Iran has increasingly shifted its strategic focus toward direct national military capabilities, including ballistic missiles, uncrewed aerial vehicles, and maritime forces, while maintaining its long-standing regional network of affiliated armed groups. This adaptation marks an evolution in Tehran’s traditional forward defense doctrine following setbacks across the Middle East.
For decades, Iran relied primarily on its Axis of Resistance—encompassing Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iraqi militias, the Houthis in Yemen, and Palestinian militant groups—to exert regional influence, complicate adversaries’ calculations, and deter direct military action against Iranian territory. That proxy-heavy architecture encountered severe strains following the outbreak of the Israel–Hamas war in October 2023, which inflicted major losses on Hamas and Hezbollah and culminated in the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria, severing crucial overland supply lines to the Mediterranean.
The Structural Limits of the Axis of Resistance
Hezbollah long served as Tehran’s premier regional partner, holding a vast missile arsenal along Israel’s northern border intended to open a secondary front during any major conflict. The intense 2023–2024 conflict with Israel, however, exposed the severe vulnerabilities of anchoring deterrence heavily to a single external ally whose local political and military position can be degraded.
Hamas presents distinct operational boundaries. Although Iran supplies weaponry, training, and political backing, the Palestinian movement retains independent leadership and distinct strategic objectives. Sustaining Hamas through an extensive military campaign would demand an immense Iranian commitment, carrying a high risk of igniting a broader regional war. Similarly, Iraq’s armed factions and Yemen’s Ansarullah movement—commonly known as the Houthis—pursue domestic political agendas that frequently diverge from Tehran’s immediate preferences.
Despite these occasional friction points, the Houthis have assumed heightened strategic utility. Operating from Yemen, they maintain the capacity to threaten vital commercial shipping lanes around the Bab el-Mandeb strait and the Red Sea. This capability extends Iran’s leverage far beyond the Persian Gulf, operating parallel to the traditional Tehran–Baghdad–Damascus–Beirut corridor.
Integration of Direct Missile and Maritime Power
The frequency of direct military exchanges between Iran and Israel has laid bare the fundamental ceiling of proxy deterrence: regional partners cannot automatically shield Iranian territory from direct strikes or guarantee absolute defense. In response, Tehran is augmenting its network of allies with heavier investments in national military infrastructure.
Iran’s arsenal of cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and drones provides a direct mechanism for targeting adversaries across the region, including US military installations and sites inside Israel. While recent direct exchanges proved the reach of these systems, they also demonstrated the formidable capabilities of multilayered air-defense networks deployed by Israel and its allies.
Concurrently, maritime power remains a core pillar of Tehran’s security posture. Control over the Strait of Hormuz—reinforced through anti-ship missiles, fast-attack craft, naval mines, and drones—grants Iran significant leverage over global energy supplies and international trade. Events in and around the Strait of Hormuz since February 28 have underscored the persistent vulnerabilities of commercial shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf, illustrating how naval capabilities function alongside proxy forces to raise the economic and strategic costs for adversaries.
Rather than abandoning its decades-old proxy strategy, Tehran is moving toward a hybrid deterrence model. By combining regional partners with an expanded reliance on assets under direct national control, Iran aims to preserve its strategic reach while preparing for the possibility of more conventional state-on-state confrontations. Whether this dual-track approach can provide credible, long-term deterrence against the United States and Israel remains the central, unresolved question shaping Middle Eastern security.
