Transcript: JINSA Rising Lion Report Release Press Briefing – November 20, 2025
JINSA Press Briefing
Thursday, November 20, 2025 – 10:30AM
Blake Johnson:
Good morning, everybody. I’m Blake Johnson, Communications Director here at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. I’d like to thank you for joining us this morning as we are providing a reporter briefing ahead of the release of our report on the Rising Lion operations.
We have with us today, Lieutenant General Robert Ashley, former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and General Charles Wald, former United States Air Force and former Deputy Commander of EUCOM. So we’re going to have a rundown of the report, the key findings, a bit of background on the actions around compiling this report, the access we were given, and then we’ll have a rundown of the findings, and then we’ll provide an opportunity for questions and answers with the report authors.
So with that, I’d like to turn it over to General Wald to provide an overview of the anatomy of the research trip. So, General, with that, please feel free to take it away.
General Charles Wald, USAF (ret.):
Thanks a lot Blake and welcome to all those who have been able to find time to join us today to hear about the report. We’re going to talk a little bit about the context of the report, some of the outcomes and the recommendations. We’ll do that in order.
In August of this last year, we traveled to Israel after the Operation Rising Lion took place in June. The August fact-finding back finding trip was about a week long. We had access to all the senior military, civilian, and intelligence and national security leadership in Israel, which is a feat in itself, I’d say. We had time with Prime Minister Netanyahu and his immediate staff, as well as the Minister of Defense, the head of Mossad, the head of Shin Bet and some of the actual pilots and air defenders that participated in the Israeli 12-Day War. The team was made up of three U.S. general and flag officers, as well as a couple of Israeli general officers that are associated with JINSA, as well as JINSA staff.
We came away convinced that in Operation Rising Lion, Israel displayed intelligence and military capabilities that exceed any of our allies in the world, more than just operational excellence. However, Israel achieved major strategic effects, advancing not just its own but also America’s national interest. We realized that the war is seen differently in Israel and in Washington from a strategic standpoint, and when it comes to necessity, operational objectives, outcomes and what happens next.
In the report, beyond presenting an operational and tactical account of Israel’s remarkable military success—I would go so far as to say it’s probably the most impressive military operation I’ve ever seen or been part of—against Iran, we highlight some of the differences that the United States and Israel have from a strategic standpoint. And there’s a lot of lessons learned that we can take away from that, that I think are still being sorted out.
But to put it in context, the Israeli leaders viewed Operation Rising Lion as the culmination of a 30-year confrontation with Iran, and for the period just prior to the actual attack on Iran by Israel, and then subsequently joined by the United States, there was a primary objective by the Israelis to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons arsenal, or the arsenal they were trying to build, and capability.
But after October 7th, it became pretty apparent that it was beyond just the nuclear capability for Iran. As you maybe recall, in earlier times, in ’24, Iran had attacked Israel two times with ballistic missiles, one time a smaller attack, and then the second time a very large attack with over 200 missiles and cruise missiles and drones. And after the October 7th attack by Hamas out of Gaza, it became apparent to the Israelis that they had other problems in the region, of course, with Hezbollah—that had been known for a long time—and the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas themselves, as well as the PLO, and in Syria, with Syrian air defense capabilities that were problematic for any attack Israel was going to take on Iran.
So, smart people in Israel—we had a chance to talk to the person that actually did the overall Rising Lion plan—changed it from the attack on primarily Iran’s nuclear capacities, whether it was in the underground facilities or in their other facilities that are for planning their nuclear capability and development. And it was really, as the Israelis would call it, an octopus, with the head of the octopus being the Iranian regime, and then the tentacles being the proxies that surround Israel.
And I see Mark has joined. I’m cutting in on your area there, Mark. But let me introduce Admiral Mark Fox. He was the vice commander of Central Command in his last assignment, which is the command that is the head of military operations for the United States in the Middle East. He was also the Navy N3, which is head of operations for Navy headquarters and Navy fleet. He also was the NAVCENT commander out of Bahrain, which basically was part of Operation Rising Lion from the United States standpoint. And I’ll pass it over to Mark, and Mark, you can give some context if you would.
VADM Mark Fox, USN (ret.):
Thank you. Forgive me for my late entry here. I think it’s really impossible to overstate the importance of the fact that Israel was moved into the Central Command Area of Responsibility this time 10 years ago. I was the deputy, as General Wald said. And if you told me 10 years ago that Israel would be part of the Central Command Area of Responsibility, I would have said, that’s just, that’s a pipe dream. It happened. It was at the very end of the first Trump administration.
And I think that if you look at the way that Rising Lion unfolded, and also the defense of Israel with these multiple [barrages]—this was the first time that Iran had actually launched ballistic missiles against Israel directly—it was a kind of state on state. And there was no treaty, there was no formal agreement, but there was a consortium of like-minded nations that came together and defended Israel a couple of times. Once, the earlier piece: France, UK, Jordan. There’s indication that there was cooperation with some other nations in the region, and, of course, the United States. That would have been, I think, impossible without the touches within the region of Israeli Defense Force staffers working with the United States Central Command, but also becoming more integrated in the region. It’s just impossible, I think, to describe how remarkable that is, for those of us who spent time in the region, that might have came out the way that it did.
