For more than a week, the United States and Israel have struck a wide range of targets in Iran with air and missile strikes. Iran’s response has included missile and drone attacks against targets in neighboring states in the Middle East—both US military and diplomatic facilities and public sites including Dubai’s airport. What weapons, on both sides of the conflict, have defined the conflict so far? To explore that question, John Amble is joined on this special bonus episode by Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.

What were the strategic calculations that drove the United States and Israel to launch a military operation aimed at a wide range of targets in Iran? And are the fundamental objectives of the two partners fully aligned?

Inside Iran, as the regime's resilience and the military's capability are under more pressure than they have been in decades, how are institutions responding? What drove the decision to respond with drone and missile strikes throughout the region?

How are the Gulf states positioning themselves as they have defended against Russian attacks? What role has the Gulf Cooperating Council played? What outcomes might emerge from the conflict and how are Iran's neighbors working to influence those outcomes?

These questions offer insights into the strategic dimension of the ongoing US-Israeli operation against Iran. To examine them, John Amble is joined on this episode by three guests who share their insights on the strategic perspectives of the United States, Israel, Iran, and the Gulf states.

Jonathan Panikoff is the director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council and formerly served as the deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East at the National Intelligence Council. Sydney Laite is a former senior intelligence analyst who spent years focused on Iranian strategic decision-making. And Rory Miller is a professor of international politics at Georgetown University in Qatar, where he is the director of the Small States Research Program.

The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.

The United States has a new National Defense Strategy. Released about every four years, the document offers a window into the way senior defense officials view the global threat environment and identify US defense objectives. But how will the new strategy be interpreted by allies and partners? What about adversaries and competitors? And does formally delineating US priorities offer a degree of predictability on a contemporary strategic landscape characterized by growing instability and a fraying world order?

To examine the strategy, John Amble is joined on this episode by Frank Hoffman, Mark Cancian, and Pat Sullivan.

The MWI Podcast is produced with the generous support of the West Point Class of 1974.

Articles referenced during the episode:

"The 2026 National Defense Strategy by the Numbers: Radical Changes, Moderate Changes, and Some Continuities" (CSIS)

"Key Takeaways from the New National Defense Strategy" (WOTR)