San Francisco Frontiers - Decades of planning and US backing helps fuel Israel's air power

Its air force appears to have been able to bomb Iran at will, a success owed to "20 years of conceptual and operational preparation," said Sarah‑Masha Fainberg, a senior researcher on air and space military power at Tel Aviv University.

Because of its small territory, Israel has built its national security around a doctrine of "offensive defence", in which the protection of the home front depends on pre-emptive, long-range strikes against enemy targets, Fainberg said.

The doctrine aims not merely at air superiority but at air supremacy.

Israel demonstrated the scale of its air power in Gaza, where it has made use of its 320 or so fighter jets to conduct an enormous bombing campaign against Hamas.

While Israel says it focused its strikes on the group, its wide-ranging bombardments caused extensive destruction to homes, utilities and hospitals, according to rights groups.

In Iran, Fainberg said, Israel's capabilities were playing out to unprecedented effect.

On Saturday, the first day of the campaign, lightning strikes by Israeli jets hit the compound of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killing him and other top officials.

"In just 40 seconds, approximately 40 senior officials of the Iranian terror regime were eliminated, including the regime's leader, Ali Khamenei," Israel's military chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said on Thursday.

"To date, air force pilots have executed 2,500 strikes with over 6,000 munitions... within 24 hours, our pilots opened the path to Tehran," he added.

- 'The best ones for pilots' -

Military historian Danny Orbach traced this dominance to decisions made as early as the 1960s.

With a small population and surrounded by hostile neighbours, Israel decided that it could not match its enemies for number of soldiers or tanks.

Israel "decided to invest a disproportionate amount of resources in its air force," said the senior lecturer at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, often at the expense of other areas.

"You need an asymmetric capability," Orbach said. "And the decision was made to invest in the air force."

It has also received billions of dollars of military aid from the United States as well as access to some of Washington's best technology.

Israel's investment extended beyond hardware to unusually rigorous pilot training. Israeli pilots "are the most trained pilots in the world," Fainberg said.

"Hatovim la-tays", which translates from Hebrew as "the best ones for pilots", is a slogan popularised in the 1960s to encourage recruits to join pilot courses.

It helped establish the air force as a centre of excellence.

Israel's airpower advantage is also due to its military culture, Orbach said.

A world‑class air force requires "mission command", in which junior officers are empowered to make quick, independent decisions to accomplish their objectives -- a freedom often unavailable to pilots in other more hierarchical Middle Eastern militaries, Orbach added.

- A war 'conducted in English' -

Another pillar of Israel's success in this war, Fainberg said, is the operational integration with the United States.

"This is a war conducted in English," she said, adding that it was a joint US‑Israeli air campaign with a clear "partition of labour".

Israel has focused on central and western Iran, while the United States has targeted southern regions and the Iranian navy.

For the first time, Israel is also benefiting from US in-air refuelling, a capability that, Fainberg said, explained how Israel had been able to launch 6,000 munitions at such a long distance, according to Israeli army figures published on Thursday.

Israel has also made use of years of intelligence gathering, using advanced technological, cyber and covert operations, to select its targets said Shlomo Mofaz, director of the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.

So far the results have more than matched Israeli expectations.

"The operational success that was achieved in the first four days is beyond everything that we could have hoped for," said Fainberg.

- Iran's weakened air defences -

A steady decline of Iranian capabilities has further aided Israel's dominance.

The Islamic republic has for decades had a weak air force, while confrontations with Israel in April and October 2024 and June 2025 degraded its limited air defences.

Russia and China, two of Iran's major allies that supplied many of Tehran's air defence systems, "have abandoned them," Fainberg added, leaving Iran unable to replenish systems damaged in the fighting.

Moreover, Iranian air defences have been paralysed by Israel's cyber, intelligence and jamming capabilities — sophisticated tools developed through a uniquely close collaboration between Israel's tech sector and its military, Orbach said.

Iran still retains substantial missile and drone stockpiles, but its ability to contest the skies has effectively collapsed, Fainberg said.

V.Mitchell--SFF