Iran, as General Wald was just saying, was the head of the octopus. But there were all these tentacles, and fortunately for Israel, the Hamas attack on October 7 was really uncoordinated and unplanned in terms of within the larger constant construct of how Qassem Soleimani, you know, and the IRGC had planned to have this kind of ring of fire, or this number of different fronts, to kind of over-stress Israel. So the fact that Hamas, Yahya Sinwar just on his own, decided he was going to do his thing on October 7, and the way that Lebanese Hezbollah and Iran and the other proxies in the region responded, was more uncoordinated and more sequential, that allowed the Israelis to be able to handle one problem at a time.
And I’ll pause there.
Blake Johnson:
I’d like to bring on Lieutenant General Robert Ashley. If you can take the next section here, the outcomes, the impacts, all that. Thank you, sir.
LTG Robert Ashley, USA (ret.):
Yeah. So good to see everybody today. A little more context on my background. Former CENTCOM J2 under General Mattis. I actually started working with Israeli Defense Intelligence in that job. So, I’ve actually got experience working with Israeli intelligence since 2010 so it kind of carries over the last 10 years of my career, culminating in my position as Director of DIA.
Let me talk a little bit about outcomes, because they are consequential. The question of “decisive,” and we were talking about this earlier, they are strategic effects, whether they’re decisive is something that we will see measured over time. But the strategic effects that came out of Midnight Hammer and Rising Lion are pretty significant. So think about the outcome of neutralizing senior military commanders and the nuclear scientists within the first few minutes of the opening strike, how much that disrupted the command and control.
So, when you think about command/control from a U.S. model, an Israeli model, and then an Iranian model, something that is so centralized is how the Iranians make decisions. There’s really no initiative. All that goes back to the senior leadership. And then you take this decapitation approach to taking out the senior military leadership, no one’s there to make decisions, and they don’t get promoted for taking initiative. So, a lot of times, decapitation doesn’t have the kind of effect that you would want; in this case, the near-term effect was very consequential in terms of what it did.
As far as the preparation, you know, one of the things General Wald alluded to, and Admiral Fox, this was 30 years in the making. But as you get to the proximity of the actual strike, there was a number of activities that the Air Force took that really kind of desensitized the Iranians. So their number of nightly maneuvers, that kind of conditioned the Iranian forces to expect false alarms, not knowing what was actually going to come. You know, a little bit of this crying wolf syndrome. And what’s kind of interesting is when the strike actually hit, one of the top-tier Iranian leaders was so unprepared for the strike, he actually thought—and earthquakes are rather common occurrences in Iran—that an earthquake had hit, and that’s what collapsed in his home, it wasn’t an actual Israeli strike. He survives the strike, and he’s pinned in for several hours in his home. But think about the first four minutes.
You’re taking out all of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, senior Air Force commanders, within the first couple of minutes. And so the actual intel, you know, that supports this. You know, from my view and my experience, and one thing General Wald said, unprecedented in our allies is, you know, the intelligence capability in Israel is very impressive. To get to the point where you’re able to execute this kind of a strike, this level of fidelity, which gets down to the details of following individuals—not just knowing where air defense is, where missile sites are, where infrastructure is—you’re actually tracking individuals in real time, and, literally on the fly, you’re making adjustments. And so the intelligence preparation for what really were surgical strikes was very impressive – deep insights in terms of Iranian Air Defense Command nodes.
What we really developed a lot during the Global War on Terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is pinning down pattern of life for high-value targets, and they did an exceptional job of doing that. I think the other part of this is when you look at things that were neutralized, and then we talked about the strategic effects, you took out a number of military leaders, probably 30 overall, a number of Iranian nuclear scientists, we don’t have the definitive numbers. They alluded to one that they were going after that they actually missed. So as we think about that, understanding their ability to reconstitute, as it relates to the scientific capability, they took out, right? So you can eliminate nuclear infrastructure, but the other part is, the intellectual capital is still there. And so they did a significant job of impacting the intellectual capital, which was the brain trust of the nuclear program.
The other part that was a tremendous standout is the performance of the F-35. The F-35, and I’m talking to a couple of pilots here, so they’ll weigh in later in the discussion, in your Q-and-A, it became indispensable to the [Israelis]. They would not do an operation without the use of the F-35, including nothing in the future. So it was really this fifth-gen fighter that was a huge enabler for the other fourth-gen aircraft, [F-15], [F-16], that they have in their inventory. And it was able to do battle space management. It was able to integrate with drones. It was able to do target handoff in a lot of ways. It acted like deconfliction of the battle space it was going in.
One of the challenges they did have is really an older fleet of air refuel capability. So that is a challenge that we hit in recommendations. In the way ahead, that’s something that they’re going to need to bolster as they’re going forward. Large portions of the ballistic missiles were destroyed. Probably more than half of the launchers were eliminated. And that’s one of the, you know, three key target areas that we talked about that they went after.
