From Retaliation to the Spread of Coercion
Iran’s February-March military response is the result of a shift in coercive strategy. Instead of singular retaliation or fully centralised command and control, Tehran has exhibited distributed coercion: decentralised execution, specific high-leverage military and economic nodes, persistence of operational tempo, and indirect pressure on society throughout the region. The most recent actions went beyond military targets, to non-military economic infrastructure, notably the Duqm commercial port in Oman and Saudi energy infrastructure at Ras Tanura, with other claims regarding offshore oil related assets, associated with the UAE, circulating unevenly across open sources and hence warranting careful assessment.
This paper examines the Iranian approach in four layers of interaction: Strategic (the increase in battlespace, designed to place a political and economic cost on the region), Operational (decentralised command and multiple domains of pressure to maintain the tempo and resilience of the Iranian response), Tactical (repeated micro-barrages and mixed threats packets to strip defensive resources to exhaustion) and Societal (indirect pressure on stability in country within the third country through disruption, fear and political fatigue).
Iranian military doctrine has always made great use of asymmetry, deterrence and managing escalation. Recent operations suggest maturation of doctrine and actions taken Teheran has transitioned from direct battlefield confrontation with a mix of kinetic operations, economic dislocation and indirect socio-economic impacts to increase pressure beyond the battlefield.
Rather than aiming for decisive military victory, Iran seems more interested in achieving cumulative stress: Prolonged uncertainty, political strain and economic risk spread across a regional system. Even when air and missile defences are successful in intercepting incoming threats, the associated airspace closures, debris effects, maritime traffic, insurance impacts and public apprehension create, in times of war, political pressure that can outlast the episode at the kinetic level.
Understanding this model needs an analysis of (i) how Iran chooses targets (ii) the operations sequenced over time (iii) how the authority is delegated under contested circumstances and (iv) how Iran makes use of the second-order effects such as market volatility and domestic political fatigue.
Change at the Strategic Level: the Expansion of Battlespace
2.1 Opening up geographically and politically
A defining strategic feature of Iran’s February-March 2026 actions is a widening of the pressure in many states, especially those where US forces are deployed or critical infrastructure located. Repeated hostile actions of drones and their interception over the Gulf are the example of dispersed pressure that compels several governments to manage risks simultaneously. Strategic diffusion is important because it places a burden on coordination amongst partners, it raises the domestic political costs of crisis management, and it expands the “audience” affected by coercion.
2.2 Targeting non-military and economic nodes
Iran’s response has gone beyond direct targets (essentially military) to civilian-adjacent and economic infrastructure through systemic leverage.
Oman (non-military): Drone strikes (injury to worker) have targeted the Duqm commercial port. Reuters has reported that an oil tanker was hit off the coast of Oman following the Duqm incident that highlights the element of using maritime and trade disruptions as a coercive measure. Saudi Arabia (energy sector): According to a Reuters article, Saudi Aramco has shut down the Rafa oil refinery due to a drone strike; this refinery shutting down was said to be symptomatic of an expanding escalation and increased energy risks. United Arab Emirates (offshore and energy assets): Various reports concerning effects in offshore oil related endings and areas near air defence installation As such, these should be considered reports or claims that are still to be further supported. Across these cases, the targeting logic is best interpreted as system disruption—ports, refineries, shipping, and offshore assets magnify disruption beyond their immediate physical footprint, which was also confirmed by the closing of the Straits of Hormuz.
Operational-Level Change: Decentralised Command, Sustained Tempo, and “Attack Waves”
3.1 Decentralised execution and resilience
Iran’s operational resilience is tied to decentralised command concepts that have been referred to in Iranian discourse, since the mid-1990s, often using the phrase “mosaic defence”. Iranian language sources put this in terms of allowing local initiative and continuity even if coordination at the center becomes degraded. Decentralised structures have been similarly noted by external sources that they may maintain operational continuity during periods of leadership attrition assets trading some operational efficiency for survivability.
For deterrence planners the implication is that those strategies based on paralysing a single command centre, might fail in the face of a system that is oriented towards continuity based on some dispersal of authority.
3.4 Multi-domain integration
Iran’s campaign is backed in a number of areas, such as missiles and drones to burden air defences; maritime to disrupt trade, and electronic to create uncertainty. Windward reported on a prevalent interference with GPS systems in the shipping lanes in the Gulf as an example of a way to increase coercive measures even without resorting to outright ship destruction.
Pressure from Society as a New Level of Coercion
4.1 External disruption to internal political stress
Iran’s ability to influence through coercion is increased through societal and economic risk channels: disruption to aviation, shipping insurance hikes, port security interruptions and fuel market uncertainty. Hirtenstein, Mills, & Saul evaluated that Iran has the capacity to exert disruptive drone pressure around the Strait of Hormuz for a prolonged period of time, demonstrating the strategic vulnerability of maritime commerce and energy transport.
4.2 Maritime disruption and electronic interference as an “invisible coercion”
As an important amplifier associated with societal pressure, it is electronic and navigational disruption. As per the Windward report, 1,100+ vessels had undergone GPS/AIS interference throughout the Middle East Gulf in a span of 24 hours, creating safety, compliance, and commercial risk, even without ship destruction. Burges also reported spikes in GPS jamming to affect large numbers of ships during the conflict period - reinforcing the observation that the coercive effects increasingly travel through uncertainty, disruption and fear of escalation and not just through direct damage.
Policy Implications
Regional governments must view (some, such as the UAE have already taken steps) resilience of civilian infrastructure, such as ports and fuel storage sites as well as refineries, flight hubs and offshore logistics, as a principal aspect of national defence. This demands continuity planning, quick restoration of order, redundancy, as well as coordination in public communication approaches in order to lessen the level of panic and overreaction in the markets
Defence planners should plan for extended and multiple operations at tempo, and not for a short retaliatory burst, even after the end of the Iran-USA-Israel conflict. The surge of Iranian source waves to 11th and 20th waves suggest the logic of persistence and campaign continuation despite high pressure. Finally, there should be a connection of maritime and electronic interference in contingency plans, based on the proven extent of GPS/AIS interference on a shipping risk management and regional trade confidence.
Conclusion
Iran’s operations from February to March 2026 reflect the progression for distributed coercive warfare which includes decentralised execution, selected targeting of military and system-leverage nodes, operational tempo in time and indirect pressure to the society. Public escalation from early to later stages (e.g. 11th and 20th waves) as reflected by Iranian sources is in line with the analysis of a rolling campaign to keep the pressure on for a duration. This is verified by the use of pressure on economic infrastructure and trade nodes (i.e., striking of Duqm fuel tank, attempted economic pressure on fuel terminals and continued threat activity ) reinforcing the movement from a position of battlefield retaliation to system-level disruption.
Iran's strategic depth goes even beyond regional proxy warfare and stretches to transnational support, facilitation, and influence networks in Europe, the United States, and in parts in the Gulf. The most probable evidence is in the area of financing, logistics, recruitment, shadow facilitation, and ideological influence rather than expansively measurable "sympathisers”. For Europe and the United States, there seems to be risks of association with Hezbollah and Iran-backed infrastructures and financing . As for the Gulf, Iran's development of influence seems to have been focusing on political, militia, social, and sectarian connection and particularly in Iraq and across the Gulf environmentFuture risk assessments should explore the potential for distributed coercion to turn into decentralised social unrest triggering across several states globally- using command decentralisation, network opacity and social vulnerabilities to impose political costs that are hard to anticipate, attribute and counter.
