Missiles: From ancient 'fire arrows' to the edge of Armageddon

The recent Iran–Israel war shows one thing: modern missile warfare is no longer confined to traditional battlefields.

It now operates across borders, blends offence with defence, and serves as both a tool of destruction and a language of deterrence. 

The 12-day conflict revealed how precision strikes, drone swarms, and layered air defenses have reshaped the rules of engagement, with missiles becoming instruments of strategic signaling as much as military force.

The use of precision weapons, unmanned systems and drone strikes to hit targets across borders also highlights a critical lesson: modern missile warfare is here to stay.

It demonstrates strategic military depth, hybrid tactics, and deterrent messaging.

Let’s backtrack a bit.

Missile warfare was used as early as the 13th century.

It traces its roots to ancient China, where the first rocket-propelled weapons — simple gunpowder-filled tubes launched from bamboo or wooden shafts.

These early “fire arrows” laid the foundation for later rocket technologies.

Before them, there were catapults, the precursor to long-range warfare used extensively by the Greeks and Romans.

Catapults were ancient war machines designed to launch projectiles over long distances. 

First used around the 4th century BCE, catapults were pivotal in siege warfare — used to hurl stones, burning pitch, or diseased carcasses over fortress walls.

In movies like King Arthur, Attila the Hun, and Alexander, the use of catapults (crossbow, torsion-powered or counterweight powered types) in warfare is a staple.

Their core purpose: destroy defenses, terrify enemies, and weaken morale—an early form of stand-off attack.

Modern-day missiles

Though separated by centuries and technology, missiles serve the same strategic functions as catapults:

Disconnect

Ancient catapults were used for siege, disruption and area denial (maximum range, about 300 meters); modern missiles are used for strategic strike, deterrence and precision attacks — with a range of hundreds to thousands of kilometres.

It all sounds fancy, if only they're not so deadly.

While ancient catapults were loaded with stones, fireballs, biological matter, today’s missiles can be loaded with explosives, nuclear, electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and kinetic weapons.

Mutually-assured destruction

In a full-scale, mutually assured destruction scenario — a world war gone berserk — humanity possesses enough firepower, with over 12,500 nuclear warheads, to obliterate the planet 20 times over and render it uninhabitable for generations.

According to a 2007 study by climate scientist Alan Robock, the resulting nuclear winter from such an exchange would plunge global temperatures, collapse ecosystems, and trigger mass starvation on a planetary scale.

Launch, targeting, mobility

The deadly firepower of today's weapons is added by modern launch mechanisms, targeting, mobility and the deadliest weapons of all, the inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). They're rockets with a deadly payload. 

GPS (or Glonass), radar and inertial navigation have become the standard guidance for them. Unlike catapults that were stationary or wheeled, today’s missiles can be fired from mobile launchers, or air/sea/sub-based.

And while they reflect the same enduring principle in warfare, the advantage of striking an enemy from afar, the military logic of projecting destructive power beyond physical contact has shaped geopolitics. 

A 2020 study, titled "Missile Proliferation and the Future of Warfare”, published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), concluded that long-range missile capability is “the sharp edge of techno-strategic depth.”

This CSIS study highlights how countries use missile development to signal not just military might, but also industrial self-reliance and innovation maturity.

It argues that even under sanctions (e.g., Iran), states with sustained missile development show robust domestic engineering education, advanced manufacturing ecosystems, reliable supply chain resilience, and a capacity to reverse-engineer and adapt foreign tech.

Missile capabilities — especially in guidance systems and engine design — are often "dual-use", supporting both military and civilian space programme.

Tech prowess 

Indeed, today’s missile warfare demonstrates a nation’s techno-industrial depth. 

In a landmark study titled “The Science of Military Strategy” by the PLA Academy of Military Sciences (China, 2013), the researchers argued that missile warfare is an “index of strategic deterrence and industrial maturity”.

This foundational Chinese military doctrine emphasizes that the ability to produce and deploy ballistic and cruise missiles at scale reflects not only military capability but also a country’s technological sophistication, industrial capacity, and scientific innovation pipeline.

Missile production involves advanced materials (for heat shielding and warhead casings), propulsion systems (solid- or liquid-fueled), precision guidance (inertial, GPS, radar) and command-and-control networks.

Specifically, it stated that missile technology is a measure of a country’s ability to integrate disparate defence-and-offence weaponry into a coherent whole that serves both its short-term and long-term interests.

Just as defenders built thicker walls, today’s nations build missile shields like “Iron Dome” or “Golden Dome” or Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD), a US missile defence system known for its ability to intercept and destroy targets both inside and outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

Strategic timing

The 12-day Iran-Israel war demonstrated that missile warfare was not simply a matter of targeting enemy positions — it was about strategic timing, psychological signaling, and operational flexibility. 

The conflict proved that missiles are now tools of political leverage as much as battlefield utility, allowing states to escalate, de-escalate, or contain a conflict without conventional ground force engagements.

Ultimately, the Iran–Israel exchange affirmed that the modern missile is no longer a last-resort weapon — it is a first-line asset for deterrence, preemption, and calibrated warfighting. 

Missile in future conflicts

The presence of indigenous missile R&D, testing infrastructure, and serial production lines shows that a state can independently defend itself and deter others — a marker of strategic independence.

Future conflicts are likely to hinge not just on who has long-range missiles, but on who can integrate them with cyber tools, drones, satellites, and layered air defenses into a seamless, multi-domain offense-defense system.

In a world where more nations are gaining access to powerful weapons, Armageddon is no longer a distant nightmare — it’s just one miscalculation, false alarm, or political gamble away.

The future of warfare may not be fought by boots on the ground, but by buttons, algorithms, and precision-guided firepower from half a world away.

Then perhaps the only escape for human civilisation would be to boostrap to a powerful rocket, like the Starship, to Mars.