When you talk about the actual nuclear program itself, right, a lot of stuff came out of the BDA. What they shared with us is, so you can talk about something being “destroyed,” and then if you go to a military doctrinal definition of destroyed, it means there is no longer a capability there. If it is damaged, there’s some residual capability. So really it was Esfahan and Natanz that they characterized as “destroyed,” but the deeply buried facility at Fordow, which required the B-2s, their assessment was “damaged.” Now clearly, the Iranians are having to get access, the IAEA has not been able to see any sites in person, and so that assessment of two key sites destroyed, one damaged, is the one that’s ongoing. With regards to the location of the 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium that’s at 60 percent, the IAEA is tracking this. In open-source reporting, the actual definitive location, that is suspect. It’s unknown if it was moved out. Clearly, Israelis are tracking that as closely as the U.S. intelligence community. We think that 400 kilograms still exists. What we don’t have pinned down is the actual location of it.
There are—we talked about the decapitation piece—significant psychological impacts. Part of what the Israelis relayed to us is the Supreme Leader was extremely depressed after the strike took place. Now think about that. You got this military that is telling him that if the Israelis come after these sites, we’re going to be able to defend them. And that was proven not to be the case. And it was described as he was so incapacitated that you had this new group of leaders that he doesn’t know, he’s not familiar with, so he doesn’t have a lot of trust with them, and they’re looking for decisions from the Supreme Leader. And those are not coming, because he’s at such a state of depression, incapacitation, in terms of providing them guidance.
And [Iran is] taking some tentative steps to reconstitute the capabilities. So what we’re seeing, and what the Israelis are seeing, are some early signs to rebuild the missile facilities, some of the dual-use precursor chemicals are things that come in from the Chinese, and we’re hearing about potential discussions with the Chinese to replace some of the air defense. But again, watching all of that, that’s something that’s a great concern to the Israelis as well. A key part of this is, you know, what’s going to be the Supreme Leader’s decision in terms of pursuing the nuclear program?
One of the Israeli Defense Force’s former senior intelligence officials characterized their assessment as they probably will continue to pursue it. And the way he characterized it, where they are right now, he said, this is like a wounded tiger, but it’s not out. And so there will be additional iterations, and we could talk a little about that in the Q-and-A as we’re going forward. As far as the missiles, probably about two-thirds of that are still in place. Proxy networks are still there. The one that they were really laser-focused on going forward is going after the Houthis. And then we came back from the trip in August, and you’ve seen some very deliberate attempts and some success going after some senior leaders on the Houthis as well. But those proxy networks are significantly attrited, but they still exist. And so going forward, the key thing for the Israelis right now is watching those proxy networks, watching the level of reconstitution, because I think that factors in the strategic calculus of the Israelis, of what actions they’ll take next. And with that, General, back to your recommendations.
Gen (ret.) Wald:
We’ll get Mark in here in a second as well, but a good rundown there. Again, I was the commander of the U.S. Air Forces for Central Command, kind of a counterpart to the NAVCENT job that Mark had, and I spent a lot of time in the Middle East. I’ve been there a lot of times. And one of the things we always pushed for was coordination between the nations in the region. And Mark alluded to that a little bit, as far as the defense capabilities that were out there. But the big thing is to continue to build the integrated air defense capabilities in the region.
You saw the Saudi prince was in Washington yesterday talking about military capabilities and insurances from the U.S. That’s a huge issue that’s been in discussion for a long time, but the ability for the region, earlier, to defend itself against ballistic missiles was extremely impressive, and that comes down to the Central Command—AFCENT, Air Forces Central Command, as well as NAVCENT and Army Central Command. The Air Force command for Central Command is out of Shaw Air Force Base. That’s where the U.S. headquarters is. And there are Israeli planners in their headquarters at Shaw Air Force Base, as well as U.S. planners in Israel. They’re coordinating the air defense together in real time, sharing the operational air picture for air defense, which is unprecedented in the region, for coordination. So that needs to continue. I have to give a shout out to General Kurilla, who was the Commander of CENTCOM at the time, for the work he did to get this thing going with the Israelis. And, now, Brad Cooper, a Navy admiral, is there.
Blaise alluded to the fact that, I think Mark did too, that Israel was moved over to Central Command as the Area of Responsibility a few years ago at the recommendation, primarily, of JINSA, and that made a big difference. It sounds like a simple thing, but it makes a big difference from the day-to-day interface, and knowing commanders you’re working with, and the coordination. So we recommend highly that continues now, and we increase the coordination between Israel and the United States, between what we think is between wars now against both the military capability and the nuclear capability for Iran.
I think the campaign that Israel had against Iran was highly effective, but the decision by Israel to go to a multi-pronged campaign instead of just go against the nuclear part was significant. We think we should continue to plan for that. The campaign should use preemptive military force alongside diplomatic, intelligence, and economic tools to incorporate defensive and offensive actions. And we think that needs to continue, and to [be] ongoing.
