The other day I was sitting in my armchair thinking about lessons being learned by the grinding and ever-evolving war between Ukraine and Russia and the more recent war between the U.S. and Iran. Armchair general stuff was swirling-about in my civilian brain. Mostly about the asymmetric nature of the conflicts as it pertains to large, global powers going-up against smaller powers and the cost-asymmetry observed in the use of costly exquisite weapons to defeat numerous unsophisticated and cheap weapons.
Just as armor, gunpowder, artillery, naval power, the machine gun, poison gas, communications, mechanization, aircraft and mutually assured destruction changed the face of warfare; we are witness to another.
Only last month an advanced AH-64 Apache attack chopper was downed by a loitering Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). A $30 million aircraft defeated by an unmanned drone that costs $20,000. The pilots survived and were pulled from the waters the the Strait of Hormuz by an unmanned drone watercraft. Lots of technology packaged in this single incident and a huge disparity in the price of weapon systems.
China currently produces UAVs and similar loitering drones at a scale that is stunning. And if we found ourselves in a shooting war over Taiwan all we got is an ever-dwindling supply of Patriot missiles to shoot them down. At $4 million a copy.
Shooting million-dollar missiles at twenty-thousand-dollar drones is unsustainable.
Say hello to the new face of modern warfare.
Ukraine has embraced drone warfare in earnest; including the deployment of autonomous UAVs capable of delivering a warhead over vast distances and stalling and reversing Russian advances into their territory at a terrifying cost in Russian and North Korean lives.
Assembling a single modern Patriot Advanced Capability -3 interceptor takes about a couple of years. A solid rocket motor requires up to thirty months. Setting-up a new assembly facility for Patriot missiles can presently take three to four years.
Ukraine assembles and delivers small FPV (First Person View) reconnaissance and kamikaze drones in a matter of hours to a couple of days. Supply chain and procurement move an order from workshop to combat deployment in 24 to 48 hours. Larger strategic strike UAVs and maritime drone boats requires only weeks.
Finally, there is the application of artificial intelligence to facilitate modern warfare. AI software processes real-time intelligence feeds to coordinate operations and advise targeting in single minutes and seconds.
Unmanned drones use onboard computer vision to lock-onto and strike targets independently; thereby defeating electronic jamming. AI-enabled hardware permits inexpensive weapons systems to defeat high-value targets like tanks, missiles and ships.
Machine learning can sort thru overwhelming amounts of geospatial and signal intelligence that previously would require thousands of human analysts.
Sadly, modern conflicts have become a test bed for rapid evolution in warfare and tactics as we've known it.
Meanwhile, the administration has phased-out the Army's cutting edge drone warfare unit.
And the U.S. is hesitant to allow Ukraine to manufacture Patriot missiles locally, partially to protect U.S. military intellectual property, but more so because it doesn't want Ukraine to do it better.
Shortsighted? Or brilliant strategy? Judging from how the war with Iran is playing-out only time will tell. Watch the Peter Zeihan video short to the end. Better yet read the comments....
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