Missiles fire over the Caspian Sea during the Caucasus-2020 military drills between Iran, China, Russia, Pakistan, Myanmar, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Belarus, on September 23, 2020. (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images)

The military power of the United States continues to dwarf that of the Islamic Republic. The protests in Iran prove that the regime in Tehran is a decayed husk, deeply unpopular, and beset by myriad vulnerabilities that a deft American policy could exploit. But as Hudson Senior Fellows Michael Doran and Can Kasapoğlu explain in Tablet, Washington has allowed Tehran to acquire “overmatch” in the region while Chinese actions erode the US-led order.

Key Insights

1. Iran has “overmatch” against its neighbors.

On October 6, Gen. Kenneth McKenzie Jr.—who retired in April as the commander of US Central Command—discussed the improved quality of Iranian weapons. “Over the past five to seven years, Iranian capabilities in these three domains have risen to such a degree that they now possess what I would call effective ‘overmatch’ against their neighbors,” he said. “‘Overmatch,’” he explained, “is a military term that means you have the ability to attack, and your defender will not be able to mount a successful defense.” McKenzie’s remarks were timely and candid, but they danced around the money question. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates rely on the US for their defense: If Iran possesses overmatch against them, does it also possess overmatch against the US? Iran’s confidence that it can threaten American forces without cost suggests that it does.

2. Iran’s disruptive military capacity has shifted the balance of power in the Gulf for two basic reasons.

First, the defense economics work decidedly in Tehran’s favor. America and its allies spend more money—tens or hundreds of times more—to down Iranian missiles and drones than it costs Iran to build and launch them. More importantly, when combined in a large strike package, some of Iran’s missiles and drones will inevitably break through America’s defensive shield. Even the most sophisticated defensive systems operating at peak performance cannot prevent at least some of Iran’s weapons from hitting their targets.

3. The US relies too heavily on defensive measures and not enough on deterrence.

Iran’s disruptive military capacity has created, in military parlance, an “offense-dominant regime” in the Middle East—a balance of power that favors Iranian offensive action. What Gen. McKenzie calls “overmatch” represents a failure by America to heed an ironclad law of military science: defensive systems alone cannot reverse an offense-dominant regime. Offensive countermeasures are the sole means to restore the balance—through the elementary logic of deterrence. For Iran to halt its aggression, leaders in Tehran need to believe that America and allied forces will respond to provocations by exacting an unbearable cost. But the chances of President Joe Biden taking such necessary action in the current political climate are slim.

4. As the US refuses to respond to Iranian actions, America’s allies are turning to China.

Especially after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, America’s allies believe that the US is likely to leave the Middle East. China, by contrast, is screaming with a bullhorn that it will soon be a major player in the region. The arms purchases of Abu Dhabi and Riyadh are but one part of a hedge toward the rising power. Using relatively small arms sales and commercial transactions, Chinese President Xi Jinping has already slipped the thin end of a very big wedge between the United States and its Gulf allies. If America doesn’t reverse its course soon, the gap that he has created by leveraging the Iranian threat will continue to widen, empowering China and leaving America out in the cold.

Quotes may be edited for clarity and length. 

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