What you need to know

Iran’s firepower is weaker, but not spent, on day 11 of the war

Iranian missile and drone launch volumes remain far below the opening barrage between 28 February and 2 March, but the latest figures suggest Tehran still retains enough missile and drone capacity to sustain harassment, impose costs, and complicate any claim that its coercive arsenal has been fully broken.

By the eleventh day of the war, Iran’s missile-and-drone campaign appears markedly diminished from its opening shock, though not exhausted. Based on the launch figures provided, Tehran has fired 873 ballistic missiles and 1,586 drones over eleven days.

The broader pattern is plain. Iran opened the war with an exceptionally heavy ballistic barrage of 350 missiles on day 1, followed by 175 on day 2 and 120 on day 3. Drone launches were even more volatile, with 294 on day 1 and a peak of 541 on day 2. Since then, the numbers have fallen sharply. On day 11, ballistic launches stood at 24, just 6.9% of the day-1 total, while drone launches stood at 95, about 17.6% of their day-2 peak. That amounts to a steep reduction in scale. It suggests that Iran’s ability to generate mass salvos, particularly the kind needed to overwhelm layered air defenses, has been significantly degraded.

Even so, the recent pattern matters as much as the decline. The data does not show a clean collapse toward zero. After reaching low points on day 8, when ballistic launches fell to 15 and drone swarms to 12, Iran showed a modest rebound. Ballistic launches rose to 21 on day 9, dipped slightly to 18 on day 10, then climbed again to 24 on day 11. Drone launches also recovered, rising from 12 on day 8 to 134 on day 9, 112 on day 10, and 95 on day 11. In other words, Iran no longer looks capable of reproducing its initial shock-and-awe tempo, but it does appear able to regenerate enough combat output to sustain a lower-intensity campaign. That is strategically important. A state does not need to win the exchange to remain dangerous; it merely needs to keep firing often enough to force its enemies to keep defending.

That is increasingly how the war is being interpreted. It seems that Iran is now betting on endurance and energy disruption rather than a decisive battlefield reversal, and that despite heavy losses it may still possess enough of its missile arsenal to continue attacks for weeks. Tehran is not seeking a ceasefire. The implication is that Iran’s campaign has shifted from trying to saturate defenses at the outset to demonstrating survivability, persistence, and a continued ability to raise costs across the region.

The operational meaning of the day-11 numbers is therefore two-sided. On one hand, they suggest real attrition. Ballistic missile launches have fallen dramatically from the opening days, which is consistent with the effects of sustained strikes on launch infrastructure, storage sites, production lines, command-and-control nodes, and transport networks. Lower launch volumes may also reflect rationing. Tehran may be conserving higher-value missiles, preserving residual inventory for politically important moments, or adapting to a more hostile operating environment in which launchers are easier to find and destroy. Drone numbers, although more resilient than missile numbers, also remain well below their early peaks. That points either to reduced production and assembly capacity, tighter logistical constraints, or a more selective concept of employment.

On the other hand, the persistence of launches into day 11 shows that Iran’s coercive architecture has not been dismantled. The simple fact that Tehran can still put 24 ballistic missiles and 95 drones into the fight after eleven days of war means three things. First, at least part of its launcher force remains intact, mobile, or sufficiently concealed to survive repeated attack. Second, it still possesses command arrangements capable of coordinating multi-vector strikes, even at reduced volume. Third, its remaining arsenal is large enough, or dispersed enough, to support continued operations after absorbing substantial punishment.  

This matters because wars of coercive disarmament are rarely decided by whether an arsenal still exists in absolute terms. They are decided by whether that arsenal can still alter political choices. Iran’s day-11 capability almost certainly no longer permits it to impose the kind of concentrated military effect that might seriously threaten the survival of Israeli air defenses or fundamentally change the battlefield balance. But it may still be enough to shape the political and economic environment of the war. Even smaller salvos force expensive interceptions, generate recurring civilian disruption, sustain a climate of alarm in Israel and the Gulf, and help Tehran project an image of continued resistance to domestic and regional audiences. A reduced arsenal can still have strategic utility when its purpose is not conquest, but endurance and nuisance at scale.