Our consensus, I believe, was that this is not going to stop here, that Iran will continue to pursue nuclear capability, and that probably, that necessarily won’t just be from the standpoint of trying to develop the weapon itself, but also the ballistic missile capability, which turned out to be a very significant existential threat to Israel. We need to continue to watch that. And if we have to, or the coalition, if you will, or Israel needs to, go after those ballistic missile capabilities. We recommend to double-down on defense to increase the intercept capability, increase joint research and development, and address bottlenecks from the system, with Israel.
We need to leverage new technologies. The Israelis are building a laser defense capability, Iron Beam, that’s going to be significant, and, matter of fact, it’ll be part of our Golden Dome that the U.S. administration is pursuing now. And we need to continue to upgrade the Iron Dome. The Iron Dome, fortunately, was upgraded just prior to the attacks by Iran to be able to take on larger missiles. That’s important. We should continue that. I think we need to use those systems to support the defense of other like-minded nations in the region. We’ll see what happens with Saudi Arabia now that they potentially are going to get the F-35, but from the standpoint of integrating them into the defense of the region, that would be significant.
We think we need to stay on the offensive. As General Ashley alluded to, the intelligence capability of the Israelis is second to none, maybe second only to Bob and his folks in the United States. But it was fantastic. I think we need to continue to work with them to collect, develop joint analytic cells, and set clear redlines for returning to Iran if attempts to reconstitute missile or nuclear capabilities exist.
I think we need to expand the, and we recommend expanding, the efforts to degrade remaining elements of Iran’s proxy network. That includes the Houthis, which is kind of a thorn in everybody’s side there. That’ll be addressed post-haste, I believe. We recommend to strengthen the Israelis’ capability to conduct future long-range operations. It’s been a long-standing recommendation of JINSA that the KC-46, the new tanker, be expedited to Israel. They’re on the books to get those tankers. They need them now. The ones they were using, the 707, it’s called the RAM, are old and in need of repair and just not up to the mission, I think, right now. We also recommend that the weapons reserve stockpile for allies, the WRSA, for Israel, be expanded and make sure it’s reconstituted after this activity, but even increased. We recommend that the United States establish a base in Israel, maybe more than one, but particularly an air base. That’s in a recommendation that’s being developed right now, and that would be a smart idea. It would be easier for us to operate from there than, say, long range.
I think we need to, all of us, increase regional interoperability and coordination. The Abraham Accords is a really good approach for that, but it’s also militarily. We need to do that. And I think we need to block Iran’s global networks. We all recommend that restrict the access to foreign funding, materials, intellectual capital, technical support, and particularly from China. We recommend that this reinforce the sanctions and constrain procurement networks for Iran and sustain pressure to preserve the gains achieved during Operation Rising Lion.
Just a quick comment on the U.S. part of the operation, Midnight Hammer. Impressive as it was, the Israelis probably could have achieved pretty close to the same capability without us, except for the deep and buried targets at Fordow and Natanz. The B-2 activity was very impressive. The Israelis actually prepared the battlefield for the U.S. portion of that in a great way, and then actually flew air defense for us as the B-2s came into the region. That’s impressive. It’s unprecedented. You know, in 2001 we attacked Afghanistan with B-2s. The first wave when we responded to 9/11 was B-2s out of the United States. They flew 44 hours from west to east, nonstop, the longest mission in history. This one was better off because they were able to fly, instead of the southern route, which would have been up through the Straits of Hormuz potentially into Iran, because of what Israel did with Syria and their air defenses, it cleared the way and the Israelis flew airborne cap for the B-2s. That was a significant part of this. But it was more of a demonstration of cohesion and strategic support by the United States than anything else.
But these recommendations, I think, should be put into effect. I’m sure there are more, but our estimation is that this is, it’s long from over, and it’ll have to be watched over the next few years. And I think the coordination between all allies in the region will be significantly important. So I’ll stop there and ask Mark and Bob if they have anything to add there.
VADM (ret.) Fox:
I think you’ve summarized our recommendations really well. It’s very difficult to describe the accomplishment that this 12-day Rising Lion campaign [was]. You know, shifting from ‘okay, we’re going to only go after the nuke program, and that’s it,’ to a campaign, and then establishing air superiority over Tehran. And, you know, Iran is at least 10 times larger than Israel, and for the Israelis to be able to establish that kind of superiority and strike in real time as they are either moving targets or moving people around, they’ve taken it to just a different level. Very impressive military accomplishment.
I agree that the Iranians are going to try to rebuild their network of terror. They are going to invest in missile production. I’m convinced the Iranians haven’t changed their stripes. And so this is a pause. There’s a temporal piece to this, of how long these strategic effects are actually going to be in place. And it requires, even though it’s not in the front page anymore, it requires real focus. And it’s, I think it really demonstrated the power and the advantage of having a regional approach to this in terms of, it’s not just one nation. I mean, we, the United States, are the ‘great Satan’ and Israel is the ‘little Satan.’ And so it’s time that we continue to work very closely with the regional partners, especially, obviously Israel, with, KC-46s and F-35 upgrades or whatever.
