Foreign Policy > Iran

Iran — Time for a Zero-Bullet Doctrine

Containment has failed, which is why a new strategy is paramount.

Arik Arad | March 7, 2026

For more than forty years, the world has tried to manage the Iranian regime. Sanctions have been imposed, negotiations launched, agreements signed, and red lines repeatedly drawn. Yet with every passing year Iran’s missiles grow more advanced, its proxy militias more entrenched, and its nuclear program closer to the threshold of weaponization.

Recent attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and repeated threats to close the Strait of Hormuz remind us that the risks posed by Iran’s strategy are not theoretical. They threaten global trade, energy markets, and the stability of entire regions.

This uncomfortable reality forces a difficult conclusion: containment has failed.

If the international community wants genuine stability in the Middle East—and if it wants to protect the global economy from recurring energy and security shocks—it must move beyond temporary agreements and adopt a new strategic objective: the permanent removal of the military capabilities that allow the Iranian regime to threaten the region and the world.

I call this strategy the Zero-Bullet Doctrine.

The doctrine rests on a simple principle: a regime that repeatedly weaponizes every military capability it possesses cannot be trusted to retain those capabilities in reduced form. Durable peace requires removing the tools that make aggression possible.

This would not be the first time the international community has taken such a step. After World War II, Germany underwent full demilitarization under Allied supervision. Japan adopted a constitution renouncing war and significantly limiting its military posture. Panama abolished its army entirely and replaced it with civilian security forces.

These cases differed in circumstance, but they reflected a common recognition: when militarization itself becomes the source of instability, structural limits on military power can provide the foundation for long-term peace.

Iran today presents such a case.

Over four decades the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has evolved into far more than a military institution. It has become a powerful political, economic, and strategic force directing missile development, financing proxy networks, and influencing conflicts across the Middle East.

Iran’s regional strategy relies on a multilayered system of coercion: ballistic missiles, proxy militias, maritime intimidation, and nuclear brinkmanship.

Through organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, Tehran has built a network capable of destabilizing several regions simultaneously while maintaining plausible deniability.

This structure allows Iran to apply pressure without assuming direct responsibility, creating a permanent cycle of crisis management in which negotiations are followed by violations, sanctions by escalation, and each temporary agreement leaves the architecture of Iranian power intact.

Containment can delay escalation. It cannot eliminate the tools that make escalation possible.

The Zero-Bullet Doctrine rests on five pillars.

First, dismantling Iran’s offensive military infrastructure.

Iran’s ballistic missile forces, long-range strike capabilities, and nuclear weapons infrastructure would ultimately need to be dismantled. Temporary suspension is insufficient if the underlying systems remain intact.

Second, ending proxy warfare.

Organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis have become central instruments of Iranian regional strategy. A credible settlement would require Tehran to sever all financial, operational, and logistical support for foreign militias and disclose the networks through which they operate.

Third, protecting the global maritime system.

Few geographic chokepoints carry greater strategic importance than the Strait of Hormuz. Roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply passes through this narrow waterway each day. Even limited disruption in the strait can send global energy markets into shock, raise fuel prices worldwide, and trigger economic instability far beyond the Middle East.

For decades Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the strait, harassed commercial vessels, and used maritime pressure as geopolitical leverage.

No responsible global security architecture can allow a single regime to hold one of the world’s most critical economic arteries hostage.

Under a Zero-Bullet framework, freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz would be guaranteed by a permanent multinational maritime coalition rather than by Iranian discretion. Removing this leverage would significantly reduce the regime’s ability to manipulate global energy markets or threaten international trade.

Fourth, intrusive and continuous verification.

Past agreements have often failed because inspection regimes allowed delays and restricted access. A durable framework would require unrestricted inspections, real-time monitoring, and intelligence verification supported by an international coalition.

Violations would trigger automatic enforcement mechanisms rather than prolonged diplomatic negotiations.

Fifth, a pathway toward prosperity for the Iranian people.

Demilitarization should not mean national humiliation. It should mean national opportunity.

Iran is rich in human talent, natural resources, and cultural heritage. Freed from the enormous financial burden of military expansion and proxy warfare, it could redirect its resources toward economic development, infrastructure, technology, and international trade.

A demilitarized Iran could become a stabilizing economic actor rather than a perpetual source of regional crisis.

Critics will argue that such a doctrine is unrealistic. Yet the current model—endless cycles of sanctions, negotiations, and escalation—has produced neither stability nor trust.

To be clear, such a framework would be extraordinarily difficult to achieve and would likely require major geopolitical change inside Iran itself. But serious policy must begin by defining the strategic end state we hope to achieve, not by endlessly managing crises.

The international community must decide whether it is prepared to live indefinitely with a nuclear-threshold Iran supported by missiles and proxy militias.

If the answer is no, then the objective must change.

The goal should no longer be managing Iran’s military capabilities. The goal must be eliminating the conditions that allow those capabilities to threaten the region and the world.

The Zero-Bullet Doctrine expresses that objective clearly:

No nuclear weapons capability.

No maritime coercion.

Only then can the Middle East move toward a more stable balance—and only then can Iran itself begin the long process of turning away from confrontation and toward prosperity.

History shows that peace does not always begin with negotiation.

Sometimes it begins when the tools of war are finally removed.

The world does not need another temporary deal with Tehran. It needs a permanent end to the tools of war that have made the crisis possible.

Arik Arad is a highly experienced professional with over 30 years of expertise in security, business development, and cybersecurity, and is the founder and chairman of Cyviation, a cyber security company protecting commercial airlines and business jets. He served on the Presidential Committee on Aviation Security following the Pan Am 103 disaster at the request of President George H.W. Bush. and provided expert testimony during congressional hearings into the 9/11 attack. Notably, Arad served as the Head of Security for El Al at Ben Gurion Airport.

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