Drones have been a major game-changer in modern warfare. There’s been an arms race in the Ukraine war, and drones have been at the centre of it, with electromic jamming, then fibre-optic drones, then netting over roads used for logistics, and vehicles with cages to protect them from drone attack. Tanks with no anti-drone protection, such as those used by the US, are now obsolete. Both Russia and Ukraine are now setting up separate branches of their militaries to focus on drone warfare. Russia aims to have 210,000 drone operators over 1000 units embedded with each other branch of the military in the not too distant future. Each side produces hundreds of thousands of drones per month, and may use a thousand at a time for an attack. 97% of casualties in Ukraine occur in the grayzone, between the opposing armies, as a result of drones, artillery, Russian glide bombs, and Russian TOS flamethrowers. Soldiers very rarely even see the enemy. Visibility on the battle field is almost total, as satellite images and drones with thermal imaging and night vision are everywhere, so concentration of troops is impossible. Progress is slow as only small and highly manouverable groupings are possible.
This is modern warfare, but only those with experience of it understand how different it is from older tactics and strategy. The US had set up task force to study drone warfare in Ukraine, but it was recently disbanded for petty political reasons. The new acting Chief of Staff of the army cancelled it due to personal animosity between himself and the officers who had set it up. This is extremely short-sighted, as knowledge of modern warfare is essential. The US military as currently configured would lose any conflict with Russia, or China, which has taken the lessons to heart. It has already lost to Iran for similar reasons. Iran has been using assymmetrical tactics such as drones, missiles, artillery, small armed speedboats, mines, manouverable torpedos, and small submarines. Combined with home advantage and a country set up to be an impregnable defensive fortress, the US stood little chance.
Aircraft carriers are another obsolete platform. It isn’t necessary to sink one. Merely damaging the flight deck would be sufficient to put one out of action for a prolonged period. Considering that the US is critically short of interceptors, and that interceptors are not very effective in any case, this would not be difficult if the carrier got anywhere within range of Iranian weaponry. For this reason, the carriers are so far offshore that any sorties must involve multiple refuellings. Iran has destroyed most of the US bases in the Gulf, so logistics has been heavily disrupted. Ships have to travel to the base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to resupply, hence the supply problems that are being discussed in the media. The US attempt to blockade Hormuz is ineffective due to how few naval assets are available and how far out they must stay. Morale among the naval personnel is very low, as they know they’re not defending American interests, but Israeli ones, and that’s not what they signed up for.
American military institutions are resistant to change, despite the obvious need to modernise equipment and tactics. Centcom currently has a group of a few dozen men with a few dozen drones in their multination attack drone task force. They plan to have 200,000 drones by the end of next year, produced at 10,000 per month – a tiny fraction of the monthly production of both Russia and Ukraine right now. China has produced millions of drones already. The American military was once a formiable force, but it’s fallen far behind peer competitors. The military industrial complex focuses on producing whatever will make it the most money. Actually winning a conflict is a secondary concern for them. The Trump regime is always claiming the US has the best military on the face of the earth, but in reality it simply has the most expensive. The empire is being revealed as a paper tiger. Expect many more challenges to its power now that so many other nations understand this.