We came back very impressed as military men, saying ‘they accomplished a tremendous amount.’ And there were several things that went their way. How in the world could you have ever predicted less than a year ago, the Syrian regime—of Bashar Al-Assad—collapse? We asked them specifically, did you all, did the Israelis, kind of prod this thing along? And they said no. That was completely and totally out of their purview.’ But the fall of the Assad regime in Syria created this highway aerial route that was exploited.
LTG (ret.) Ashley:
Intelligence sharing between us and the Israelis has always been first-class, and it is a significant contribution that goes both ways. So it’s not just the U.S. feeding; the Israelis feed as well. To Admiral Fox’s comment, you know, the last thing to put in place was opening the air corridor going through Syria because the initial plans were, we’re going to have to fire away through Syrian airspace to get over, so that will be an ongoing battle. And they didn’t really have to engage that until they got to Iranian airspace.
It’s interesting that what they did anticipate when Yahya Sinwar attacks on 7 October, two years ago, [is] that would literally be the catalyst that leads to the destruction [of], and significant damage to, the Iranian nuclear program. But the other part of that is, when the concept was made to us, is they wanted to break spirits, and that was made in the context of, ‘was regime change a goal?’ Well, the intent was to break spirits, and that was significant in what they did. And so really the future of the Iranian regime, this regime under the Ayatollah, is one that we assess is going to continue to look at a nuclear capability, but really regime change in the future direction is one that’s up to the Iranian people.
Blake Johnson:
Thank you to the report authors for giving that great rundown on everything we’d like to open up for Q-and-A now. So you can use the raise hand function.
I have a few questions that were submitted by the reporters, and a few that we have in stock. I like to first turn over to [Journalist 1]. Go ahead and ask your question. You can unmute yourself and ask away.
Journalist 1:
Thanks, Blake, so it sounds like you all—thank you for doing this, by the way—that you all agree that Iran can pursue a nuclear program, it’s a matter of when and how. I wonder if you can give us an assessment of the two facilities that were, that you believe were, destroyed. Can you say how long it could be before they could be operational again? And then a little bit about the missing nuclear material. I mean, is there any idea where it could be and how that could factor into the ability to activate the two facilities back online, and potentially get the nuclear program back online faster? Thank you.
Gen (ret.) Wald:
Bob, let me defer to you on the Intel part, but the question about, do we think Iran is going to continue to pursue a nuclear capability, I’m not a betting man, but if I was, I’d say 100 percent. I remember the former Army chief of staff Gordon Sullivan telling me one time, ‘Hey, Chuck, you know, if somebody has a 50/50 chance of doing something bad, you probably ought to plan for that to happen and do something about it.’ And the Iranians have demonstrated they are not giving up.
Hard for me to imagine thinking the way they do, but this is an existential issue for them. Their main goal in life is to get rid of Israel and have the Twelfth Imam arrive. So the fact that they’re going to try, I don’t think there’s any doubt. But even if there is a 50/50, chance, you need to plan for it. But I’ll defer to Bob on the intel side.
LTG (ret.) Ashley:
Yeah, thanks for the question. So again, there’s a little bit of art and science in these estimates about what the reconstitution time is. Part of what our discussion revealed was it’s kind of starting from scratch, and the two sites that were destroyed, that’s probably in the magnitude of a couple of years to reset that infrastructure, because you’re going to have to put those centrifuges all back in place. And so we were previously where we were in weeks of a breakout, if they wanted to go from 60 to 90 [percent]. And remember, the breakout is just getting to 90 percent highly enriched uranium. Then you got to weaponize it. And, then, you got to have a delivery system. So there’s three key components to that.
So, I would say a couple of years, for reconstituting the core baseline of the program. And they’ll need to put that in place before they can take that 400 kilograms, or whatever the number is, of 60 percent and move it toward 90. As far as that location, the Israelis may know that. We did not get that. So that is a, clearly, key intelligence requirement for them, for the U.S. as well, to understand where that is. The IAEA has not been able to say that they have insights on that as well. So, we do not know the answer to that.
And then, you know, as the other gentleman alluded to, the pursuit of the program is something that they inherently believe is a sovereign right for them to do. And so if you look at the negotiations for what might have been JCPOA 2.0, really the sticking point in the negotiations was that they see this as an inherent right, to have some form of enrichment. If you go and look at the details of it, you know, if you’re doing medical research or things along those lines, it’s in the single digits, you know, of enrichment. Four, or five, or six percent. So clearly, if you’re looking at 60 percent enrichment, you have another intent behind that.
And I think the other thing that we wanted to clarify was, you know, for the longest time we had watched this fatwa that was in place by the Ayatollah from 2003 that said ‘to build a nuclear weapon is un-Islamic.’ The insight that we got from our discussions is the fatwa was not rescinded, but there was an element and a team that was looking at the possibility of either a fusion or a fission kind of capability. So they were looking at the mechanics of what it would take to put together a weapon. That discovery of that effort was really what accelerated the Israelis timeline, and then so many other things came into place that allowed them to prosecute.