There is also an asymmetry in the mix. Ballistic missiles appear to have declined faster than drones. That is not surprising. Ballistic missiles are harder to replace, more technically demanding, and often more vulnerable to targeted disruption of specialized production facilities and supply chains. Drones, by contrast, are usually cheaper, easier to assemble, and more adaptable as a replenishable harassment tool. If this pattern continues, Iran’s campaign may increasingly tilt away from large missile salvos and toward a more drone-heavy, intermittent pressure model. That would be consistent with a regime trying to preserve prestige weapons while continuing to demonstrate reach.

Another point is that the absolute totals remain substantial. Eleven days into the war, 2,459 aerial attack munitions, combining ballistic missiles and drones, is not the profile of a state that has been fully disarmed. It is the profile of a state whose ability to generate mass has been heavily damaged, but whose residual stock and operational flexibility remain meaningful. Day 11’s combined total of 119 launches is only about 18.5% of the day-1 combined barrage of 644, which highlights the scale of attrition. But 119 is still enough to sustain the war’s psychological and defensive burden. For defenders, the question is not only how many get through, but how long the interception, alert, and protection cycle must continue.

This is why public claims of imminent Iranian military exhaustion should be treated cautiously. The data supports the argument that Iran’s offensive capacity has been substantially reduced. It does not support the stronger claim that it is finished. The rebound after day 8 is especially important here. It may indicate partial adaptation: dispersal of launch assets, prioritization of surviving supply lines, or a deliberate shift from initial overuse to a more sustainable firing rhythm. Iran appears to be reorganizing around a war of attrition and using what remains of its missile force as a tool of persistence rather than decisive escalation.

The political meaning of day 11 is therefore clearer than the purely military one. Iran no longer looks capable of delivering the kind of opening blow that could plausibly overwhelm regional defenses through sheer volume. But it still looks capable of contesting any premature declaration that its missile-and-drone threat has been eliminated. If Washington and Jerusalem define success as the total destruction of Iran’s retaliatory ability, the day-11 figures suggest they are not there. If, however, they define success more modestly, as degrading Iran below the threshold at which it can mount large, sustained, strategically disruptive barrages, then the campaign appears to be moving in that direction.

The likeliest interpretation is that Iran has already lost the upper end of its coercive power, but retains the lower end. It is less able to terrorize through mass. It remains able to harass through persistence. That makes day 11 not the end of Iran’s missile threat, but the clearest sign so far that the war is transforming it from a force designed to shock and saturate into one designed to endure, punish, and outlast.

Move fast and break things

A war of coercive disarmament

Secretary of State Marco Rubio yesterday framed the campaign against Iran in narrow, operational terms: to destroy the regime’s ability to launch missiles, wreck the factories that produce them, eliminate its naval threat, and destroy its nuclear program. That formulation suggests a war aim focused less on immediate regime collapse than on coercive disarmament: depriving Tehran of the means to threaten Israel, Gulf states and shipping lanes across the region. Rubio used similar language earlier this month, saying the objective was to destroy Iran’s ballistic-missile capability, prevent it from being rebuilt and ensure that Iran can no longer menace maritime traffic.

Recent strikes appear consistent with that logic. Israeli military officials say they have entered a new phase focused on Iran’s core missile-production infrastructure, including facilities at Parchin and Shahroud. According to the IDF, Shahroud was a central ballistic-missile production site, and the attacks there, along with those on Parchin, inflicted heavy damage on Iran’s ability to manufacture missiles, potentially setting the program back by years. Open-source imagery analysis circulating on 9 March, based on Airbus satellite imagery, also showed extensive destruction across Shahroud’s solid-motor production lines, though that more detailed damage assessment should still be treated as an informed external reading rather than a formal independent audit.

