Beware Iran’s Military-Industrial Complex: How Tehran is Changing the Nature of Asymmetric Warfare

Iran has spent decades developing the kind of technologies it needs to wage asymmetric war, and we are just beginning to see the consequences...

Iranian Shahed-136 kamikaze drones stacked and ready to launch. Each unit costs as little as $20,000. Source

Asymmetric warfare requires the utmost ingenuity on the part of the lesser power, particularly regarding the development and use of technology. The January 28 attack on Tower 22 in northeast Jordan that killed three US service members using an Iranian-made drone made headlines around the world and demonstrated the vulnerability of forces stationed throughout the region. Tehran developed these and other technologies due to a decades-long understanding that it cannot confront its regional or global adversaries by conventional means. For this reason, Iran has excelled at adapting foreign technologies and developing new ones to create an arsenal of highly effective, low-cost weapons for export to its proxies and allies. Now, we are seeing the permanent impact of this on asymmetric warfare on a broad scale.

How Iranian drones work to level the playing field

Shahed-136 technical specifications. Source

Regular reports that Iran’s production and export of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) continue to be scaled up has been a growing cause for concern in recent years. Tehran’s adoption of UAVs was due to its need to wage war asymmetrically. It first adopted the technology in the 1980s to help gain air superiority against Saddam Hussein’s better-equipped forces in the Iran-Iraq war. Today, Tehran produces a wide array of UAVs, such as the Mohajer-10, an advanced Kamikaze model capable of striking Tel Aviv, and Kaman-22, the ‘world’s longest range drone’ capable of remaining airborne for 24 hours. Although the Iranian military extensively employs powerful units such as these and sells them for conventional military use in countries such as Sudan, Iran’s lower-cost models may have an even greater impact on battlefields worldwide.