NYT: Ukraine And Israel Have Shown That There Is A Powerful New Weapon In Modern Warfare
- 15.06.2025, 14:18
- 5,994
It can become particularly attractive in covert operations.
Strike drones - small, hard to detect and capable of powerful strikes - have become a formidable weapon in modern warfare. But recent operations in Ukraine and Israel - in which drones have been launched from deep inside enemy territory - have demonstrated a new level of their destructive power.
As The New York Times writes, the surprise effect of having to repel drone attacks from within combines classic military strategy with modern technology.
"Spy vehicles and covert operations have long been part of warfare, but experts say their use to deploy drones behind the front lines is a new tactic in the ever-evolving art of warfare," the publication writes.
So, during Ukraine's Operation Web, more than 40 Russian warplanes were hit by a swarm of drones that Ukraine had secretly deployed near military bases in Russia. And just two weeks later, Israel, during its operation, destroyed Iran's missiles, interceptors and air defense systems with drones previously smuggled in by Israeli intelligence agents.
According to Assaf Orion, a retired Israeli brigadier general and defense strategist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Israel's approach gave it an advantage in a large-scale attack on Iran.
"Iran must not only look west to see what's going on, but also look inward," Orion said.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu compared the attack to another Israeli operation last September in Lebanon, where pagers and walkie-talkies packed with explosives targeted Hezbollah. That operation was also cited by intelligence experts after Ukraine's surprise strike on Russia as an example of how technology is rapidly changing the way war is waged.
But at the heart of all three military missions - in Lebanon, Russia and now Iran - are painstaking intelligence-gathering efforts. Such operations can last years and involve great risk, the NYT notes.
"At the end of the day, drones are just tools, and how you can use them depends on your sophistication and creativity .So it's a natural evolution - it's just a foretaste of what the future holds," said Farzan Sabet, an analyst on Iran and weapons systems at the Geneva Institute of International Affairs in Switzerland.
Sabet said drones could become a particularly attractive weapon in covert operations if they could be taken piecemeal and gradually into enemy territory, making them even harder to detect.
"The similarities between the drone smuggling operations conducted by Israel and Ukraine suggest that such tactics will be copied in other conflicts - at least until even newer, stealthier or more powerful warfare strategies are developed," the article notes.
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