President Donald Trump, by contrast, has offered a more flexible message about the state of the war. In a phone interview with CBS News he said the conflict was “very complete, pretty much”, arguing that Iran had effectively lost its navy, communications and air force, and adding that the campaign was running well ahead of his initial four-to-five-week timetable. At the same time, when pressed on the apparent tension between his optimism and the Pentagon’s tougher line, Trump’s answer was essentially that both could be true: the campaign may be nearing its core objectives, even as further action remains possible.

That ambiguity matters because it suggests that Washington may be laying the groundwork for a political declaration of success before the fighting has entirely stopped. Trump has also said that the U.S. is considering “taking over” the Strait of Hormuz, an extraordinary remark given the waterway’s importance as one of the world’s principal oil chokepoints. Whether that was a negotiating gambit, a deterrent threat or an early hint of contingency planning is unclear, but it suggests that the war’s center of gravity now extends beyond Iran’s military infrastructure to the broader security architecture of Gulf energy flows.

Markets, for now, appear to be responding more to Trump’s talk of imminent success than to the still considerable military risks. Oil prices fell sharply today after surging up to $119 a barrel yesterday. Brent crude is at about $92.17 and WTI at about $88.22 in Tuesday trading, after Trump’s remarks fed expectations that the conflict may not evolve into a prolonged war of regional attrition.

Taken together, the picture is of a campaign increasingly defined by infrastructure destruction, maritime control and air-defense reinforcement, rather than by any realistic expectation that airstrikes alone will topple the Iranian regime.

The U.S. administration’s public language now combines two themes: mission accomplishment is close, but the scope for further escalation remains open.

That may be less a contradiction than a deliberate effort to preserve freedom of action while preparing domestic and international audiences for a war that ends not with negotiation, but with a unilateral declaration that Iran’s capacity to project force has been broken.

The ultimate complex system

Gulf export squeeze deepens, producers warn of wider shutdowns & oil whiplash

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is now pushing the Gulf’s main oil and gas exporters from a shipping crisis into a production crisis. What began as a disruption to tanker traffic has turned into a broader supply shock, as export terminals clog, storage fills, and producers from Iraq to Saudi Arabia are forced to curb output while warning that a prolonged impasse could do far greater damage to the world economy.

Iraq has already suffered some of the sharpest immediate losses. Iraqi officials said the country had cut production by nearly 1.5m barrels a day and warned that reductions could widen to more than 3m barrels a day within days as storage filled and crude could no longer be exported. By Sunday, output at Iraq’s main southern oilfields had fallen by 70%, to about 1.3m barrels a day. The logic is simple: when tankers cannot move, upstream production eventually has to stop.

Kuwait has now moved in the same direction. Kuwait Petroleum Corporation declared force majeure and began cutting crude output and refining throughput, saying the reduction was precautionary and would be reviewed as the situation evolved. The company said it remained ready to restore production when conditions allowed, but its trade notice made clear why it had acted: Iranian threats to shipping, continuing attacks on Kuwait, and what it described as the near-total absence of vessels available to move crude and petroleum products from the Gulf.

The United Arab Emirates has so far adopted a more measured public line, but its message is hardly reassuring. ADNOC said operations were continuing and that it was relying on export capacity that bypasses Hormuz, along with international storage, to keep supplies flowing. At the same time, it acknowledged that business units were assessing the situation product by product as the disruption persisted.

Saudi Arabia has already crossed that threshold. Aramco has begun reducing output at two oilfields as blocked shipping and limited storage squeezed the kingdom alongside other Gulf producers. Aramco is redirecting crude through its East-West pipeline to the Red Sea, but even that workaround has limits. On Tuesday, Amin H. Nasser, chief executive of Aramco, warned that the consequences for global oil markets would be “catastrophic” if disruption in Hormuz persisted. He said oil exports from the Gulf were effectively not moving and that the East-West pipeline would hit full capacity within days. In other words, Saudi Arabia is still trying to reroute barrels, but its bypass options are limited.

