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What I find most interesting about the current Israel - Iran conflict isn't necessarily a lot of the geopolitical implications / consequences (although of course they are important), but instead the way the war is being waged. It seems, so far as I can tell, that they are almost entirely "trading missile strikes" and that no boots are on the ground, there isn't even really much of a naval component. Just missile centers in cities or in the desert shooting at one another, causing damage that, from a citizen's POV, is essentially random.
I know that the World Wars were considered horrible because death in combat felt so random due to bombings, machine guns, etc. Are we now entering a new stage of warfare where soldiers are barely even involved, and we just shoot missiles at each others population centers, trying to decapitate the enemy leadership?
On the one hand, it's certainly... cleaner, I suppose? Much better than the horrid conditions of trench warfare during the World Wars, at least based on what I've read about it. Still though, it feels extremely cold and random, disconnected from the perspective of the average person.
Then again, the whole war in the Ukraine is very much boots on the ground, even if drones are heavily involved. I'm not sure (obviously) exactly how the future of war will develop, but we are certainly seeing interesting new innovations as of late. And we have barely even scratched the surface of using AI in warfare!
What are your best predictions for how future warfare will develop?
Cheap missile spam backed by cheap drone spam that may be followed with armor and infantry on the ground with active air support if needed.
At least, that's what Anduril is clearly banking on. They're making missiles that are also drones.
The technical issue of holding territory if you manage to capture it is still hard to solve.
But I imagine the opening stages of a non-nuclear war between peer powers looks like a scaled up version of what happened to Iran. Missile swarm exchanges targeting enemy Command and Control and defensive systems, coupled with cyberattacks and other sabotage to maximize penetration.
And of course, if you can smuggle a ton of drones into the target country in advance and set them up near vulnerable targets you're able to leverage the carnage even further.
Knock out the defenses in the first wave, then successive waves will be all the more destructive and you can diversify targets. Seems like it soon becomes an all-or-nothing exchange b/c if you can kill off their ability to launch retaliating strikes, you can just keep on striking without fear.
Then drones of various sizes to reconnoiter and identify pockets of potential resistance, and start softening up the troops who actually stay at their posts. I don't know how you maintain morale for human infantry when the chain of command is tossed into chaos and they can see the writing on the wall when the FPV drones start buzzing in for the kill.
Add on the extra consideration that you can fit missile launchers and drone swarms on shipping containers and suddenly the task of predicting where the strikes will originate from is more difficult.
Civilian ships are potential launching points for missiles and drones, so it might legitimately become doctrine to attack any cargo ships inside your air defense's envelope just in case they could be used to retaliate.
Hell, the scariest thing I can imagine is using missiles coordinated with drone swarms to penetrate armored facilities so the drones can sweep through and murder everyone inside.
And yeah, I would not want to be a head of state or military leader of one of the belligerent countries, when poking my head out of my deep mountain bunker could be instantly fatal. Traveling by air would be right the fuck out, and any attempt to move over land is inherently exposing me to missiles or drone salvos.
I see comments mentioning that decapitation strikes have been a feature of warfare for eons, but we're seeing the ability to reach out and touch someone from absurd distances, and DEFINITELY the ability to coordinate the simultaneous strike much more effectively. And redundancy. Want to be SURE a guy is dead? Fire more missiles, then have drones on cleanup duty.
Safest place for a leader to be would probably be on a silent nuclear-powered submarine deep enough underwater to avoid depth charges.
Except... oh shit.
I take it back, the safest place for the leader to be will be on the fucking MOON while the conflict is active.
I dont think either of them want to hold enemy territory. Iran maybe as a long-term goal, but theyre on the defensive here so its probably not in play. Israel is fine with distance-policing their capabilities.
Agreed.
Which also changes the dynamics of what a war looks like. How can an inferior power ever hope to gain enough edge to deter an opponent from attacking when said opponent can just attack unilaterally with impunity to bring down any attempt at a functional deterrence.
The Taliban showed that its possible to outlast an opponent who seeks to occupy your lands. But if we don't care about occupying but are happy to just kneecap them if they try to build a nuke, or a missile stockpile, or bioweapons, there ain't much they can do but sponsor low level terrorism against our civilians.
It would, I'd argue, make it so that you HAVE to make friends with the biggest kid on your block and hope there's enough deterrent effect there. Which is looking like the only kids big enough to matter are the U.S. and China.
It is not clear to me at all that Israeli conventional airstrikes will be able to permanently keep either the conventional or nuclear weapons program of Iran in check. For example, Russia likes to use Iranian military drones in Ukraine, so that is already one big power which might support them in their capabilities to produce conventional weapons despite your efforts to kneecap them. China probably sees Iran as an important counterweight to US-leaning regional powers like Israel or Saudi Arabia.
So far, Iran has for the very most part only sponsored deadly terror against Israel, not the West in general (Bin Laden was Saudi, after all). As someone who was around in the early 2000s, let me assure you that what was ultimately an act of "low level terrorism against our civilians" managed to shape US politics for the better part of a decade and let to the West going on a wild goose chase.
Now, if your model of the Ayatollah regime is that the probability of them nuking Israel within hours of gaining the ability to do so is close to one, and that they are willing to sacrifice most of their population centers to the inevitable Israeli retaliation, then yes, trying anything to keep them from getting nukes might be worth the costs.
Or your model of the Ayatollah regime might be that while they are rabid antisemites who are serious about destroying Israel, they are also hypocrites in that despite their public statements, they would not like their children to become martyrs. Then bombing the shit out of them to delay them from acquiring nukes might be actively counterproductive in that once they have nukes, they are much more likely to use them.
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