Shallow Ramparts:
Air and Missile Defenses in the June 2025 Israel-Iran War October 2025
Sam Lair
Introduction There are two remarkable stories about defenses during the war between Israel and Iran in June 2025. One is the failure of Iran’s much-discussed air defense system; the other, the success of the Israeli missile defense system. This chapter begins with the poor Iranian performance before turning to the Israeli defensive efforts. Ultimately, the war underscored how fragile Iran’s air defenses were, how key air superiority was to Israeli strategy, and how strained the Israeli air and missile defense system was despite its impressive performance. The June 2025 war illustrates the difficulty of air and missile defense in modern high-intensity conflict, demonstrating challenges facing defenders and strategies for the offense.
Iran’s Air Defenses The failure of Iran’s air defense system during the June 2025 war with Israel was surprising to many observers. After only a few days of fighting the Israeli Air Force claimed to have established “full aerial superiority” over Iran and destroyed 120 Iranian transporter erector launchers (TELs).1 This outcome was in spite of the Iranian military’s pursuit over the past two decades of improved air and missile defenses, either by importing sophisticated Russian equipment — the most high-profile example being the purchase of four S-300PMU batteries — or through domestic production of surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems.2 Nevertheless, Israel maintained air superiority over Iran until a ceasefire was reached on June 24. A few explanations suggest why the Iranians could not prevent the Israelis from striking targets with relative impunity. Since the initial exchanges between the regional rivals in 2024, Israel carefully prepared the battlefield for conflict with Iran, targeting Iran’s most sophisticated air defenses. The failure of the Iranian air defense system during the June 2025 war with Israel was over a year in the making.
1 Emmanuel Fabian, “Israel has full control of Tehran’s airspace, over 100 missile launchers destroyed, IDF says,” Times of Israel, June 16, 2025, https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/israel-has-full-control-of-tehrans-airspace-over-100-missile-launchers-destroyed-idf-says/. 2 April Brady, “Russia Completes S-300 Delivery to Iran,” Arms Control Today, December 2016, https://www.armscontrol.org/ act/2016-11/news-briefs/russia-completes-s-300-delivery-iran.
This report is part of the six part series Operation Rising Lion: A Military and Regional Perspective