Could Modern Su-35 or J-10C Fighters Have Saved Iran? Ex-U.S. Marine Analyst Triggers Debate

Following Israel’s initiation of open hostiles with Iran on June 13, with the launch of wide ranging attacks on military and civilian targets across the country, analysts have widely assessed how Iran could have better strengthened its defences, and the primary factors which both prevented Israel from being deterred, and which allowed Israeli aviation to dominated Iranian airspace. Points highlighted have ranged from Iran’s apparent complacency in countering the network of Western and Israeli backed paramilitaries in the country, which have been used to launch successful strikes and assassinations from within Iranian borders, to criticisms regarding the apparent lack of sufficient integration of assets within Iran’s air defence network. One of the most significant deficiencies in Iran’s defences has been its lack of modern fighter aircraft, with the country’s sixteen squadrons of combat jets all being <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/poor-deterrent-iran-fleet-300-fighters-equipped-stop-israel" target="_blank">long past obsolescence</a>. This has placed a heavy burden on ground-based air defences to <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/iran-claims-shootdown-fourth-israeli-f35-deep" target="_blank">protect national airspace</a>, and on the ballistic missile and drone arsenal for <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/iran-launches-first-strike-isreal-mach-13-fattah-hypersonic" target="_blank">counterattacks</a> on Israel, without meaningful fighter support. The clear impact which this has had on the war has in turn fuelled criticisms by Iran’s supporters not only of the Iranian government for failing to prioritise fighter procurements, but also of Russia and China which produce modern fighters, on the basis that they may not have been as proactive as they could have been in supplying Iran.&nbsp;<img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/06/21/article_68564f47a66be6_22522582.jpeg" title="Russian Air Force Su-35">Responding to criticism of Russia in particular for failing to deliver modern fighter aircraft to Iran, despite orders <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/iran-confirms-order-finalised-su35-fighters" target="_blank">having been placed</a> for Su-35s, former U.S. Marine and geopolitical analyst Brian Berletic claimed that there was no way for Russia, or China, to have supplied Iran with a viable fighter fleet, and that Moscow could not be blamed for the limitations of Iranian air defences. He argued:“If Russia flew the Su-35s to Iran themselves, handed it to them for absolutely free – Iran couldn't use them effectively probably for years. Even with Su-35s, the chance of them ‘dogfighting’ F-35s is not realistic. To create even just parity, Iran would need 100-300 warplanes and all the supporting infrastructure, support crews, ground support equipment, supply chains, specialised fuel, trained pilots (trained to the same level as Israeli/US pilots) etc – if they started 10 years ago they still wouldn't be close to achieving this.” Reiterating this point, Berletic continued: “If China parked new jets in Iran for Iran's use, it would still require the same extensive preparations described above – because it won't just be a handful of planes required, it would be 100+.” He thus claimed that both Moscow and Beijing were already “doing everything they can with everything they have” to support Iran.&nbsp; A longstanding critic of U.S. and Western Bloc foreign policy, and supporter of the Russian, Chinese and Iranian geopolitical positions, Berletic’s assessment appeared to attempt to deflect criticism from Moscow, and to a lesser extent from Beijing.&nbsp;<img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/06/21/article_68564f878d0f47_86072634.jpeg" title="Iranian Air Force F-14A and MiG-29A Procured During the Cold War">Analysing Berletic’s statement, many of his assertions regarding the difficulties operationalising a modern fighter fleet in Iran appear highly questionable. One of the most outstanding is the argument that Iran would require more than ten years to do if aircraft were delivered, which made it impossible for such a fleet to be provided on time. Although establishing a fighter aviation capability from scratch would be highly time consuming, Iran not only already fields a large fighter fleet, but also already fields Russian and Chinese standard combat jets including the Soviet MiG-29, Su-24M, Su-22 and the Chinese J-7. Moreover, the country has experience operating and maintaining one of the <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/the-f-14-tomcat-in-iranian-service" target="_blank">largest and most maintenance intensive</a> and complex fighters in the world, the F-14, which it has done without support from the aircraft’s supplier, the Untied States, for over 40 years. Thus converting Iranian fighter squadrons from MiG-29As or F-14s would hardly be expected to take a decade or more, with MiG-29 units across multiple countries having <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/belarus-receives-mi35-helicopters-su30sm2-fighters" target="_blank">converted</a> to modern fighters such as the Su-30SM relatively seamlessly.&nbsp;<img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/06/21/article_68565000cb5fa4_38144413.jpeg" title="Indian MiG-29K (Navalised MiG-29M) and Su-30MKI Fighters">Precedents squadrons operating Soviet fighters rapidly converting to new much more capable fighters are manifold, with India in the early 2000s having managed to transition from fielding the MiG-29A as its most capable fighter, to fielding the much heavier and more complex Su-30MKI, in under two years. This was despite a lack of experience operating heavyweight higher maintenance fighters as Iran has with the F-14. In Iran’s case, such conversions would be made even simpler if the county procured <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/mig29-fighter-marks-40-years-in-service-how-russia-s-extremely-manoeuvrable-fighter-has-evolved" target="_blank">MiG-29M</a> or <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/russia-resurrecting-mig35-ukraine-nkorea-opportunities" target="_blank">MiG-35 ‘4+ generation’ fighters</a>, which share much of the same maintenance infrastructure and procedures with the MiG-29A it already fields but are able to make far greater contributions both to air defence and to offensive strike operations due to their avionics and weaponry being 20-30 years ahead. As a service which already operates fighters in large number, including complex heavyweights, and Soviet fourth generation fighters, the Iranian Air Force thus appears positioned to relatively seamlessly and quickly absorb new fighters.