By: Eli M. Gold, President

As global tensions sweep across headlines, American policymakers and the public alike are beginning to reevaluate what truly constitutes a threat. The Iran-Israel “Twelve-Day War” and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict have brought into sharp relief the need to recalibrate how the United States and its allies judge adversarial strength. Today, a clear reassessment is critical—one that puts aside the veils wrought by media-driven perceptions and political agendas and focuses squarely on the real capabilities of those challenging Western interests.

On June 13, 2025, Israel launched a bold and coordinated strike against Iranian military and nuclear facilities, a move that quickly became known as the “Twelve-Day War.” In less than two weeks, Israel decisively dismantled both Iran’s offensive and defensive capabilities—a result that stunned a world conditioned to fear Iran’s perceived military prowess. Israeli operations neutralized Iranian military leadership, destroyed nuclear assets, and crippled air defenses, all while neutralizing retaliatory attacks delivered via Iran’s proxies: Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Despite initial fears, these attacks failed to alter the strategic situation. Israel’s technological superiority and the defensive cooperation from the United States overwhelmed Iran’s responses.

This outcome revealed a crucial truth: Iran's real strength was not its direct military power, but rather its ability to finance and coordinate proxy groups throughout the region. For years, the Gulf and broader Middle East have lived under the shadow of Iran’s expanding influence, largely due to Tehran’s capacity to fund armed loyalists. The country’s reputation as a regional giant—amplified by repeated media cycles and political rhetoric—was in fact out of step with reality. Closer scrutiny of the ways Iran launders oil profits and funds its proxies could have led to a more honest assessment of its true threat level. Policymakers focusing only on Iran’s weapons arsenal risked missing the financial and diplomatic networks driving its influence.

Iran’s threat to regional stability essentially operates through relationships with its proxies. By funneling money, equipment, and training to Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthi groups, Iran has expanded its reach and destabilized Western interests with asymmetric tactics and gray-zone warfare. Yet, Israel’s rapid disruption of Iranian command centers exposed the vulnerability underlying this approach. The real Achilles’ heel was not just military weakness, but the fragility of Tehran’s external relationships, supply lines and financial channels. U.S. intelligence and recent analyses now highlight Iran’s strengths in missile and drone development, cyber operations, and propaganda campaigns, but suggest these tools do not represent the existential threat they are sometimes portrayed to be.

Countering Iran’s strength, therefore, means going beyond headline military assets to targeting the economic arteries sustaining its power. That includes a sharper diplomatic focus on Iraqi relations, and more aggressive pressure on oil laundering operations—the very mechanisms that fund Iran’s destabilizing activities. Western strategy must recognize that Iran’s real leverage is economic and indirect, not conventional military might.

Turning to Russia, the ongoing war with Ukraine stands as a dramatic case study in misperception versus reality. When Russia first invaded, the world largely expected Ukraine to be swiftly subjugated. Instead, as of August 2025, Ukraine continues to resist, and Russian forces have suffered extraordinary losses—U.K. MOD estimates, “approximately 1,000,000 casualties (killed and wounded). Of these, it is likely around 250,000 Russian soldiers are killed or missing.” The scale of attrition has exposed vulnerabilities that most analysts and policymakers failed to anticipate.

From the Obama era through the first Trump and Biden administrations, the U.S. saw Russia as its dominant adversary. Yet this protracted war, now stretching beyond three years, has forced a reassessment. Russia remains formidable in domains such as cyberwarfare and disinformation, but the narrative of unstoppable power has been undermined by the realities of battlefield attrition, tactical missteps, and the resilience of Ukrainian defense.

This uncertain situation also points to the importance of strategy in Western commitments. The incremental, “just enough” military aid provided to Ukraine has proved problematic: it keeps the war ongoing without ensuring victory or a swift conclusion. I have long argued that only robust support or no involvement at all would have served Western interests—a half-measure merely prolongs the suffering, with no strategic benefit.

Despite initial beliefs in their overwhelming strength, both Russia and Iran have demonstrated that their “bark” has been far more formidable than their “bite.” Their leaders—Putin and the Ayatollah—have preferred to project war through perceived rather than actual strength, investing heavily in propaganda campaigns and influence operations – something that Western mainstream-media was all too willing to follow. This approach shapes perceptions internationally even as their actual capabilities have been exposed as more limited than once feared.

For U.S. policymakers, these conflicts stress the urgent necessity to reassess threats. Real danger to America does not always come from adversaries dominating the news cycle with bold rhetoric, but from those who wield tangible capacity to disrupt security and economic stability. Greater emphasis must be placed on understanding the financial and shadow networks behind proxy wars, the vulnerabilities hidden beneath the surface, and the subtle threats—cyber, economic, diplomatic—that don’t make headlines.

As President Trump and European leaders host Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House in hopes of negotiating peace, the lessons of the past year have come into stark notice: reputation and rhetoric alone do not define adversarial strength. Real assessment must be built on honest appraisal of capability and intent, not amplified fears or outdated narratives.

The world is more uncertain than ever, but recent events have helped to shatter some longstanding assumptions. Iran, once considered an unassailable regional force, saw its military infrastructure dismantled in less than two weeks. Russia, assumed to be an existential threat to American and European stability, remains embroiled in a war it cannot win easily. The common thread is clear: threats must be measured by real capabilities rather than reputation alone.

For American security, the challenge moving forward is to see through the noise, to base policy on reality rather than perception, and to ensure that future responses are built on genuine understanding. Only by doing so can the U.S. and its allies secure lasting peace, deter aggression, and shape a future that matches the gravity of the moment.

Eli M. Gold is the president of the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington, DC- based think-and-do tank.