Qatar’s problem is different in form but no less important. Rather than crude, it is gas production that has been undermined. As we noted last week, Qatar has declared force majeure on gas exports, with sources saying normal production volumes might take at least a month to restore even if the conflict stopped immediately. Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, Qatar’s energy minister, said in an interview with the Financial Times that Gulf energy exports could stop entirely within weeks if the crisis continued, and that even U.S. naval protection would not necessarily make Hormuz safe enough for normal traffic. That is among the bleakest warnings issued by any Gulf producer: not merely that flows are under strain, but that the region could slide from partial disruption into a near-complete export shutdown.

Taken together, the regional message is becoming clearer. Iraq is warning that it may have to cut even more sharply if the blockage lasts. Kuwait says it can restore output only when conditions permit. The UAE says it is managing for now, but is plainly relying on bypass routes and storage to preserve flexibility. Saudi Arabia says the economic fallout could become catastrophic and that its main alternative export line is nearing full use. Qatar is warning that, unless the security picture changes, the export paralysis could spread across the Gulf within weeks.

Washington has said some things about protecting shipping, but it has not announced a fully operational escort regime. President Donald Trump has said the U.S. Navy could escort ships in the Gulf if necessary. And we noted last week that the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation would provide reinsurance for maritime losses of up to $20 billion, in an attempt to restore confidence among shippers. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that insurance support, combined with possible naval escorts, could help solve the shipping problem. But the Navy’s ability to do this is unclear because U.S. vessels are already engaged in strikes against Iran and missile-defense tasks, and because escorts themselves could become targets. So the U.S. has expressed intent, but it has not offered the sort of clear and durable maritime protection architecture that the market appears ready to trust.

That uncertainty helps explain the extraordinary price action. On Monday, Brent surged above $100 and touched nearly $120 a barrel, reaching its highest level since mid-2022 as traders priced in the prospect of a prolonged regional supply shock, forced production cuts, and the possible loss of a waterway that normally carries roughly a fifth of global oil.

Then, on Tuesday, the market swung violently in the other direction. Brent fell by around 7%, and at one point by more than 11%, after Trump said he believed the war could end soon and after a Kremlin aide said Vladimir Putin had shared ideas for a quick settlement. Traders also reacted to reports that Washington was considering ways to cushion supply, including easing sanctions on Russian oil and possibly drawing on emergency stockpiles, while the G7 said it stood ready to take necessary measures.

In effect, yesterday’s price violence reflected a market swinging between two incompatible narratives.

Until one of those stories clearly prevails, oil is likely to remain hostage to headlines, with each new comment from Tehran, Washington, Riyadh, or Doha producing outsized moves. That is why the market has looked less like a calm pricing mechanism than a referendum on whether the Gulf’s export system is merely strained or close to seizing up altogether.

Asia feels the squeeze from Hormuz

Asia’s energy shock is moving beyond oil terminals and trading screens, and into schools, offices, factories, and kitchens.

As disruption to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz squeezes the flow of Gulf crude and fuel into Asian markets, governments across the region are beginning to conserve fuel, ration supply, curb public-sector activity, and prepare their populations for a more austere period. Around a fifth of global oil supply normally passes through Hormuz, and tanker traffic through the route had been drastically reduced, leaving Asian buyers scrambling for replacement barrels and refiners under mounting pressure.

In Southeast Asia, some of the most visible changes are already affecting daily life. In the Philippines, the government has shifted public agencies to a temporary four-day workweek as part of a broader energy-saving drive. The aim is to reduce fuel and electricity use across a large share of the state apparatus as imported energy becomes more expensive and less secure. The order covers not only ministries but much of the broader public sector, reflecting the seriousness with which Manila now views the shock.