Gen (ret.) Wald:
Let me just add the other thing that’s changed, and it isn’t just the nuclear program, it’s the ballistic missile program. And, of course, the proxies, which have been defanged significantly, but they’re still there. The ballistic missile program was really a motivator for the campaign, for the Israelis to go in a different direction than just go after the nuclear weapons. So I think they need to keep a close eye on that.
You know, the expenditure of air defense missiles in this campaign, or 12-Day War, if you will, was significant. So they need to be replaced by both the Israelis and the United States and allies, but the Iranians came to the conclusion that the ballistic missile capability was just as important to them being successful here as anything else. So we got to keep an eye on that.
Mark, any comments?
VADM (ret.) Fox:
Well, if you look at the expenditures of intercept vehicles and what it took to defend Israel in these waves of ballistic missile attacks, you can’t just play defense in this effort. And, eventually, you saw a few cases where there were leakers. They’re very good about kind of predicting where a particular ballistic missile’s going to go. But the equation [is] if you’re able now to overwhelm an integrated air defense with ballistic missiles. Remember, the Iranians in the Iran-Iraq War, there was a missile war, this is not the first time that they have been in a situation—they the Iranians—in which they were on the receiving end of ordnance coming their way. And this time it was from Saddam’s Iraq, back in the Iran-Iraq War. And that was what created a tremendous motivation on the part of the Iranians to create this ballistic missile capability, coupled with a delivery vehicle for a nuke, if you ever get it. But even with the capability of conventional ballistic missile attacks, you can overwhelm a defense if you have enough missiles. And that was where they were going, which was part of the calculus of the Israelis to affect this campaign when they did.
LTG (ret.) Ashley:
Yeah. They were looking to accelerate the production numbers significantly with intent. And so this was, in many ways, a preemptive strike on increasing that inventory.
Gen (ret.) Wald:
First of all, you can’t take away any of the success here. The success here is just tremendous, as I mentioned. But the other thing that the Israelis mentioned, all of us would think that we got to be careful they don’t reconstitute the air defense capability as well. That’s part of the overall complex part of this thing. So I’d say it’s far from over. It was a tremendous activity, but there’s a ways to go, and the Israelis are going to be watching for it.
Journalist 1:
Just one quick follow up. When you talk about that, that the Israelis expended a lot of their air defenses, that’s obvious, just on the surface of it. But did you guys get any sense of exactly how much of their inventory of air defenses the Israelis went through?
Gen (ret.) Wald:
Well, I can just say one thing, and Blaise was the main author of this report, but the U.S. provided terminal High Altitude Area Defense weapons to them, called THAAD, and during the defense, one-fourth of the United States inventory, which is in the report, was expended. The SM-3s as well, which is the Navy’s fantastic weapon, a lot of expenditure there. And the Israelis expanded quite a bit of their own inventory. So without getting into classified details, there was a pretty significant expenditure of defensive weapons that needs to be replenished. And that’s part of our report that needs to be done, not just that, but other types of weapons for the Israelis: JASM, other weapons.
LTG (ret.) Ashley:
Which is why you see the criticality of advancing technology for something like Iron Beam. You know, you got a magazine depth. You’ve got a technology that can continue to fire. And so, you know, we’re moving into another changing character of warfare with things like lasers as we go forward. So that’s a pretty impressive capability. Again, just speaks to the innovation and the technical prowess of the Israelis.
Blake Johnson:
Again, if you have questions, feel free to use the hand raise function. I’m happy to call on you. We had one question from [Journalist 2]. This gets to the announcement yesterday of the sale of F-35 and Israel’s use of the F-35 in this campaign playing a very prominent role.
What are the fears about Saudis potentially giving the F-35 technology to other countries? What can happen, or the possible scenarios and sort of, how do we mitigate that?
Gen (ret.) Wald:
I’ll just jump in. I think Bob’s probably got a lot to say in this case, as well as Mark. But you know, the QME, the qualitative military edge for Israel, it’s written into our laws in the United States that Israel will always have a qualitative military edge. The F-35 right now is one of the primary qualitative military edges, no doubt about it.
The other part that is lost, I think sometimes, and I’ve always argued this—and I get a lot of blowback from people—but there’s a big difference between the Israeli actual pilot capability than the other countries out there. That’s a big difference. Now, the Israelis modified their own F-35 a little bit, and some other weapons that we weren’t told about, that you can imagine what they are, that they created or developed just prior to the attack on Iran. The Israelis developed their own qualitative military adds just by their technological capability, their intellectual capability, their planning, their intelligence.
So number one is, I don’t think even if Israel or Saudi Arabia had the F-35 it would give the Saudis some kind of killing advantage. They just don’t have the personnel to do that. Two, as was talked about during the announcement, it’s going to take quite a while for Saudi Arabia to get these weapons. They’re way down the list on export priority from the standpoint of the number that Lockheed Martin can build. Then you got to go through a training process with them too. So, at the very least, there’s probably about a five year window here before that would happen if they got the F-35. So, I’m not as worried as other people about Saudi Arabia getting the F-35. Number two is, the assumption is Saudi Arabia would be closer to Israel. They wouldn’t be using it against Israel in a war.
