• Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea's impeached president, was arrested on Wednesday.
• This was the South Korean authorities' second attempt to arrest Yoon.
• Yoon was impeached on December 14 after he attempted to impose martial law, triggering protests.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was arrested by investigators early on Wednesday morning, local time.

Yoon's arrest comes after weeks of attempts by South Korean anti-corruption investigators to bring him in for questioning. Yoon has repeatedly defied attempts to arrest him.

During a particularly tense standoff on January 3, investigators had to stand down after six hours when Yoon's security team barred them from taking the president.

Yoon was impeached on December 14. South Korean lawmakers voted to remove him from duties after a stunning declaration of martial law, which triggered large-scale protests and calls for his resignation.

This story is developing. Please check back for updates.

• Two future Ford-class aircraft carriers will be named for Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
• It's the US Navy convention to name nuclear-powered flattops after presidents, with some exceptions.
• USS Doris Miller and Enterprise are the only two Ford-class vessels not named after presidents.

President Joe Biden announced Monday that two future Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers will be named after former US presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

"Each knows firsthand the weight of the responsibilities that come with being Commander-in-Chief," Biden said in the White House announcement. "And both know well our duty to support the families and loved ones who wait and worry for the safe return of their servicemember."

US Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said the future Ford-class carriers "will serve as lasting tributes to each leader's legacy in service of the United States."

The newly named flattops follow the sea service's tradition of naming the nuclear-powered carriers after US presidents. The trend has many exceptions, including first-in-class USS Nimitz, USS Carl Vinson, USS John C. Stennis, and future Ford-class ships USS Doris Miller and USS Enterprise.

Here are the names of the first six supercarriers in the Ford class, poised to become the backbone of America's naval power for the rest of the 21st Century.

USS Gerald R. Ford

The first-in-class USS Gerald R. Ford is named after the 38th US president who office after then-President Richard Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate Scandal.

Ford granted Nixon a controversial pardon saying it was in the country's best interest to put an end to the "American tragedy in which we all — all have played a part," he said at the time.

The USS Gerald R. Ford, the world's largest and most advanced aircraft carrier, completed its first full deployment last January, which the Pentagon extended in response to the October 7 Hamas attacks in Israel.

The Ford and the other warships in its strike group served in part as a deterrence message for its 239-day deployment to the Mediterranean in 2023.

USS John F. Kennedy

The second-in-class USS John F. Kennedy was named after the 35th US president, sharing its namesake with the last conventional aircraft carrier built for the Navy before the introduction of the nuclear-powered Nimitz class.

The future carrier was initially set to deliver in June 2024 but was delayed a year to July 2025 so the Navy could perform more work to prepare it for deployment in the Indo-Pacific.

The Navy said the Kennedy would be equipped with "new technology and warfighting capabilities," making the future aircraft carrier the "most agile and lethal combat platform globally."

USS Enterprise

The future USS Enterprise is one of two Ford-class carriers that wasn't named after a US president. It carries on a storied name whose heritage includes the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, a decorated World War II carrier, and a brig from the Barbary War over 200 years ago.

Still under construction at Huntington Ingalls Industries' Newport News — the US's only aircraft carrier shipyard — the Enterprise was initially scheduled to deliver by March 2028, but the Navy's shipbuilding review found that it will now deliver by May 2030 at the latest.

In November, the Enterprise was moved for the first time at the shipyard to accommodate the construction of USS Doris Miller on the same dry dock.

USS Doris Miller

The other Ford-class carrier without a US president's name is the future USS Doris Miller.

The future supercarrier, named after US Navy sailor Doris "Dorie" Miller, is expected to be delivered a year and a half later than scheduled in early 2032.

Miller was a World War II hero of the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The mess attendant fired at Japanese aircraft with a .50 caliber machine gun on the battleship USS West Virginia and was the first Black person to be awarded the Navy Cross, the service's second-highest award for valor.

"Naming CVN 81 for Dorie Miller casts long overdue recognition to a true American hero and icon," then-Master Chief Petty Officer Russell Smith said during the ship's naming ceremony. "It also honors the contributions of African Americans and enlisted sailors for the first time in the history of American aircraft carriers."

One controversy has been that the Nimitz-class carrier John C. Stennis honors a key lawmaker behind the funding of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, who was also a longtime segregationist and opponent of the US Navy's racial integration.