Thailand is moving in a similar direction. On 10 March that Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul ordered civil servants to work from home where possible, alongside a broader package of conservation measures that includes suspending overseas trips, limiting elevator use, raising air-conditioning settings, and preparing tighter restrictions if the crisis worsens. Bangkok has also moved to preserve domestic supply by halting most energy exports.

Vietnam has also joined the shift toward conservation. Hanoi had urged businesses to let staff work from home in order to save fuel, while also moving to reduce import tariffs on fuel to ease the supply squeeze. Domestic fuel prices there have already risen sharply since the war began, showing how quickly the disruption is feeding through into retail markets and business costs.

Elsewhere in Asia, the response is becoming harsher. Pakistan had announced austerity measures to save fuel, including temporary school closures and greater reliance on working from home. Bangladesh has imposed limits on daily fuel sales after panic buying and has redirected scarce gas supplies away from industry and toward electricity generation, forcing several fertilizer plants to halt operations. These are the kinds of measures governments adopt when the question is no longer simply one of high prices, but whether essential fuel can be stretched far enough to keep the wider economy functioning.

In Sri Lanka, the strain is showing up in a more politically sensitive form: queues. Reports of motorists lining up for gasoline have revived memories of the island’s earlier fuel crisis, reminding governments across the region that energy shocks can quickly become social and political crises. Even where physical shortages remain patchy, fear of shortage can have destabilizing effects of its own.

India’s difficulties are somewhat different, but no less serious. The pressure there is showing up in liquefied petroleum gas, especially for commercial users. Restaurants and hotels have warned of disruption as Gulf-linked supply tightens, and some industrial sectors are also coming under pressure. That matters because it suggests the shock is not confined to motorists and transport. It is spreading into food services, manufacturing inputs, and the wider inflation picture.

The commercial consequences are visible across the Asian energy complex. Asian refiners are struggling to replace Middle Eastern crude and cutting output. Asian fuel-oil markets are tightening rapidly, with high-sulfur fuel-oil prices in Singapore surging and tanker transits through Hormuz down by roughly 90%.

That logistical dislocation may prove almost as important as the outright loss of supply. Asia is not facing a simple binary choice between normality and complete shortage. Instead, it is confronting a messier reality in which some barrels are unavailable, others are delayed, and others are being pulled away from one market to plug gaps in another. That raises costs across the board: for refiners, airlines, shipping firms, and ultimately households.

North Asia is responding with a more technocratic toolkit. China has urged refiners to stop signing new fuel-export contracts and to try to cancel some existing export commitments, in effect keeping more product at home as the regional supply picture deteriorates. That does not mean China is in immediate danger of running short. Its stockpiles and diversified supply base give it more room than many of its neighbors. But it does show that Beijing is already treating the situation as serious enough to prioritize domestic security over export trade.

Across the region, the common pattern is clear. Governments are trying to suppress demand before scarcity becomes acute. They are shortening workweeks, encouraging remote work, limiting official travel, trimming exports, preparing price controls, rationing fuel, and redirecting gas away from less essential uses. Some of these measures are still precautionary. Others are already emergency steps. Taken together, they suggest that Asia’s oil shock is no longer hypothetical.

The broader significance is that the Hormuz disruption is beginning to expose the structure of Asia’s dependence on Gulf energy. For decades, the region’s economies were built on the assumption that oil and gas from the Middle East would remain physically available, even when prices rose. What this crisis is testing is something more fundamental: what happens when availability itself comes into doubt?

Birthplace of civilization

Lebanon calls for direct talks with Israel as ground fighting in south deepens

Lebanon on Monday signaled a potentially important political shift in the midst of the war, calling for direct talks with Israel on what it described as “permanent arrangements for security and stability on our borders”, while also accusing Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group, of having betrayed the country.

The statement came as evidence mounted that Israel’s ground campaign in southern Lebanon is moving into a more overt and sustained phase. A message attributed to the commander of Israel’s 36th Division, circulated within the unit, said the formation was “returning to the fight in Lebanon” as the war entered the tenth day of Operation Roar of the Lion. According to the text of the message, Israeli forces are expected to operate across the area through raids, combat operations, and broader maneuvers.

