The conflict between the United States and Iran has changed the modern concept of war. Analysis

The confrontation between the United States and Iran has led to a rethinking of the concept of war, which has dominated the last decades. Their conflict has shown that even the strongest modern army cannot win a convincing victory if the enemy gives an asymmetric response and actively uses unmanned systems. An attempt to win a quick victory through concentrated precision strikes can turn into a war of attrition, in which the defending side will at least not lose. How the idea of the very essence of the war is changing is in the Izvestia material.

The leveled advantage of the USA

• Before the start of the conflict between the United States and Iran, dry statistics suggested that the military confrontation between them should end with Washington's complete success and the defeat of the Iranian armed forces. The United States has long had a reputation as the country with the strongest army in the world, capable of solving any task. They are the leaders in defense spending, bringing annual spending to almost $1 trillion. This is about one third of the total military expenditures of all countries in the world. At the same time, Iran is located at the end of the fourth decade with a defense budget of $7.5 billion and is seven times inferior to Israel, with which the United States has launched a military campaign.

• Before the conflict, the United States increased its military presence in the Middle East to the largest contingent since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The American command brought two aircraft carrier groups equipped with modern fighter jets with missile weapons and its own air defense system to the combat area. The US army was tasked with a series of precision strikes to destroy Iran's military and political leadership, suppress the country's defense capability, and force an agreement that would prevent the possibility of developing nuclear weapons.

A game of attrition: How many missiles does Iran actually have left?

The republic's military-industrial complex turned out to be stronger than all forecasts, but the United States is still waiting for the emptying of Tehran's arsenals.

• However, the conflict, which was supposed to be a quick operation and focused on the timing of Israel's 12-day war with Iran, eventually stretched over two months. The United States has failed to inflict a military defeat on Iran and achieve all its goals. Tehran retaliated against American allies in the Middle East and blocked the Strait of Hormuz, provoking an energy crisis that was an economic and political blow to Washington.

The difference in the approaches of the United States and Iran

• From the very beginning of the conflict, Iran refused to play by the rules of the "big war" that the United States was trying to impose. They really had nominal superiority over the enemy, having extensive capabilities to destroy the army, suppress air defenses and control the airspace. However, from the very beginning, the US plans did not envisage a ground invasion due to the peculiarities of Iran's geography — it is too large a country to conduct land operations, and moreover with a difficult mountainous terrain.

Therefore, the United States relied on precise and expensive air strikes, counting not only on the destruction of Iran's military infrastructure, but also on the moral suppression of the enemy, the rejection of his further resistance and the imbalance of government. However, Iran prepared for this and began to follow its own plan, which gave the country the opportunity, if not to win the confrontation, then at least not to lose it.

• Iran began to prolong the conflict and expand its geography. Three factors helped him in this: the presence of an entire fleet of cheap attack drones, a wide range of short-range ballistic and cruise missiles, and allied relations with proxies. These relatively cheap weapons have allowed Iran to inflict permanent damage on the United States and its allies. Iran's tactics assume that its weapons stocks are easily restored and cannot be depleted in the foreseeable future, while the United States relied on a quick end to the operation precisely because their stocks — expensive, high-tech, with a long production cycle — would run out early.

• Iran has relied on scrapping the economics of warfare itself, which makes them unprofitable for the enemy. With the help of cheap Shahed drones for $20-50 thousand. It forces the United States to spend more expensive PAC-2 missiles worth $1 million, which significantly corrects the difference in military spending between the two countries.

• It makes sense to use air defense against such weapons if it is possible to prevent damage in this way that exceeds the cost of producing anti-missiles. However, Iran has gone even further and identified for itself a wide range of targets, from military bases to related infrastructure, among which there are relatively minor facilities that it becomes completely unprofitable to protect. Tehran has managed to put the enemy in front of a difficult choice — to spend money on defense, which cannot be provided anyway, or to put up with a series of strikes that cause permanent damage.

• At sea, Iran also behaved quite differently from what the United States expected. In response to the arrival of a powerful grouping of the American fleet, which was supposed to threaten the decommissioning of the Iranian naval forces, the mining of the Strait of Hormuz by small boats began. The United States has not been able to respond to this asymmetric response from Iran, which not only solved the tactical problem in the sea, but also made it impossible to open the waterway for at least another six months.

The role of drones

Drones are becoming the key weapons that determine the nature of military operations. They are making a revolution comparable to the one that machine guns and tanks once made. Modern drones are improving rapidly, they are acquiring higher and higher characteristics, and their production is scaling up and becoming cheaper.: The cost of attack is now significantly lower than the cost of defense. New drone models may appear every three months, and their software is updated every week.

Additionally, drones are being improved thanks to artificial intelligence. The introduction of its simple elements has already become the norm, and gradual fusion with more complex models promises to produce even more multifunctional and high-quality samples of equipment in the near future. Drones can transform from a simple projectile that hits a given target into a smart device that adapts to current conditions and behaves most effectively on the battlefield.

The next step may be the development of ground-based drones. The current conflict between the United States and Iran does not yet suggest that this type of weapon can be used, but it may become relevant in the near future, as it will become a limiting factor against a ground invasion. With the widespread introduction of ground-based drones, armored vehicles and tanks will lose their role as an important element of ground operations.

• This can help give unmanned systems the opportunity to conduct independent offensive actions and begin to control the territory. Modern drones cannot provide this and so far they act mainly as a defensive or reconnaissance means, reliably deterring the enemy at the tactical level and depriving him of initiative on the battlefield.

Defensive advantage

The revolution accomplished by drones has given a huge advantage to countries that are forced to defend themselves. The example of Iran shows that a powerful unmanned aerial fleet allows you to resist even the most equipped army in the world for a long time and avoid unequivocal defeat. A country armed with drones is capable of exhausting any enemy who tries to conduct offensive operations and thwart his victory.

Persian code: what will be the war of the future

The US-Israeli aggression against Iran has opened a new chapter in military theory

This fundamentally changes the balance of power around the world. Previously, medium-sized and small countries did not have many options left to protect themselves from the encroachments of more powerful powers. It was either joining military blocs and building up allied ties in the hope of help from a stronger partner, or developing an expensive missile program to the detriment of its economic potential. The creation of unmanned armed forces does not require such costs as the production of missiles, but at the same time it increases the defense capability on a large scale and allows it to resist in the event of a conflict for a long time.

• At the same time, the threshold for conflict initiation is decreasing. A large number of countries that launch their own production of drones have an inexpensive opportunity to defend their interests by resorting not to diplomacy, but to a swarm of drones in order to damage the opponent's infrastructure. This will provoke an equivalent response, provoking instability first in a particular region, and then in a broader arena.

The advantage of drones is their versatility and the ability to control the front not only across its entire width, but also deep in the rear. The experience of the war between Iran and the United States has shown how they can disrupt logistics, strike warehouses and fuel infrastructure, and provide full surveillance of enemy actions. Although they do not ensure complete victory, their potential can serve as a deterrent to a major war. He does not allow the aggressor to start a large-scale conflict, as he will have to face a difficult struggle of attrition, which will negate all the advantages that he might wish to achieve by starting hostilities.

When preparing the material, Izvestia took into account the opinions of:

• military expert Yuri Knutov.