The Retaliatory Strikes By Iran Have Been More Powerful Than Expected

The Cost of Underestimating Your Adversaries

Iran’s recent retaliatory strikes were more effective than expected. The attacks showed a level of coordination and precision that ran counter to years of Western assumptions about Iran’s military capacity. For decades, much of the public discussion in the West has treated Iran as unstable and hollow, a regime barely holding on. That view has shaped policy, media coverage, and public opinion. It has not been tested seriously against facts.

This same pattern is visible in how Western institutions speak about other rivals. Russia’s economy was labeled as too weak to support a prolonged war. Its military was described as outdated and brittle. Two years into the Ukraine war, Russia has adapted its economy, increased defense production, and continued to hold territory. In China’s case, the assumption has been that its strength is superficial, copied technology, stolen ideas, weak innovation. But China is now competitive in high-end manufacturing, energy, AI, and defense systems.

These judgments were literally cooked up, not made after debate. They were established early and repeated often. Dissenting views are discouraged. Analysts who point to an adversary’s capability are often accused of sympathising with them. Calling attention to Iranian missile range, Russian battlefield learning, or Chinese industrial planning is enough to draw suspicion or condemnation ( pro-Russian; pro-Hamas; pro-Iran; pro-China). The political environment has little room for analysis that conflicts with official narratives.

When countries treat assumptions as facts, they set policy based on misreadings. If threats are underestimated, the response is often late or miscalculated. If strength is denied, that rules out diplomacy. When motives are ignored, the conflict is framed in simple moral terms, not strategic ones. The result is policy that is unprepared for real-world responses, surprised when opponents do not collapse, confused when pressure fails, and stuck when the next move requires engagement.

This approach narrows options. It makes it harder to understand how adversaries see the world, what risks they are willing to take, and what outcomes they are trying to reach. It leads to overconfidence, then confusion, then improvisation. None of this is new. But the refusal to allow full discussion of an opponent’s strength makes it worse. Talking about adversaries in realistic terms is not agreement or endorsement, but just basic analysis. Without which, frankly speaking, policymaking turning into guesswork.

Global GeoPolitics

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