USS William J. Clinton

Bill Clinton served as the 42nd president of the US, becoming the second president in US history to be impeached after Andrew Johnson in 1868. He faced charges of lying under oath and obstruction of justice in the wake of his infamous affair with then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

In his time as commander-in-chief, Clinton ordered cruise missile strikes against Iraq in retaliation for the assassination attempt on former President George H.W. Bush. He also played a key role in promoting peace in the Middle East and Northern Ireland through the Oslo Accords and the Good Friday Agreement.

The name of the future CVN 82 was announced in a private ceremony shortly after the new year, during which former President Clinton's daughter, Chelsea Clinton, was announced as the carrier's sponsor.

"It's never far from my mind that the precious freedoms Americans enjoy are safeguarded by our armed forces, anchored by a strong, modern, and agile Navy," Clinton said in a statement. "I'm honored that future servicemembers carrying on that proud tradition will serve on a carrier bearing my name."

USS George W. Bush

The sixth Ford-class carrier will bear the name of former President George W. Bush, whose presidency was defined by the 9/11 attacks and the launching of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

He implemented domestic counterterrorism measures and built a worldwide coalition to dismantle terrorist groups globally.

"I am honored that my name will be associated with the United States Navy and a symbol of our Nation's might," Bush said in a statement. "I have a special admiration for the men and women of our Navy — including my dad — and ask God to watch over this ship and those who sail aboard her."

The 10th and final Nimitz-class carrier was named after Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, who served as the 41st president of the US. The elder Bush was honored for his service as one of the youngest naval aviators serving in World War II, receiving military decorations like the Distinguished Flying Cross, three Air Medals, and the Presidential Unit Citation.

CVN 82 and CVN 83 will be the fifth and sixth carriers to join the Navy's fleet in the coming decade, but they are not yet under construction, nor have contracts been issued to HII's Newport News.

In a briefing last week, Christopher Kastner, CEO and president of HII, urged the US Navy to follow its shipbuilding timeline to procure USS William J. Clinton by 2028 as planned to avoid supply chain and workforce issues.

• TechCrunch has cut staff amid "evolving needs," the company told Business Insider.
• The Washington Post, HuffPost, and Vox Media have all conducted layoffs in 2025.
• Publishers face headwinds as many advertisers favor Big Tech.

TechCrunch is the latest digital publisher to cut staff.

A spokesperson for the outlet, which focuses on tech and startup coverage, confirmed the reductions to Business Insider and said fewer than 10 employees were impacted.

"We're excited about the future of TechCrunch," the spokesperson said in a statement, adding the company was "making changes to some roles that no longer fit our evolving needs."

They said the company would continue to grow and hire.

"This adjustment reflects our commitment to aligning our team structure with our business goals and not a cost-cutting effort," they added.

No other Yahoo properties were impacted, the spokesperson said.

Many media organizations continue to face headwinds, contending with falling traffic and advertisers increasingly turning to Big Tech.

Some have cut staff already this year.

Last week, Vox Media laid off staff for the second time in roughly a month.

BuzzFeed-owned HuffPost slashed roughly 22% of its newsroom last week, or 30 jobs, The Wrap and The New York Post reported. HuffPost's editor-in-chief, Danielle Belton, resigned amid the cuts.

The Washington Post is also eliminating less than 100 employees in an effort to cut costs, Reuters reported last week. A spokesperson for the Jeff Bezos-owned paper told the outlet cuts would occur across multiple divisions, but wouldn't impact the newsroom.

• Microsoft is a software company known for products like Windows, Microsoft 365, and Xbox.
• Microsoft is one of the largest software companies in the world by market cap.
• Microsoft was co-founded by Bill Gates, and the company is now led by CEO Satya Nadella.

Microsoft is one of the world's largest software companies, with annual revenues nearing $250 billion in recent years. Among its many products and platforms are the programs Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, used by private citizens and corporations all over the world, and the Windows operating system, the most widely-used computer OS by a vast margin.

The company was founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, with the latter leaving Microsoft in 1983 following a diagnosis of Hodgkin disease. Gates would stay on as CEO of the company until 2000, when he voluntarily stepped down, largely to focus on his charitable work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Gates was replaced by Steve Ballmer as the new Microsoft CEO, serving until he was in turn replaced by Satya Nadella in 2014. Under Nadella's guidance, the company has grown ever more profitable, though there have also been many massive layoffs across Microsoft.

Here's a look in greater detail at Microsoft's history, its many products and services, its financial successes and stumbles, and the foundation its profits helped create.