That message amounts to a near-explicit acknowledgment that Israel’s ground war in southern Lebanon is now underway. Reports from the border area said Israeli tank columns were advancing toward Taybeh and Aitaroun, while helicopters provided covering fire. Taken together, the developments suggest that Israel is no longer limiting its campaign to airstrikes and stand-off attacks, but is instead pressing deeper into southern Lebanon with combined ground and air operations.

The political significance of Beirut’s statement is substantial. For years, Lebanese officials have largely avoided language that could be interpreted as endorsing direct engagement with Israel, given the country’s domestic divisions and Hezbollah’s long-standing role as both an armed movement and a major political force. Calling for direct talks on long-term border security, especially while publicly blaming Hezbollah, suggests that at least part of the Lebanese state is trying to separate Lebanon’s national interests from the strategy of the Iran-led regional axis.

That shift is unfolding under severe military and humanitarian pressure. Escalating hostilities have forced nearly 700,000 people to flee their homes in Lebanon, according to a U.N. agency on Monday, underscoring the scale of displacement caused by the fighting as the war entered its second week. The conflict is now inflicting damage not only on Hezbollah’s military infrastructure, but on Lebanon’s already fragile social and economic fabric.

Israel has also continued to widen the target set linked to Hezbollah’s institutional and financial networks. Over the past week, Israeli airstrikes reportedly hit around 30 facilities tied to Al-Qard Al-Hasan, the financial institution associated with Hezbollah. Striking those assets suggests Israel is trying to weaken not only the group’s battlefield capabilities, but also the parallel financial structures that help sustain its influence inside Lebanon.

The combined effect is to create a war that is no longer confined to border exchanges or symbolic escalation. On one side, Israel appears to be intensifying its effort to degrade Hezbollah militarily and financially. On the other, the Lebanese state is beginning, at least rhetorically, to distance itself from Hezbollah more openly than before. Whether that turns into a lasting political realignment is far less clear. For now, it highlights how the war is reshaping Lebanon’s internal balance even as fighting on the ground grows more intense.

Instability from Sahel to Horn of Africa amid state fragility, Russian interference, & Islamist insurgencies

Sudan climbs back onto Washington’s agenda

The United States has hardened its Sudan policy, saying it will designate the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood as both a specially designated global terrorist entity and, from 16 March, a foreign terrorist organization. The move was announced by the State Department on 9 March and was separately reflected in an OFAC sanctions update, which also linked the Al-Baraa Bin Malik Brigade to the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood.

The designation follows a broader series of U.S. punitive measures tied to Sudan’s war. In February, Washington imposed sanctions on three Rapid Support Forces commanders over atrocities connected to the siege and capture of al-Fashir. That followed earlier U.S. findings that the RSF had committed genocide in Darfur, as well as previous sanctions on both RSF and Sudanese military figures. The cumulative picture is of an administration once again prepared to use its coercive toolkit on Sudan, even though the war has often struggled to command sustained international attention.

At the same time, Sudan’s war is becoming more overtly regional. On 3 March, Sudan accused Ethiopia, for the first time, of allowing drones to be launched from Ethiopian territory into Sudan during attacks in February and March. This is further evidence that the conflict between the army and the RSF is drawing in regional powers from Africa and beyond.

Those allegations did not emerge in a vacuum. In February, it was widely reported that Ethiopia was hosting a secret camp in Benishangul-Gumuz to train thousands of RSF fighters, citing eight sources, satellite imagery, and diplomatic material.  

That gives the latest U.S. move significance beyond sanctions alone. Washington appears to be treating Sudan not simply as a humanitarian catastrophe or an under-prioritized African civil war, but as a conflict tied to terrorism designations, transnational armed networks, and regional proxy dynamics.

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