IRAN WARStrategic Attack on Iran: Airpower’s Promises, Limits, and Lessons
Operation Epic Fury demonstrates that airpower is both essential and insufficient. Strategic success ultimately depends on altering Iranian behavior in ways that advance U.S. geopolitical objectives. Five months into a campaign that was originally promised to last weeks, Iran not only has not changed its behavior, but it now controls the vital Strait of Hormuz.
Operation Epic Fury, which began on Feb. 28, has showcased a formidable display of airpower. U.S. aircraft have struck targets including air defenses, coastal surveillance systems, command and control facilities, missile and drone sites, naval forces, and communications networks. As the war drags on, with the Strait of Hormuz closed and Iran retaliating across the region, the target list increasingly includes so-called “dual-use” targets that serve both military and civilian purposes (see my analysis). Tactically, the air campaign has been impressive. The United States enjoys not merely air superiority but air supremacy over Iran, enabling it to strike with relative impunity (AFDP 3-01, Counterair Operations, p. 2).
In an earlier Just Security article, I assessed Epic Fury’s strategic coherence using key principles from Clausewitz’s On War, particularly those addressing a conflict’s objectives, type of war, center of gravity, culminating point, and friction. Here, I want to examine the strengths and weaknesses of airpower in achieving strategic objectives, as well as the optimal ways to employ it for that purpose. My goal is to provide readers with a primer that will enable them to draw conclusions about the use of airpower in this conflict, both thus far and going forward.
The focus is on “strategic attack,” defined by the U.S. military as “an offensive action against a target – whether military, political, economic, or other – that is specifically selected to achieve strategic objectives.” The most comprehensive treatment of the subject appears in Air Force Doctrine Publication 3-02, Strategic Attack (August 2025). It is the fulcrum on which the discussion that follows rests. Although service-specific, AFDP 3-02’s principles apply equally to strategic air attack by Navy and Marine Corps assets and to coalition partners such as the Israeli Air Force. Most apply equally to strategic attack by non-air means, such as naval cruise missiles or ground fires.
Three caveats are necessary at the outset. First, the utility of airpower is highly contextual, turning on the campaign’s objective, the assets and time available, the adversary’s capabilities and resilience, geography, alliance architecture, and many other factors. Epic Fury faces different constraints and enjoys different enablers than, for instance, Operation Midnight Hammer, the June 2025 strikes on Iranian nuclear assets. In that operation, airpower proved relatively effective given its limited objective.
