the Middle East, where American military operations are increasingly concentrated in Israel, which manufactures and operates its own missile-defense systems.
In a way, Western democracies have found themselves caught in a historic trap. Ballistic missiles used to be very expensive and imprecise, and mid-to-late 20th-century military doctrines treated them as mostly suitable for carrying nuclear weapons. After all, an error of several hundred meters, typical at the time, didn’t matter much with a nuclear blast.
“For a long time, these systems were so inaccurate that they didn’t have a lot of conventional value, especially over longer ranges. But what we have seen in the last few decades is the development of increasingly precise ballistic missiles, originally by some of the more advanced parties, and now this technology is spreading around the world,” said Fabian Hinz, missile expert at the Conflict Armament Research organization.
“The Western way of war was always about securing air superiority, or air supremacy really fast,” he said. “But now, even if your adversary doesn’t have advanced air capabilities, they may still be able to strike your rear with missiles, and this is a major difference from the Western way of war that we have seen over the last few decades.”
The nuclear dimension meant that the development of antiballistic-missile defense had been viewed as a destabilizing factor in the nuclear equilibrium between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and was limited by international treaties. The Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty between Moscow and Washington, which remained in effect until 2019, made European nations shy away from developing their own ground-launched ballistic-missile capabilities.
Amid the wars raging in Ukraine and in the Middle East, few things are in shorter supply nowadays than ballistic-missile interceptors, some of the costliest and most advanced military products out there. Only a handful of Western manufacturers can make them. The biggest, Lockheed Martin, is unable to cope with surging global demand, and its order books for Patriot PAC-3 and Thaad interceptors last well into the 2030s.
It isn’t until next year that a European company, the Franco-Italian Samp/T consortium, is planning to start manufacturing the new-generation Aster missiles capable of addressing ballistic-missile threats. Germany is deploying Israel’s Arrow 3 antiballistic-missile system.
Meanwhile, as the Houthis have shown, the barriers to becoming a ballistic-missile power are falling fast, with odds stacked toward the attacker in the foreseeable future, said Fabian Hoffmann, missile expert at the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies.
“Even the United States, with its industrial capacity, is not prepared to defend against an attacker that builds ballistic missiles at industrial scale,” he said. “In the medium and long term it may be different, but over the short term it’s really difficult.”
Many military officials wonder whether it even makes sense to invest huge parts of their defense budgets in ballistic-missile interceptors, arguing that it’s best to focus on deterrence instead.
“I wonder if it’s worth it to try defending ourselves against this kind of weapon,” said retired French Lt. Gen. Michel Yakovleff. “We are now returning to the logic of deterrence between states. France has never renounced first nuclear use, and if Russia fires a salvo of 200 ballistic missiles in one night on key economic and civilian targets in Europe, it’s starting to tempt a French nuclear missile in response.”
Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, agreed that reinforcing deterrence will have to become a key policy—as well as a series of adaptations, such as hardening air bases, dispersing forces and making them more mobile. Yet, overseas bases, while adapted to new missile and drone threats, will remain indispensable, he said.
“You cannot defend the United States from Fort Hood, Texas, or Fort Bragg, North Carolina. You have to be able to position capabilities, logistics, maintenance, command and control out where we need it, which is why the bases in Europe are so important, as are those in the Middle East,” said Hodges. “But we have also discovered that maybe the ones in the Middle East were not as important as we thought, and are so vulnerable. There will have to be a cost-benefit analysis.”
November-11-2026
Technological advances making ballistic missiles cheaper and more precise have allowed Iran and the Houthis of Yemen to strike foes across the Middle East.
The development and spread of these weapons, once the preserve of nuclear superpowers, mean that military doctrines around the globe will need profound change—fast.
Along with the drone revolution unfolding in Ukraine, this transformation has strategic implications worldwide, including for the U.S. military posture in Europe and Asia as key military and infrastructure assets become increasingly vulnerable.
Thanks to advances in ballistic missiles, “even nonstate actors are able to operate at significant ranges, redefining what the deep battle space is,” said retired British Air Marshal Martin Sampson, who now heads the Middle East office of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. And, he said, defenses against these missiles have yet to catch up with the transformation. “Everything that is fixed is a target now.”
This year, Iran managed to inflict serious damage on U.S. military bases, forcing the abandonment of key American installations in the Persian Gulf. American military compounds along the corniche here in Bahrain’s capital are dotted with the charred hulks of destroyed radars and communications installations.
Meanwhile, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis are continuously striking Saudi airports and energy facilities, putting economic pressure on their immensely wealthier adversary.
Both the U.S. and its allies in the region are starting to run short of interceptors for Patriot and Thaad systems, the main defenses against ballistic missiles. Farther afield, this global shortage has left Ukraine unprotected against salvos of Russian missiles aimed at its energy grid and key bridges and factories.
The implications of this imbalance are profound for the way the U.S. military operates. Since World War II, Washington has used a network of bases around the globe to protect its allies and keep rival powers in check.
