The shooting down of an F-15E Strike Eagle by Iranian fire, as well as the targeting of an A-10 Warthog/Thunderbolt II aircraft that went down in the Persian Gulf, represents a high-risk escalation. However, it does not necessarily mean that Washington and Tehran are heading toward a major full-scale conflict in the immediate term, at least until the deadline of 6 April being set by the US for the negotiations to bear fruit.
President Trump, meanwhile, is expected to continue warning Iran not to exploit the still-missing F-15 pilot. Any such move would give Trump a pretext to retaliate more harshly, and the incident would alter the current strategic equation by increasing domestic pressure in the US if Iran used the pilot as a psychological victory and as a bargaining chip to extract broader demands in negotiations.
Analysts have outlined the possible paths that Trump might be facing now: 1. a large-scale military response against Iran’s air defences, missile sites, radar, and IRGC command structure, which would also increase the likelihood of clearing operations for a possible ground invasion; 2. an approach prioritising rescue operations by focusing on the immediate recovery of the pilot and force protection; 3. broader economic and strategic escalation by targeting Hormuz and critical infrastructure; 4. using this crisis itself as a tool of coercive diplomacy while preserving negotiating space and restoring leverage and deterrence power.
All these pathways are detrimental to de-escalation moves and a cessation of force. The most important stage now is to prevent further escalations and to continue projecting confidence-building measures through talks, negotiations and diplomatic backchannels, and this situation can still be salvaged.
At this stage, this crisis remains a contest over leverage, perception, and political advantage. Iran will almost certainly try to turn the shootdown incident into a psychological victory by showing it can still impose visible costs on American power and break the narrative of overwhelming US airpower superiority.
A broader escalation, including political and operational preparations for limited ground action, risks becoming the option if Trump feels airpower alone is insufficient to secure personnel recovery, restore deterrence credibility, or achieve maritime objectives and curb Iran’s nuclear capacity.
The loss of a US aircraft undermines the image of uncontested American dominance, while the loss of crew members turns this crisis into an issue of prestige and pressure. This does not mean that massive escalation is now inevitable, but rather that the war has entered a decisive phase, where Trump’s main dilemma is no longer simply whether to respond, but how to restore image and deterrence power without triggering a wider conflict.
The risk of the negative consequences of an escalate to de-escalate strategy also remains.
A Critical Phase of Negotiation
Although narrative warfare and psychological warfare remain ongoing, the risk of wider conflict spillover for now is still being controlled through a calibrated response, at the level of a coercive bargaining phase.
Nevertheless, this situation risks changing if the US exit-game calculation goes off track and if the objectives of coercive diplomacy and absolute deterrence fail, which would force Iran to use a combination of asymmetric advantage, the risk of long-term regional conflict and instability, and control over global energy cost leverage as deterrence against any form of involvement by other actors and any further escalation by the U.S.
The United States possesses superior airpower, strike capability, and dominance in military technology. But Iran still holds a very important advantage: the ability to impose asymmetric and economic costs on the global system. The Strait of Hormuz remains a critical artery for global energy flows, and merely maintaining uncertainty, raising the risk premium, and disrupting market psychology would be enough to trigger higher energy prices.
Trump must also avoid rising internal and external pressure. Internationally, he wants to show that America remains unrivalled. Domestically, he must also justify this war, and a narrative has already been shaped by his address on 2 April that this is necessary to secure future stability and as a form of insurance, even if Americans are forced to bear higher energy costs for now.
When Trump portrays the “war as already won” and these negotiations as merely the final settlement, he aims to win the perception narrative and project credibility from a position of strength.
Tehran, for its part, is trying to ensure that any eventual move toward compromise is not seen as capitulation or weakness. In conflicts like this, dignity, credibility, and perception often become just as important as physical assets on the battlefield.
The war in Iran is not expected to drag on for more than two months, as President Trump is averse to long wars lasting years.
This conflict remains in a critical phase that can still be salvaged, where both sides are trying to maximize pressure, strengthen their bargaining positions, and raise their respective leverage before the next major decision is made.
President Trump is still pushing for an agreement before the 6 April deadline, with intermediary channels still active, including efforts involving Pakistan and communications by Vice President JD Vance as of this week.
This coercive bargaining phase is unfolding alongside threats, strikes, psychological pressure, economic pressure, perception warfare, and demonstrations of military strength.
