At the outset of Operation Rising Lion, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu justified Israel’s attack on Iran as not only a response to its nuclear weapons program, but also its significant ballistic missile capabilities. He called the threat that Iran’s missile program posed to Israel “existential” and stated that, without interference, Iran would acquire 20,000 missiles that could reach Israel by 2031. Later, Yonah Jeremey Bob at The Jerusalem Post reported details of Israeli intelligence estimates of Iran’s missile production, indicating an approximate production rate of 240 medium range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) per month, 2400 MRBMs per year. Bob also stated that the estimates hinged on the completion of a mysterious new Iranian facility. In early June however, Barak Ravid at Axios published a significantly more conservative production estimate of 50 ballistic missiles per month, citing a U.S. intelligence official.

The difference between these two estimates is dramatic and deserves investigation. We’ve done so by developing a methodology to estimate Iran’s solid propellant missile production capacity. Since Iran’s liquid-fuelled production line likely only marginally contributes to their total production capacity, we believe our solid propellant missile production estimates paint a compelling picture of their entire missile program. Through our estimate we believe we’ve identified why Israel and the US have such dramatically different perceptions of Iran’s missile production, and pinpointed the mysterious facility on which Israel’s latest projections were based.

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Read the full article at the Arms Control Wonk Blog.