So, I think there’s a lot being made of it. We told Turkey they’re not going to get the F-35. We told the UAE they’re not going to get it because there’s concern that there could be a transfer of technology to China, let’s say. That would probably be the biggest issue with Saudi Arabia getting the F-35. Not because they would give it to the Chinese. Because the Chinese could exploit through intel, getting capability off that, but I’m not as worried as some. I don’t know, Bob or Mark, what do you think?
LTG (ret.) Ashley:
Yeah, I mean, there’s always, there’s always a concern. And one of the things that we do through foreign military sales is end-use case monitoring protocol. So we watch very closely how, you know, these kinds of advanced systems are used. And so we’ve got, you know, as best you can, the mitigation in place for some of those things, but they’re not absolute.
What I’d ask Admiral Fox to comment on, so the other part of this is the opportunity of further integration of the militaries. And you know, one of the things that was always a challenge in the CENTCOM area was an integrated missile defense, and that’s very problematic in terms of what nations will share with other nations, and how do you kind of find the, you know, lowest common denominator for how to do that, and then having these kinds of like capabilities adds to the ability for the region to defend against nefarious actors. In this case, we have one particular one in mind. And so there’s goodness in this. But you always go into these things with eyes wide open. Admiral Fox?
VADM (ret.) Fox:
When I was Fifth Fleet Commander in March of 2012, I was summoned by my friend and classmate, Harry Harris, who was with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and there was a meeting. This was the first time meeting of the GCC Ministerial to talk about defense. And among other things, I was someone to come over there and say, ‘Hey, there’s a reason that we need to work together, and that’s because it’s much better to have a network rather than just, you’re the only person that’s trying to shoot down a ballistic missile that’s coming your way. Or, it’s so much easier to have a collective approach to maritime security by having coalitions that work together.’
We just saw now, this is years later, but in this year, in 2025, and in 2024, we saw coalitions defending and coming together to defend against a common threat. So it’s remarkable. This has been a long time coming. It’s going to take a long time to complete, I think. But at the same time, the momentum is certainly in the right direction. The other thing that I would add as an old Navy guy, I would comment that back in the ‘70s, we sold the highest technology airplane that we could develop at the time. It was the F-14 Tomcat. And Top Gun Maverick notwithstanding, those airplanes, it was kind of hard to, as a Navy guy, to see Israeli footage of Tomcats blowing up on their ramp.
And so things work out in a way that are completely unexpected. You got to do the best you can at the end. I agree with the comments that General Wald and General Ashley have said, in terms of any time you field a capability and it’s unique, then people are going to want to try to exploit it.
The one thing about F-35 is it talks to every other F-35, and that’s how you’re able to now say there’s a new emitter over there, and you have targeting quality in real time to be able to use multiple angles to be able to target something like that. So having more F-35 in the region actually increases the capability of the coalition, or the collective effort there. The more F-35s you have flying, the better off you are.
Gen (ret.) Wald:
I 100 percent agree with that. In 2001 I was, like I said, the commander for the Air Force for Central Command. And it was right after 9/11. We were in the region, and we called together all the air chiefs from the GCC countries, which, we all know who they are, and that turned out to be the first time they had ever met each other, amazingly. 2001. And here we are in 2025 now, hoping that there’s an integrated air defense for the region against primarily Iran. Things take a long time to happen.
You know, the F-35 in Rising Lion turned out to be like a mini AWACS. All of them were out there. Each one of them had their own capability to have an air picture for the aircraft that were flying with them. Fantastic capability. But the F-35 doesn’t do that on its own. I mean, the Israeli pilots are really trained. Well, they know how to do this. They’ve trained together, U.S. pilots, same way. I can honestly say that’s not necessarily the truth for other GCC countries. So things take a long time to happen. I think it’s in our best interest if there is coordination. I think the F-35 being in Saudi Arabia, if the Abraham Accords come about, would be a good thing. But like I said, it’s going to take a while.
Blake Johnson:
Just one more question, I think, from my end, I think the interest in leading up to the operation – sort of, if you give just a little bit more description of what that was like for both the planners, how the intel changed, how they plan that, and then what those interactions were from the Israeli side of their interactions with the White House, and sort of how they were seeing things both play out in the press versus what they were seeing behind the scenes. If you can, provide any insight into how they perceived that.
Gen (ret.) Wald:
Let me just make a real short comment. I think the most impressive thing—there is so many impressive things the Israelis did in this, and the U.S. contribution as well, but the Israelis particularly—was the decision from going to a single target to a campaign. That was a significant thing that doesn’t happen overnight. And they did it, and they pivoted and changed the whole plan in a very short period of time. We met with the individual that was in charge of that. Very impressive person. These guys are really sharp.
And the fact that they pivoted and, you know, kind of put their country at risk if it didn’t work, had the courage to do that, and came up with a plan – that is going to go down in history. Like I said, I think it is one of the great campaigns of all time. That was very impressive to me.