Microsoft's history

William Henry Gates III, better known as Bill Gates, had a preternatural talent with software, writing his first programs while a young teenager growing up in Seattle, Washington. By the time he graduated high school and went off to Harvard, Gates had already formed a business partnership with his friend and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

This was a data analysis venture called Traf-O-Data that employed computers in parsing through information collected by roadway traffic counters. Traf-O-Data was not a business success, but it was the precursor to the Microsoft Corporation, which Allen and Gates founded in the spring of 1975.

Initially based in Albuquerque, as Gates and Allen had been working for the New Mexico-based company Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, the Microsoft headquarters moved to Bellevue, Washington, in early 1979, seeing its founders return to a location near their childhood turf.

The following year, 1980, was a pivotal one for Microsoft because the technology giant IBM awarded the company a contract that saw a Microsoft operating system used in the vaunted IBM Personal Computer, or PC. This was MS-DOS, the premier OS for several years, supplanted only by Windows, released in 1985, and one of the first graphic interface operating systems the world had ever seen.

Windows would become the dominant computer operating system over the next few decades, during which Microsoft also released software that would become wildly successful, such as the aforementioned Word and Excel, as well as PowerPoint.

Microsoft also developed its an email platform, known as Outlook, and even created a search engine named Bing, and so much more.

Microsoft's software

Microsoft released Microsoft Office — today rebranded as Microsoft 365 — in 1990, and soon the word processing and spreadsheet software therein included (namely Word and Excel) would become all but essential for office employees, students, writers, accountants, and myriad other people around the world.

But Microsoft hardly stopped with these more basic programs. The company would also develop OneDrive, a cloud data storage platform, Microsoft Azure, an advanced cloud computing service that lets you use powerful computers remotely, and Microsoft Copilot, the company's foray into the new and rapidly expanding world of artificial intelligence.

Many companies rely on Microsoft software, such as Teams, which helps people communicate, stay on schedule, and share files and documents, while many individuals rely on the advanced web browser Microsoft Edge to enhance the efficacy of their online searches.

Microsoft's software is so commonly used, and expertise in its programs have become so valuable, that the company even offers Microsoft certifications for IT specialists and developers who work with platforms like Microsoft 365 and Azure.

Beyond work and productivity software, services, and platforms, there is another arena in which Microsoft plays an outsized role: gaming.

Microsoft in the gaming world

Microsoft has been in the video game world since 1979, when "Microsoft Adventure" was released. It was a text-based problem-solving game with a feel not unlike a "Dungeons & Dragons" session.

Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, the company would churn out many video games, but few were mainstream successes save for the many versions of "Microsoft Flight Simulator," which was first released in 1982.

It wasn't until Microsoft got into the console gaming world that true gaming success arrived. Designed to compete with Sony's successful PlayStation video game console, the Xbox was first released in 2001 and would become one of the most popular gaming platforms on the planet.

Now in its fourth generation of console, the Xbox's most popular games include the franchises "Call of Duty," "Grand Theft Auto," and "Fortnite," to name but a few.

Microsoft has added to its success and reach in the gaming world beyond its own original creations as well; it has also acquired heavy hitters in the space. For example, in September of the year 2014, Microsoft bought Mojang, maker of the popular gaming property "Minecraft," for $2.5 billion.

And then, in October 2023, the software juggernaut bought the gaming giant Activision Blizzard for the staggering sum of $68.7 billion. These were not Microsoft's only acquisitions, of course.

Microsoft acquisitions over the years

While Microsoft had acquired many other brands, products, and companies before the year 1997, that year marked its first major and highly visible move of the kind when Microsoft bought the popular email platform Hotmail for a $500 million, which is nearly a billion dollars today.

Hotmail was eventually rolled into Microsoft Outlook, though you can still get and use a Hotmail email address today.

In 2011, Microsoft made another powerful move when it acquired the video chat platform Skype, this time in a multibillion-dollar move.

In 2016, the software company laid out a hefty $26.2 billion to buy LinkedIn, the widely used professional networking and social media platform.

And in 2018, Microsoft acquired GitHub, a code developing platform, for the tidy sum of $7.5 billion. All of these acquisitions involve huge numbers, of course, as does the wealth of Microsoft's founder and the endowment of the charitable organization he established with his then-wife, Melinda Gates.

Bill Gates and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation by the numbers

At last check, Bill Gates' net worth was around $106 billion, making him, the former richest person in the world, not even in the top 10 richest list. He ranked 14^th richest, per Forbes, as of late 2024.

Gates has given tens of millions of dollars away, largely to his own nonprofit organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is focused on issues ranging from endemic diseases in developing nations to safe water supply issues and combatting hunger.

