The Strategic Function of Long-Range Missiles
Deep precision strike and deterrence in the post-INF era
The return of conventional long-range missiles is reshaping the strategic balance below the nuclear threshold. After the collapse of the INF Treaty, a category of weapons largely excluded from European force planning since 1987 has re-entered the centre of deterrence, crisis management and defence-industrial policy. The issue is no longer confined to range or platform type. It concerns the capacity to hold adversary logistics, air bases, command systems, missile launchers, industrial nodes and critical infrastructure at risk without immediately crossing into nuclear escalation. Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East and the renewed European debate on ELSA all point to the same structural problem: deep precision strike is becoming both a military capability and an industrial test of strategic credibility.
The report examines this transformation through a defence-industrial and strategic lens. It begins with the post-INF return of long-range conventional strike and the conceptual definition of deep precision strike, then analyses deterrence by denial, deterrence by punishment, arms-control constraints, export-control rules and the residual legal architecture that still governs missile development and transfer. It then compares the United States, Russia and China, before turning to regional crisis cases, Ukraine, Israel-Iran dynamics, Europe’s ELSA framework and Italy’s industrial position. The final sections assess the companies, technologies, supply-chain bottlenecks, procurement signals and investment implications that will shape the long-range strike and integrated air-defence market between 2026 and 2030.