OPINION
Andy Yakulis
LTC Andy Yakulis (U.S. Army, ret.), is focused on Defense Innovation, Defense Technology, and Defense Investing. He is a former special operations commander with 18 years of service in the Army. He is a graduate of Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Naval War College, and the United States Military Academy.
The nature of warfare has changed – forever.
On the night of April 13th, 2024 – Iran launched hundreds of one-way drones and ballistic missiles to strike deep into Israel. The unmanned drones flew towards pre-designated targets, most likely navigating from GPS coordinates. Thankfully, 99% of the invading munitions were shot down.
However, two of the most powerful western militaries, the US and Israel, leveraged technology, doctrine, and tactics from a previous era. They successfully defended the attack this time, but they must innovate their technology as well as their doctrine and training. The same defensive tactics used on Saturday night might not fare as well in future battles. The US, Israel, and other allies and partners are still using doctrine and technology from a previous era – this may have worked on Saturday night but was costly and shows a lack of incorporation of innovative solutions to defeat a modern threat.
Traditionally, deep penetration strikes were flown by pilots in expensive planes. Pilots are expensive to train, expensive to equip, expensive to feed. They have fears, emotions, families, and varying capabilities. A cheap, “attritable” drone can be rapidly produced; it knows no fear, it never misinterprets orders, it performs the task according to the objective parameters it is programmed for, and it can be produced in an infinite capacity.
Iran has refined its drone technology due to the new concept of drone-warfare seen in the Russian-Ukraine war. Iran has supplied Russia with thousands, possibly tens of thousands of Shahed-136 drones. These drones can fly far, carry a significant payload of 45 to 90 pounds, and most importantly: are cheap.
At the beginning of the Russian-Ukraine conflict, Russia was dependent on Iran to supply them with the one-way suicide drone, sometimes referred to as a loitering munition. Russia and Iran increased their manufacturing capability and improved on the Shahed design which the Russian variant has rebranded as the Geran-2. While Iran continues to supply Russia with both finished products or parts for assembly in Russia, they are also exporting their cheap and effective suicide drones to their proxy forces.
On January 28th, 2024, Iranian proxy forces struck US forces at Tower 22 – a small outpost on the tri-border of Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. The attack was executed by an Iranian-made drone, killing three US service members (Sgt. William Jerome Rivers of Carrollton, Georgia; Sgt. Kennedy Ladon Sanders of Waycross, Georgia; and Sgt. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett of Savannah, Georgia). The drone used in the attack was likely a Shahed variant – due to the size of the explosion, the number of casualties, and the range the drone had to fly to strike the outpost. Given Iran’s ramped-up production and technological enhancements, this cost-effective drone has been distributed to Iranian proxy forces for decentralized use.
These same drones are likely the ones launched from Iran to strike deep into Israeli territory on Saturday night. In response to the drone attack, Israel launched several advanced fighter jets with pilots, activated the Iron Dome, and the US aided in shooting down drones. All of this points to advanced militaries using exquisite, high-cost capabilities to combat cheap, simple drones. The Iranian Shahed drone is not advanced – it’s just big and carries a large payload of explosives, and it can fly far. It has no stealth capabilities. In fact, the drone exhibits a notorious loud lawn mower sound warning potential victims of its arrival. Yet two incredibly advanced militaries – The US and Israel, are still fighting this new age of warfare with technology and doctrine from another era.
Reminiscent of World War I – millions of brave young men died because armies failed to change their doctrine and training to adapt to modern technologies. Rapid-firing artillery, improvements to artillery shells, and the machine gun were new defense technologies introduced in the early days of World War I. Without effective communication and trust in subordinate soldiers to operate decentralized, commanders kept their forces closely grouped together and ordered full-on assaults at the enemy. Grotesquely, charging soldiers were quickly annihilated by these advancements in weaponry. Eventually, senior commanders adapted, and the concept of trench warfare was widely implemented on both sides, leading to a years-long stalemate. Unfortunately, millions had to die to learn the lesson of adapting doctrine on how we fight based on the implementation of modern technology used in war.
History is doomed to repeat itself if the US military does not take the lessons of how its adversaries are implementing technological advancements. The US and its allies and partners cannot fight the war they want to fight with exquisite weapons and technology. US forces must not only adapt to the nature of warfare as it exists today, but also can rapidly innovate and incorporate modern technology into training and doctrine while creating an agile, adaptable force that can evolve its doctrine and train our military to combat what’s to come.
LTC Andy Yakulis (U.S. Army, ret.), is focused on Defense Innovation, Defense Technology, and Defense Investing. He is a former special operations commander with 18 years of service in the Army. He is a graduate of Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Naval War College, and the United States Military Academy.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and not that of the U.S. Army or the Department of Defense.