Married for 27 years prior to a divorce in the summer of 2021, Bill and Melinda Gates sat together on the board of their eponymous foundation for many years and even for three years following the marital split, though Melinda Gates finally departed the foundation in June 2024.

The foundation, which has offices in multiple countries across four continents, employs more than 2,000 people and has an endowment of more than $75 billion. According to data sourced from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation itself, in recent years it has offered charitable support between $7 and $8 billion, and the foundation had issued more than $77 billion in grant payments since its inception through the year 2023.

That's all an impressive amount of money, to be sure, and given for noble causes, but it pales in comparison to the profits of the Microsoft Corporation, profits that are often maintained thanks to harsh rounds of employee layoffs.

Microsoft finances, revenues, careers, and layoffs

Microsoft went public with its IPO in 1986 at a price of $21 per share. In the decades since, Microsoft stock pricing has swelled exponentially, and the company's total market cap — which is the entire value of a company's outstanding shares — reached an astonishing $3 trillion dollars by late 2024.

For a bit of perspective, that is larger than the annual gross domestic product of almost every nation on earth — were Microsoft's market cap placed on the scale with GDP, it would rank between France and Germany.

For the 12-month period ending in June 2024, Microsoft earnings were around $245 billion — in a one-year period, to be clear, the company generated nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars. It's no wonder, then, that Microsoft careers are highly sought after.

But jobs, though often lucrative, are also often tenuous. Microsoft's layoffs are often notorious for their size. For example, in the early fall of 2024, the company cut 650 workers from its gaming division only a few months after slashing 1,900 employees from its Activision Blizzard and Xbox departments.

In 2023, the company cut a huge swath of its labor force, dropping 10,000 workers. This was not the biggest layoff, though: between 2014 and 2015, the company axed nearly 20,000 employees. This was following the problematic acquisition of the telecom company Nokia, which also saw the exit of then-CEO Steve Ballmer.

• TikTok told its US employees that they'd still have jobs if the app goes dark.
• The company reassured staffers that the leadership team is planning for various scenarios.
• The Supreme Court is currently reviewing TikTok's request for more time on its divestment deadline.

TikTok reassured its US staffers on Tuesday that they'd still have jobs even if the app goes dark in a few days, as mandated by a divest-or-ban law.

In an internal memo shared with employees, the company confirmed to its US team that their "employment, pay, and benefits are secure, and our offices will remain open, even if this situation hasn't been resolved before the January 19 deadline." The company added that TikTok is a global platform and that only the US user experience would be impacted.

The Verge's Alex Heath first reported on the memo, which Business Insider independently verified. TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.

The memo acknowledged that this moment of uncertainty has been unsettling for the company and said TikTok's leadership team is planning for various scenarios as it charts its next steps.

TikTok employees who have spoken with BI have said they've often felt kept in the dark in recent weeks as they await a decision from the Supreme Court on a law that requires owner ByteDance to divest from the US version of TikTok or see it shut down. The company lost its legal challenge in the DC Circuit, and legal analysts told BI it's unlikely the Supreme Court will reverse that decision.

If TikTok does stop operating later this month, there's still a possibility that President-elect Donald Trump may try to rescue the app once in office, as he pledged to do on the campaign trail.

• The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed suit against Elon Musk.
• The new suit alleges Musk violated securities law related to his purchase of Twitter shares.
• It's not the first time the Tesla leader has gone toe-to-toe with the SEC.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed suit against Elon Musk, alleging he violated securities law related to his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, according to a federal docket.

The complaint alleges Musk "failed to timely file with the SEC a beneficial ownership report" disclosing his purchase of Twitter shares before he announced his ownership of the company.

"As a result, Musk was able to continue purchasing shares at artificially low prices, allowing him to underpay by at least $150 million for shares he purchased after his beneficial ownership report was due," the complaint reads.

Musk's attorney, Alex Spiro, told Business Insider in an email that Musk "has done nothing wrong."

"Today's action is an admission by the SEC that they cannot bring an actual case — because Mr. Musk has done nothing wrong and everyone sees this sham for what it is," Spiro said. "As the SEC retreats and leaves office — the SEC's multi-year campaign of harassment against Mr. Musk culminated in the filing of a single-count ticky tak complaint against Mr. Musk under Section 13(d) for an alleged administrative failure to file a single form — an offense that, even if proven, carries a nominal penalty."

This isn't the first time the SEC has sued Musk. A 2018 complaint from the commission stemmed from Musk's "funding secured" tweet, indicating he'd planned to take Tesla private, which eventually resulted in a settlement under which Tesla and Musk both paid fines of $20 million.