Both sides want to enter the negotiating table with stronger cards. Washington is trying to do so through continued threats against Iranian infrastructure, military pressure, and the imposition of a political deadline. Tehran, on the other hand, is trying to increase leverage through asymmetric advantages, pressure on energy flows, the ability to disrupt maritime activity in the Strait of Hormuz, the ability to continue targeting sites in Gulf countries, especially energy and infrastructure targets, as well as open rejection of conditions it considers too severe.
This is also a leverage-before-settlement phase. Trump is trying to negotiate from what he portrays as a position of strength, including threatening that more Iranian infrastructure could be targeted if no progress is achieved.
With his primetime speech on 2 April, Trump sought to raise the costs and pressure on Tehran to agree quickly to negotiations, and to impose greater costs on Iran’s energy and water assets should it fail to comply.
This is why it is important to understand that this conflict is taking place simultaneously across multiple domains. It is not merely an air war or a physical strike campaign. In addition to economic and conventional warfare, it is also a war of perception, narrative, and psychology, in addition to economic warfare and conventional warfare, because both sides want to convince the world and their domestic audiences that they are the ones in the stronger position.
Neither side has yet moved toward full unrestricted war. The responses of Gulf states such as the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia are still at the level of strategic restraint, and without Washington’s approval, they will not move toward a total all-out-war response.
Washington understands that maximum pressure without a diplomatic exit could trigger heavy domestic and global costs. Tehran, meanwhile, understands that total escalation could also bring far greater destruction upon itself. Thus, both are operating in the space between those two extremes: hard enough to increase leverage, but not yet closing all paths of exit.
There is still time and space for de-escalation if both sides see sufficiently large strategic benefits in stopping the rise in costs. Although Trump has threatened to strike more Iranian bridges and power plants, diplomatic efforts through intermediaries have not yet ceased. This means that the door to negotiations has not been fully closed. As long as the 6 April date remains relevant in Washington’s calculations, this conflict has still not crossed the point of no return.
Iran’s Asymmetric Advantage and the Cost of Economic War
The cost of this war in Iran, which uses integrated US airpower, has itself reached USD1 billion, and the energy cost arising from higher oil and gas prices is also a factor in Trump’s calculations, along with domestic and international sentiment, especially with the midterm elections approaching. For context, every USD10 increase in the price of crude oil can raise global inflation by about 0.2 to 0.3 percentage points.
In reality, Iran is still estimated to possess a considerable number of ballistic missiles and one of the region’s largest drone programs, showing that Trump’s concept of “objectives achieved” is more about weakening Iran’s capacity rather than eliminating it completely.
Iran’s current advantage, based on geographic position and strategic leverage in controlling and influencing energy market stability and supply, creates a strategic dilemma for the US. The Strait of Hormuz alone handles around 20% of global oil supply, about 20 million barrels per day, meaning that even small disruptions can have major effects on global prices.
But the larger question is how far the US threshold can withstand Iran’s asymmetric advantage in imposing economic costs on the world. Through its asymmetric strategy, Iran does not need to win conventionally. It is enough to increase risk to energy routes, raise shipping insurance costs, with war risk premiums potentially rising two to three times, and disrupt global trade flows in order to apply strategic pressure.
The Gulf states themselves are deeply concerned about the risk of miscalculation and the possibility of Iranian retaliation against their energy infrastructure and critical facilities, which have now become threatened after the US bombed Bridge B1 in Karaj.
In this context, Iran has an advantage in playing a low-cost, high-impact disruption conflict, which can impose major effects on the global economy without requiring large-scale conventional confrontation.
All these factors will continue to shape the future of the conflict and Iran’s response. If Iran feels that this conflict is being used systematically to weaken it without any fair path to resolution, then Iran’s response is likely to become more consolidated in asymmetric form. Conversely, if these negotiations succeed in giving all sides face-saving space, then the prospects for relative stability will increase.
Negotiations and diplomatic pathways are now critical for global stability and peace, and it is hoped that they will produce a positive outcome and avoid the risk of a protracted all-out war. Should that happen, oil prices would naturally fall back to a normal range of USD65-85 per barrel, with market confidence and transport routes restored.
The final outcome will be determined by how far the US truly succeeds in denying Iran its strategic capacity and the extent to which Washington feels it has achieved its original objectives, taking into account the threshold of its own munitions balance and the supply of missiles and interceptors for other theatres; and how far Iran’s remaining defensive, deterrence and asymmetric ability will be, and the capacity to continue imposing costs and to continue the war of attrition, and how far the world can absorb the pressure of the global economic and energy shocks.
In all accounts, a return to peace and stability must be the priority.
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COLLINS CHONG YEW KEAT Foreign Affairs, Security and Strategy Analyst Universiti Malaya