Today, it turns out, these bases are vulnerable even to third- and fourth-rate military forces like those of Iran and the Houthis that are located hundreds or even thousands of miles away.
China, Russia and North Korea possess much bigger and more sophisticated ballistic-missile arsenals. Their current production of these missiles heavily outpaces the manufacturing of interceptors by the U.S. and allies. The Pentagon, asked about this challenge, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
“What the war in Iran has shown is that not only is the U.S. military fragile in terms of its stockpiles, but also the way that the U.S. plans to fight doesn’t work in the current era. Military power has been democratized,” said Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at the Defense Priorities think tank that advocates restraint in American foreign policy. “The U.S. way of war relies heavily on the ability to operate from forward bases and protect these bases. But we see from the Middle East that these bases, the way they have been constructed, are simply not defensible, even against a weak adversary.”
While the war in Ukraine has focused everyone’s attention on the drone revolution, drones carry relatively small warheads and are relatively easy to intercept. They can be extremely effective against flammable targets, such as Russian or Saudi oil refineries. But, unlike ballistic missiles, with their powerful charges that can penetrate hardened structures, drones usually can’t destroy power plants, fortified aircraft hangars or military production lines.
U.S. and allied military officials acknowledge that the new ballistic-missile threat must lead to a rethinking of America’s military posture worldwide, especially considering the shortage of interceptors, which the U.S. military-industrial base won’t be able to rectify for several years. No decisions on how to adapt have been announced so far, however.
One senior Western defense official said nations that are capable of providing their own ballistic-missile defenses would become locations of choice for U.S. military facilities in the coming years. Something like this has already happened in the Middle East, where American military operations are increasingly concentrated in Israel, which manufactures and operates its own missile-defense systems.
In a way, Western democracies have found themselves caught in a historic trap. Ballistic missiles used to be very expensive and imprecise, and mid-to-late 20th-century military doctrines treated them as mostly suitable for carrying nuclear weapons. After all, an error of several hundred meters, typical at the time, didn’t matter much with a nuclear blast.
“For a long time, these systems were so inaccurate that they didn’t have a lot of conventional value, especially over longer ranges. But what we have seen in the last few decades is the development of increasingly precise ballistic missiles, originally by some of the more advanced parties, and now this technology is spreading around the world,” said Fabian Hinz, missile expert at the Conflict Armament Research organization.
“The Western way of war was always about securing air superiority, or air supremacy really fast,” he said. “But now, even if your adversary doesn’t have advanced air capabilities, they may still be able to strike your rear with missiles, and this is a major difference from the Western way of war that we have seen over the last few decades.”
The nuclear dimension meant that the development of antiballistic-missile defense had been viewed as a destabilizing factor in the nuclear equilibrium between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and was limited by international treaties. The Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty between Moscow and Washington, which remained in effect until 2019, made European nations shy away from developing their own ground-launched ballistic-missile capabilities.
Amid the wars raging in Ukraine and in the Middle East, few things are in shorter supply nowadays than ballistic-missile interceptors, some of the costliest and most advanced military products out there. Only a handful of Western manufacturers can make them. The biggest, Lockheed Martin, is unable to cope with surging global demand, and its order books for Patriot PAC-3 and Thaad interceptors last well into the 2030s.
It isn’t until next year that a European company, the Franco-Italian Samp/T consortium, is planning to start manufacturing the new-generation Aster missiles capable of addressing ballistic-missile threats. Germany is deploying Israel’s Arrow 3 antiballistic-missile system.
Meanwhile, as the Houthis have shown, the barriers to becoming a ballistic-missile power are falling fast, with odds stacked toward the attacker in the foreseeable future, said Fabian Hoffmann, missile expert at the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies.
“Even the United States, with its industrial capacity, is not prepared to defend against an attacker that builds ballistic missiles at industrial scale,” he said. “In the medium and long term it may be different, but over the short term it’s really difficult.”
Many military officials wonder whether it even makes sense to invest huge parts of their defense budgets in ballistic-missile interceptors, arguing that it’s best to focus on deterrence instead.
“I wonder if it’s worth it to try defending ourselves against this kind of weapon,” said retired French Lt. Gen. Michel Yakovleff. “We are now returning to the logic of deterrence between states. France has never renounced first nuclear use, and if Russia fires a salvo of 200 ballistic missiles in one night on key economic and civilian targets in Europe, it’s starting to tempt a French nuclear missile in response.”
Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, agreed that reinforcing deterrence will have to become a key policy—as well as a series of adaptations, such as hardening air bases, dispersing forces and making them more mobile. Yet, overseas bases, while adapted to new missile and drone threats, will remain indispensable, he said.
“You cannot defend the United States from Fort Hood, Texas, or Fort Bragg, North Carolina. You have to be able to position capabilities, logistics, maintenance, command and control out where we need it, which is why the bases in Europe are so important, as are those in the Middle East,” said Hodges. “But we have also discovered that maybe the ones in the Middle East were not as important as we thought, and are so vulnerable. There will have to be a cost-benefit analysis.”