The SEC has not responded to a request for comment from BI.

Correction: January 14, 2025 — An earlier version of this story mistated the defendant in the story's URL and meta description. The SEC sued Elon Musk, not Tesla.

• Koyaana Redstar, a luxury bag authenticator, has decades of experience identifying fake Hermès Birkin bags.
• She said that the viral "Walmart Birkin," or "Wirkin," has several telltale signs of being a dupe.
• But Walmart is also not trying to convince anybody that the Wirkin is the real deal, she added.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Koyaana Redstar, the head of luxury buying at Luxe Du Jour, an online luxury boutique for vintage designer handbags. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I've worked for Rebag, The RealReal, and other vintage consignment stores and have 20 years of experience in the resale industry.

To me, the Hermès Birkin and Kelly are the most iconic bags in fashion. They are classic and retain value more than almost any other bag.

So, of course, I have thoughts on the viral $78 "Walmart Birkin" bag.

Signs that the Wirkin is an obvious dupe

First, the proportions of the Wirkin wouldn't look right to anyone who knows their stuff — and knows Birkins.

The handles are too long, and the fact that it comes with a crossbody strap is a dead giveaway — the Birkin doesn't come with one. To my knowledge, the only Birkin with a strap is the Micro Birkin if you exclude Jane Birkin's first Birkin.

The hardware is also almost too gold and has a slightly green undertone, which a real Birkin wouldn't have.

From afar, the imitation leather-like material looks almost puffy, which also throws off the shape. I can also tell the size of various components isn't of regular Birkin proportions.

As far as I'm concerned, the Wirkin's design doesn't seem to have been intentionally created to convince anyone that it's a Birkin.

It does look similar — but major changes have been made to avoid confusion, and they haven't used trademarked branding that would lead someone to believe that it's a real Hermès Birkin.

I think it's likely not the last we'll see of Birkin dupes from other brands, partly due to the demand for this particularly iconic style.

Dupes are fair game

The Birkin is the most coveted handbag in the world, so it's not surprising that there are so many dupes and replicas.

Replicas are attempted duplicates of a luxury bag, down to the types of hardware, fonts, materials, and branding.

Dupes are not branded, like the bags they are trying to imitate. They use a style or concept, alter it, and remove its branding. However, these products may use similar materials and have similar functionalities.

I don't approve of replicas, but I can get behind the idea of dupes because they aren't made to trick people into confusing them with the real deal.

I do find that consumers I've interacted with have become more conservative about spending on luxury products. Now, what I see is that there is brand loyalty — especially among consumers who enjoy buying products from specific brands.

However, an uptick in prices and the idea that dupes are readily available could drive some people to find cheaper alternatives to items that are way out of their budget.

A word of warning, though. Knowingly purchasing, distributing, or shipping inauthentic items is illegal under federal law.

It constitutes "trafficking in counterfeit goods," which can result in significant fines and potential jail time depending on the severity.

• Israel has used its Air Force to strike its enemies with impunity.
• Syria's collapse now gives it unprecedented power in the air, right up to Iran's border.
• "Israel now has open skies to Iran," a Middle East analyst told BI.

The Israeli Air Force has long been regarded as the Middle East's premier aerial fleet, supplied in large part with US-made aircraft and munitions. But in the past year it has gone further, showing its aircraft can strike any of its adversaries with impunity and establishing unprecedented air superiority across wide stretches of the region.

It gutted Russian and Iranian-made air defenses in Iran, daring Iranian leaders to strike back with fewer defenses. It destroyed stocks of Hezbollah's missile arsenal in southern Lebanon and killed its top leader with a precision airstrike on his underground headquarters.

Its power was so formidable in Syria that the Assad regime and Russia secretly asked Israel to spare Assad's military, according to allegedly classified documents found in the country after that brutal regime collapsed in December.

In the wake of that collapse, Israel seized the opportunity. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) destroyed the country's vast majority of air defenses and Syrian military stockpiles.

Across 15 months of war, instigated by the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist massacre by Hamas into Israel, the IAF has emerged supreme and is basking in its moment.

"Fighter pilots, if they wanted, could now merrily fly in pairs, with visible operating systems, at any altitude, to any range, to any spot in Israel's first circle of defense," reported the Israeli news site Ynet in late December.

