The Middle East’s missile moment: The new arms race in the world’s oldest battleground

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How growing arsenals and proxy wars are pushing the region closer to the brink

Modern conflicts are increasingly hybrid, blending conventional warfare with cyber operations, economic pressure, and proxy battles. Nowhere is this more visible than in the Middle East – where the interests of the US, Russia, China, Iran, Türkiye, Israel, and the Arab states collide.

In this environment, missile arsenals have become one of the decisive tools of war. Alongside airpower, they allow militaries to strike across great distances, punch through defenses, and project strategic pressure far beyond their borders. To understand the balance of power in the region, it’s essential to look at the missile capabilities of its key players.

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Iran: Missiles as the core of deterrence

Despite the June 2025 clash with Israel – which exposed some vulnerabilities and cost Tehran a number of assets – Iran still fields the largest and most diverse missile arsenal in the Middle East. Its rockets are deployed both directly by the Iranian military and indirectly through proxy groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Shia militias in Iraq.

Iran’s arsenal covers a wide range of systems:

Short- and medium-range ballistic missiles (500-2,500km).
Solid-fuel designs that increase survivability and reduce launch prep times.
A growing focus on hypersonic technology, with the two-stage Sejil capable of reaching 2,500km and reportedly carrying a reentry vehicle traveling at up to Mach 10.
The Fateh-110, a precision-guided missile with a range of 300km and a circular error of less than 10 meters thanks to satellite navigation.
The liquid-fueled Khorramshahr, with a range over 2,000km, can carry multiple warheads to overwhelm missile defenses during a mass strike.

The real strength of Iran’s strategy lies in its ability to saturate defenses with large salvos. Even advanced systems struggle to stop every missile when dozens are launched simultaneously. That said, as was shown in June, effective airpower can blunt this advantage by striking mobile launchers and intercepting missiles in flight.

Iran has also invested heavily in drones. Its Shahed-series loitering munitions have become a signature weapon, deployed in large numbers against Israel. But in June, Israel countered with new air-to-air missiles adapted specifically for anti-drone warfare, neutralizing much of the threat.

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Even so, Iran retains sheer volume as its trump card. With more than 2,000 missiles of various types in its inventory, Tehran sits at the forefront of the Middle East’s missile race – and shows no sign of slowing down.

Israel: Precision strikes and missile defense

Israel is the other major missile power in the region, though its strategy looks very different from Iran’s. Rather than relying on sheer volume, Israel combines advanced airpower, layered missile defenses, and a nuclear deterrent shrouded in deliberate ambiguity.

The nuclear part is never openly acknowledged. West Jerusalem has never confirmed its stockpile, but most analysts believe the Jericho-3 ballistic missile – with an estimated range of 4,800 to 6,000km – is capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Israel’s air force is also thought to maintain a nuclear strike option with gravity bombs.

Where Israel is fully transparent is in its conventional arsenal. Its air force is the backbone of its offensive power: More than 300 modern fighters, including F-15s, F-16s, and fifth-generation F-35s. Armed with guided missiles, precision bombs, and air-launched ballistic weapons, these aircraft give Israel the ability to suppress enemy air defenses, seize air superiority, and deliver devastating precision strikes. The June 2025 conflict underscored this: When Israeli jets dismantled air defenses, Iran’s missile salvos lost much of their impact.

Equally important is Israel’s layered missile defense architecture – from the Iron Dome to David’s Sling and Arrow-3 – which has proven highly effective at intercepting rockets, drones, and even ballistic threats. Together with airpower, this defensive shield ensures that Israel not only wields powerful offensive capabilities but also neutralizes much of the threat posed by its adversaries’ arsenals.

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Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu.

This combination – precision strike capability, layered defenses, and a nuclear backstop – makes Israel’s military one of the most formidable in the Middle East. And it didn’t achieve this alone: Sustained US support has been essential to building and maintaining this edge.

Türkiye: A growing missile power

Türkiye is positioning itself as one of the most ambitious military innovators in the region. Its strategy is to build as much as possible at home – from a fifth-generation fighter program (KAAN) to advanced drones like the Kizilelma, its own main battle tank, a modern navy, and an expanding missile arsenal.

The centerpiece of Ankara’s missile effort is the Tayfun program, an operational-tactical ballistic missile with a range of around 500km. Currently in testing, Tayfun is expected to evolve into a mobile missile system comparable to Russia’s Iskander – highly accurate, difficult to intercept, and designed to strike critical targets despite modern missile defenses. Turkish officials suggest it could enter service within the next year or two, significantly enhancing the country’s strike capability and making Türkiye one of the strongest missile powers in both the Middle East and Europe.

Beyond ballistic systems, Türkiye fields a sizable air force and has become a drone superpower. Its UAVs can deliver precision-guided munitions, including air-to-surface missiles. Against advanced air defenses, these drones are vulnerable, but against most regional opponents they give Türkiye a decisive edge.

What’s more, developing a 500-kilometer-class missile is only a first step. The same technical foundation could, with political will and resources, be extended to missiles with ranges of 1,000 or even 5,000 kilometers. As North Korea has already shown, scaling up is possible for a determined state. And Türkiye, with its growing defense industry and economic base, has both the ambition and the capacity to get there.

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Saudi Arabia and the UAE: Dependent arsenals

Saudi Arabia’s missile arsenal is sizable but heavily dependent on foreign suppliers. Its backbone consists of Chinese-made ballistic missiles acquired decades ago.

The DF-3, delivered in the late 1980s, has a range of around 3,000km but is essentially a 1950s-era design, comparable to the old Soviet R-12. Its accuracy is poor, making it useful mainly for striking large-area targets such as cities.
Reports also suggest that Riyadh has more modern DF-21 solid-fuel missiles with a range of about 2,100km. Unlike the DF-3, these are mobile, more accurate, and potentially capable of precision strikes against military targets.

Interestingly, Saudi Arabia has never developed nuclear weapons. If it had, the original acquisition of the DF-3 would have made more sense as a nuclear delivery platform. Instead, these missiles have been relegated mostly to parades and symbolic shows of force.

The United Arab Emirates, for its part, relies almost entirely on advanced Western aircraft and missile defense systems, with little in the way of indigenous ballistic missile capabilities. Its strength lies in integration with the US and allied systems, rather than in building its own arsenal.

Conclusion

The Middle East today is not just a patchwork of proxy wars and shifting alliances – it is also an active missile theater, where states large and small are investing in strike capabilities that can alter the regional balance almost overnight.

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Iran leans on mass salvos and regional proxies to project power across borders. Israel counters with high-end fighters, layered missile defenses, and a nuclear deterrent shrouded in silence. Türkiye is rapidly building the foundations of a domestic missile industry that could extend far beyond its neighborhood. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, though dependent on external suppliers, remain important players whose arsenals serve as both symbols and potential assets in a crisis.

What ties all of this together is the region’s volatility. Hybrid wars, drone swarms, and missile barrages are already shaping the battlefield. The next escalation may not come from a conventional invasion or a single strike, but from the convergence of these tools in a conflict where no side can fully control the outcome.

Missiles have become the pressure points of Middle Eastern geopolitics – both a shield and a sword. And as the arsenals grow, so does the risk that one spark could ignite a chain reaction far beyond the region itself.

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