“Topgun: Maverick” captured movie audiences with a plot built around the mission to destroy a fictional country’s uranium enrichment facility hidden deep in a remote mountain range.
Combined with a feel-good redemption backstory, the movie depicts a four-ship of Navy F/A-18s defying enemy air defenses, fifth-gen fighters—and logic—to prevail against a seemingly impenetrable target.
Cartoonish, even laughable, it made for great entertainment: Just what we expect from Hollywood.
In June, we saw the remake: The Air Force executed the real thing as seven B-2 bombers, guided by Air Force stealth fighters, glided invisibly into Iranian airspace and delivered 210 tons of perfectly engineered ordnance on two remote nuclear sites. In a coordinated action, the guided missile submarine Georgia launched a barrage of more than two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles at a third Iranian nuclear facility.
This demonstration of Global Reach, Global Power gave Americans just what they expect of their warfighters: exceptional precision, impeccable professionalism, and very little drama.
The lesson of the 12-day war in Iran: Air superiority enabled the U.S. and Israel to impose their will on Iran.
The Air Force made it look easy, but only because 99 percent of the effort is hidden from public view. The Airmen on that mission had trained for just this kind of operation for as long as they’ve been in uniform. The bombs they dropped—30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrators, 14 in total—were engineered and purpose-built for this mission. A tanker bridge enabled the B-2 pilots to complete their 36-hour round-trip hauls without touching down, providing multiple refueling opportunities along the way. Countless others helped in the preparations, execution, and debriefs.
Speaking later to reporters, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine traced the history of this operation to the early 2000s and one analyst’s discovery that Iran was building something suspicious at the Fordow site. But one might also wind the clock back further, to the development of the “Advanced Development Bomber”—a secret research and development project that eventually yielded the B-2 Spirit.
Following on the early success of the experimental F-117 and other secret stealth projects, the B-2 was conceived to evade enemy defenses not through sheer speed, like the B-1, or extreme altitude, like the U-2, through something almost magical: By means of advanced materials and exquisite design it would simply be undetectable by conventional radar.
Some 40 years later, detection technology has improved, but stealth—or low-observable—aircraft are still far harder to detect and counter than more conventional designs. Continued advancements in low-observable technology, embodied in the F-35 fighter and B-21 bomber, coupled with electronic warfare, advanced sensors and computer processors, make fifth-generation technologies required attributes for high-end combat aircraft.
Cheap drones and one-way cruise missiles may be capturing the attention of many due to their extensive use in Russia and Ukraine, but the real lesson of the 12-day war in Iran is that air superiority enabled the U.S. and Israel to impose their will on Iran. And Iran was powerless to do anything about it.
Indeed, it was next-generation stealth that made Midnight Hammer possible. Well before the B-2s departed Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., the Israeli Air Force, armed with U.S.-built F-35s, systematically disabled Iran’s air defenses. Executed against sophisticated S-300 integrated air defense systems—and without a single loss—Israel cleared the battlespace for the U.S. to deliver the final smackdown with weapons and aircraft only America possesses.
By boldly taking the fight to Tehran and destroying its enemies’ ability to defend itself, Israel reset the possibilities for what could happen next. President Donald Trump’s decision to complete the takedown by striking Iran’s nuclear sites was a logical follow-on. Working together, two allies largely defanged a persistent foe—earning appreciation from both Europe and Israel’s neighbors in the Middle East.
The President’s willingness to use force in Iran changes the calculus for others around the world. This can’t be lost on Kim Jong Un in North Korea, Vladimir Putin in Russia, and even China’s Xi Jinping. By striking Iran, the President introduced a new element of uncertainty in the minds of would-be adversaries. Doing so enhanced American deterrence.
There are other lessons to take away, too: F-35 maker Lockheed Martin has endured extensive criticism for the F-35’s shortcomings, from a notoriously underperforming logistics system to computer, radar, and software delays. Yet Israel’s success in defeating Iran’s air defenses demonstrates how effective even a flawed F-35 can be—and why the U.S. and its F-35 partners are right to invest in this remarkable fighter.
Here the President risks making a fatal error. The Pentagon has proposed cutting F-35 purchases to just 24 in 2026, half as many as in recent years. The thinking is that Lockheed should be punished for capability delays. But cutting the buy now will do lasting and irreparable damage, reducing the inventory at a time when the Air Force desperately needs to recapitalize its aging air fleet.
Buying F-35s today ensures the Air Force has jets it can upgrade in the future; not buying them accelerates the shrinkage that threatens its fighting capacity against a peer foe.
Congress should reject the Pentagon’s plan and instead accelerate F-35A purchases to at least 72 per year.
Similarly, the Pentagon proposes canceling the E-7 Wedgetail airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, reasoning that moving air and ground target indications can be delivered directly from space—and that a few extra Navy E-2 Hawkeyes can solve the Air Force’s needs until that’s possible. But the Hawkeye is ill-suited to the Air Force mission, built on and for the smaller scale of conflict defined by its carrier defense mission. Just as crucially, though space-based targeting is in development, it is still far from a proven capability. It could be a decade or more before it is. And even once a space-based solution is available, it may prove indefensible. Congress should reverse this decision as well.
Sixteen retired Air Force four-star generals—including six former Chiefs of Staff—joined in a common appeal to Congress in July: Save the E-7 and build more F-35s, they said. That message, coordinated and amplified by the Air & Space Forces Association and the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, should be echoed throughout the land.
Air Forces are like forests. They cannot be raised overnight, but must be cultivated, with seeds planted years in advance to produce fruit and capability in the future. Just as Operation Midnight Hammer was decades in the making—so too will be the sequel operations Airmen will have to fight five, 10, and 15 years from now.
Success then depends very much on the decisions the Pentagon and Congress make today.