&nbsp;<img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/06/21/article_6856503bc23b28_36993616.jpg" title="Surface-to-Air Missile Battery From Iranian Bavar 373 Long Range Air Defence System">The second of Berletic’s assertions which appeared somewhat questionable is that Iran “would need 100-300 warplanes” and similar training standards to American or Israeli pilots to be able to have a significant impact. Should comparable numbers of aircraft and equal training standards be a prerequisite for a fighter fleet to be able to provide an effective defence, the fleets of several countries could be discounted as effectively useless, among them that of Russia facing NATO. A small fleet of approximately 50 high performing ‘4+ generation’ fighters could have had an outsized impact on Iranian-Israeli hostiles for multiple reasons. The first is that the forces of the two countries are not meeting over neutral skies in Iraq, but fighting near Iran’s own borders, where Israeli aircraft are heavily reliant on tanker support and carriage of bulky external fuel tanks to operate. Modern Iranian fighters, meanwhile, would have been able to operate closely alongside the country’s <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/iran-top-air-defence-bavar373-f35-shootdowns" target="_blank">ground-based air defence network</a>, including providing targeting data using its elevated sensors, and thus allowing ground-based systems to operate more effectively. This asymmetric pairing of fighters and air defence systems is at the core of Russia’s strategy to face NATO’s much larger and more modern air fleets, with Iran’s extensive ground-based radar and surface-to-air missile networks already being in place for fighters to provide support.&nbsp;<img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/06/21/article_685650c7a4af19_36462748.jpeg" title="Israeli Cold War Era F-15A/C Fighters with AIM-7 and AIM-9 Missiles">Had Iran deployed even a small fleet of high performing modern fighters, it would have significantly complicated Israeli planning, and forced the Israeli Air Force to equip larger portions of its units for air-to-air combat, which in turn would limit the amount of air-to-ground ordinance that could be delivered. A further factor left out of Berletic’s arguments is the fact that not all fighter classes are equal, and that the vast majority of Israeli fighters, while significantly more advanced than Iran’s <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/korea-iran-turkey-greece-f4-replace" target="_blank">Vietnam War era F-4s</a> and F-5s, are still effectively obsolete for air-to-air combat at the cutting edge level. The country’s fleet of approximately 200 F-15s and F-16s are reliant on technologies from the 1990s or earlier, and continue to rely on obsolete mechanically scanned array radars and air-to-air missile classes that are well behind those of modern fighters which Iran could have procured. Against such older fighters, a small number of more advanced ‘4+ generation’ fighters, particularly <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/j16-brigade-guards-shenzhen-hk-subs" target="_blank">cutting edge Chinese models</a> such as the <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/j-16-vs-j-10c-chinese-pilot-reveals-which-elite-fighter-is-superior" target="_blank">J-10C or J-16</a>, could have had an outsized impact due to their overwhelming superiority for air-to-air engagements. Fighters like the J-16 and Su-35’s much longer air-to-air engagement ranges could also allow them to threaten tankers relied on by Israeli fighters to approach Iranian territory, which even if deployed in small numbers, would represent a further serous complication to Israel’s air offensive.&nbsp;While there is a significant possibility that the presence of such fighters would have deterred Israel from launching an attack, had it proceeded, the Israeli Air Force may have been forced to assign and equip its limited fleet of around 40 modern F-35s for air superiority missions, preventing them from focusing on engaging priority fortified targets or ground-based air defences. The pairing of small number of advanced fighters with ground-based air defences would have also allowed them to pose a significantly greater <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/iran-shoots-down-third-f35-captures-second-pilot" target="_blank">threat to the F-35s</a>, even if one-to-one the F-35’s fifth generation capabilities eclipse those of the ‘4+ generation’ aircraft.&nbsp;<img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/06/21/article_68565a89431218_37340275.png" title="Fire at Tehran`s Shahran Fuel and Gas Depot After Israeli Attack">Although Berletic raised a valid point that fighter fleets cannot be operationalised overnight, Iran has had several years to make procurements, with the process of doing so having been eased significantly after the UN Security Council’s arms embargo on the country expired in late 2020. With close to five years having passed since the embargo’s expiry, the Iranian Defence Ministry has had ample time to make fighter procurements. Its failure to move ahead with replacing even a small portion of its ageing fleet has very considerable costs today, and has been a decisive factor in Israel’s favour in the conflict. It is likely that should hostilities end with the Iranian government still in power and its economy somewhat intact, fighter procurements will be prioritised. While a viable and cutting edge fighter fleet could have been procured for $3-5 billion, as seen by neighbouring Pakistan’s acquisition of J-10C fighters, the economic fallout for Iran as a result of neglect for such acquisitions is expected to be significantly greater.&nbsp;