VADM (ret.) Fox:
I’d add to that, the same person that was responsible for creating this campaign that we’ve just said was a major mindset change was also in that position of responsibility on October 7. And he said, ‘I have to live with this.’ And so October 7, he said, ‘It changed our DNA. We had a mindset all along of, you know what, this is a problem. We’re going to have to just kind of manage. And we’re going to keep mowing the lawn and pushing this to the right. I’ll pass it to my successor, and then he’ll pass it to his successor.’
And then suddenly October 7 occurred, and it was like, ‘You know what? No. We’ve got to deal with this now, and on my watch, at this time.’ And their planning evolved right up until just before. I mean, major changes in this. It was not a long term, ‘we’ve had this thing in the can for a long time, and now we’re going to do it.’ That was not how this plan developed. And a year ago, this time, Bashar Al Assad was still in power. He was still the head of Syria. He fell, and that was another piece of this. And so just all these different pieces came together in a way that you could have never predicted.
And the weapons development in the fight. I mean, they had cyber capability. They didn’t go into depth with us, but they alluded to what they were able to do in the cyber world. And you look at the way that they beat back Nasrallah, and Lebanese Hezbollah, with the pager attacks. There was a multiple factor variable equation here that all came together. And the fact that they were able to fly the sorties, get gas from 60-year-old 707 RAM tankers to put all that together, it was just a really remarkable thing. And right up until they executed, it was evolving.
LTG (ret.) Ashley:
Yeah, Blake, I got a couple things to add to that, and they didn’t share what it was, but from a technology development, there was a capability that literally came online days before. I mean, so when we think about acquisition reform and the speed to getting new technology to the warfighter to the field, clearly, they didn’t go through the JCIS process to fill whatever it was they had, but it was consequential at the very end. And the other part is they talked about LNOs, liaison officers. We all know what you do with LNOs is that you put your best and brightest in your, you know, in the other command. And so there was a robust exchange of all those between Central Command and the Israeli Defense Forces that allowed very robust communications. Clearly, communications were ongoing between General Kurilla and the head of the IDF.
And then the other thing they did share is very robust communications, strong engagement at the diplomatic, political levels between both governments moving up through the entire prep and then the execution, the campaign.
Blake Johnson:
Thank you, gentlemen. I think I just like to turn it over to you, just if you have a final thought that you want to get out. And then I think we’ll wrap here.
Gen (ret.) Wald:
I commend my colleagues here for the work they did, they were awesome in the questioning of the Israelis. Number two is, frankly, I mean, we’ve all been around a little bit and been through this before, but I was really impressed with the access we had to the Israeli government, their intelligence, their military, all what they were doing. And that’s a tribute to JINSA and the reputation JINSA has, and Mike Makovsky and Blaise and the rest of the team. Every time we go in the Middle East in any shape or fashion or form, we meet with the top leadership.
And then number two would be how open the Israelis were, and they were on the edge of telling us some things that were very sensitive, and were all smart enough to know what those are, but they were extremely open. They weren’t cocky. They were humble. They realized they’ve got a ways to go. But I’ve always been impressed with the idea from the Israeli military. I come away from this saying that is an impressive capability.
VADM (ret.) Fox:
Totally. I came away from this trip, first of all – the week of the 12-day campaign, I didn’t realize – I was convinced that the Iranians were going to be successful in creating nuclear capability. I just, if I thought we would just fiddle around, and suddenly we’ll discover that the fatwa had been withdrawn or whatnot, and they have nuclear capability. And you think about what that would mean. And when that 12-day campaign was ongoing, and then with the Midnight Hammer piece of it, I was really relieved. I didn’t realize it was the mental burden that it was. I just assumed that this is going to happen some way, someday, and we’re going to have to deal with a nuclear Iran that’s been pushed at least a few years to the side, and perhaps the Iranian people will come to their senses, or maybe force some sort of a change in a way that allows Iran to become a member of the family of nations again.
Again, it was a very, very interesting trip. Even though it’s not on the front page of the newspaper nowadays, it warrants really, really close attention.
LTG (ret.) Ashley:
Yeah, first, let me say thanks to Blaise for all the tremendous work he did getting all the thoughts together in the report that will get published. For me, one thing, I’ve always been impressed by the Israelis, and they live in a very interesting neighborhood, a lot of times we have a tendency to be risk-averse. They cannot be risk averse. And so their conviction, the commitment that they make, clearly with existential threats, with nations that you know, their goal is their destruction, means they’ve got to be able to execute on a daily basis. And the ability for them to do what they did was very impressive, to Mark’s point.
You know, I worked these plans 15 years ago, and I always had in the back of my mind, if they get close to breakout, are we really going to execute? Always a key decision, you know. And again, that is a really presidential decision at that point. So. good to see what was executed, I’m completely behind it, and I’m glad we were playing a role with Midnight Hammer. I think that’s a wonderful thing.
Blake Johnson:
Right. I think that’s all. Wonderful. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you to the reporters who are able to tune in and those who are looking to enjoy the transcripts that were requested. Just a quick reminder, the embargo lifts today at 4pm Eastern time.
Appreciate it, and hope you all have a good afternoon.