The Iran war is providing the world with the latest demonstration of how quickly drones have transformed modern battle. The Islamic Republic’s regime has gained leverage over the Strait of Hormuz in part through a fleet of cheap, long-range drones, which continue to threaten oil tankers and terrorize cities across the region. Analysts say that the U.S. did not appropriately prepare for this drone threat. That is only partly true.
The Donald Trump administration, and those around it, have spent years looking for lessons in Ukraine, which has developed some of the world’s most sophisticated drone expertise in its war with Russia. The administration saw an opportunity to learn from Ukraine’s lessons, but missed acting on it. Now the U.S. is racing to catch up to the frontier of drone warfare.
Perhaps the most convincing demonstration of Ukraine’s drone expertise came in a Ukrainian assault behind the Russian line last summer. In June, four trucks hiding more than 100 Ukrainian drones in wooden cabins hurtled down Russian highways toward four of the country’s most protected airfields. Hours later, pilots located thousands of miles away in Kyiv sprang the drones from the trucks and began flying them into some of Russia’s most expensive aircraft. By the end of the operation, Ukraine’s small first-person-view drones, which cost no more than a few hundred dollars a unit, had dealt more than $7 billion in damage to Russia’s air fleet. Military experts across the globe lauded the mission, code-named Operation Spider’s Web by Ukraine’s security services, as one of the most daring and successful in modern warfare.