Israel has long possessed the most powerful air force in the Middle East and one of the most powerful and technologically advanced anywhere in the world. It boasts over 600 aircraft and over 30,000 active personnel, with no less than 50,000 in reserve. It operates the second-largest fleet of F-16s in the world and is the only regional country that currently flies the F-35 stealth jet. Furthermore, Israel has its own version of that fifth-generation aircraft, a privilege no other country enjoys.

The IAF overwhelmingly consists of American-made aircraft that also include Apache and Black Hawk helicopters. Israel also flies a large fleet of F-15s and recently signed a $5.2 billion deal for 25 highly advanced F-15IA variants.

The IAF plays a pivotal role in the defense of Israel. It gave the small country a critical qualitative edge over its larger Arab adversaries in historical conflicts, most notably the June 1967 Six Day War.

The IAF's newfound supremacy goes beyond previous wars. For example, it previously destroyed several Soviet-built Syrian surface-to-air missile batteries in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley in a complex operation in 1982 and shot down over 80 Syrian fighter jets without incurring any losses in return. While December's operation saw the IAF strike all across Syria, the operation wasn't nearly as sophisticated or dangerous as that historical episode; many of the air defenses in the latest operation were abandoned or in low states of readiness.

"We know one reason possibly restraining Israel was a recently exposed secret agreement with Russia and Syria in which Israel agreed to refrain from wider targeting of Syria's military," said Sebastien Roblin, a widely published military aviation journalist.

Israel launched an enormous long-range air and drone attack against Iran on the night of October 26 in retaliation for an Iranian missile barrage against it on October 1. The IAF targeted some Syrian air defenses in the lead-up to the attack.

The IAF also used Iraqi airspace that October night and reportedly targeted early warning radars and sensors in both Syria and Iraq, which were part of a network Iran established in the region to detect incoming Israeli attacks. While the IAF used standoff munitions, including air-launched ballistic missiles, some Israeli aircraft are believed to have penetrated Iranian airspace.

"From what we currently know, some Israeli aircraft did reportedly breach Iranian airspace, though not, from what I've seen, very far," Ryan Bohl, a senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at the risk intelligence company RANE, told BI.

"That was in part a demonstration of capability and in part an operational necessity to effectively hit deep targets," Bohl said.

Israel stated some aircraft entered Iranian airspace, which were likely stealthy Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II jets and newly revealed long-range drones. Roblin said it's unclear if these aircraft released weapons over Iran. They could have been there to help "precisely locate key targets" and guide weapons fired by other aircraft over significant distances.

"The strike certainly had the effect of dispelling deterrence benefits of Iran's more advanced air defenses (Russian S-300 systems)," Roblin said. However, as in the case with Syria before December, Iran's remaining air defenses "still have some value in compelling use of more expensive standoff munitions and perhaps absorbing a percentage of incoming weapons."

Israel's campaign against the remnants of the Syrian military has major implications for Iran. Should Syria's airspace remain permissive to Israeli aircraft, Israel can fly its tanker aircraft closer to Iranian airspace than previously possible.

"If medium/high-altitude air defenses were truly fully destroyed, then Israel's ordinarily vulnerable tanker aircraft could indeed theoretically access Syrian airspace and refuel fighters, which could enable higher volume attacks on Iran," Roblin said.

With Syrian air defenses eliminated, Bohl believes that "Israel now has open skies to Iran."

It will likely take years before Syria manages to reestablish significant air defenses.

"The one-two-punch of Assad regime's collapse followed by Israeli strikes on surviving equipment mean Syria will require a much longer time-frame to reconstitute an air- and ground-based defense capability through expensive new equipment purchases," Roblin said. "So, Israel's ability to attack targets at will has been improved, though it was already more than adequate."

Airpower, of course, has its limits. Israel's aerial bombing has damaged roughly two-thirds of all buildings in Gaza, but it was a foot patrol that found and killed Hamas' hardline leader, who orchestrated the 10/7 attacks. Similarly, waves of Israeli airstrikes have failed to stop Iran from nuclear weapons development and uranium enrichment.

With Russia's influence diminishing, Turkey appears destined to become the new Syria's main military backer. Ankara has already offered to help Damascus rebuild the Syrian military.

"For now, Israel can ignore Syria as a defensive layer for Iran; it's just geography to fly over now," RANE's Bohl said. "But that is unlikely to be a permanent condition, and eventually, Syria's air defenses will, in some capacity, return."

"And should Turkey provide them, (that) might complicate Israel's regional strategy in a new way."

Paul Iddon is a freelance journalist and columnist who writes about Middle East developments, military affairs, politics, and history. His articles have appeared in a variety of publications focused on the region.