Iran’s drones have aimed at the same target as the US. And now that they have pulverized it, they are going to unleash their most dangerous weapon

In the Middle East there are radars capable of tracking objects thousands of kilometers and distinguish between dozens of targets in mid-flight. They are machines the size of a building, cost hundreds of millions of dollars and are part of the system that detects attacks before they even cross the atmosphere. However, in the current war they are discovering something uncomfortable: the greatest danger to these technological gems may come from weapons that cost a fraction of its price.

The eyes of the shield. Since the beginning of the war, Iran has directed a very specific part of his attacks against an objective that rarely appears in the headlines but that underpins the entire defensive architecture of the United States in the Middle East: the radars that allow detecting and tracking missiles in flight. These sensors (like the AN/TPY-2 associated with the THAAD system or the gigantic AN/FPS-132 deployed in Qatar) act as the “eyes” of the regional anti-missile shield, feeding data to Patriot interceptors, THAAD or Aegis destroyers to destroy threats before they reach their objectives.

However, several of these systems have been hit in the last days by Iranian attacks, some confirmed through satellite images. Among them is the strategic radar of the Al-Udeid base in Qatar, valued at nearly a billion dollars, and an AN/TPY-2 radar in Jordan directly linked to THAAD batteries. Other locations in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia or Bahrain as well have suffered impacts in facilities related to radar or communications, partially weakening the surveillance capacity of the regional defensive system.

The shaheds against the most expensive system. The paradox of these attacks is that many of them have been carried out with unidirectional attack drones relatively cheap, like the Shahed, whose cost is only a fraction of the missiles and sensors they try to neutralize. While US systems were designed to intercept much more expensive and sophisticated ballistic or cruise missiles, Iran has bet for saturating or damaging them with much simpler platforms.

These drones fly low and slow, which can make it difficult to detect for defenses designed for faster threats. Furthermore, the country has proven to have the capacity to produce them in large quantitiessomething that is already left patent in Ukraine with its export to Russia. In this war, that industrial advantage translates into a pretty clear strategy: launch constant waves of drones against sensors, command centers and communication systems, gradually eroding the network that allows us to detect threats in the air.

Blind the shield. The pattern that emerges suggests that these attacks are not simply scattered retaliation, but rather part of a much more calculated approach. Radars not only detect threats, they are the element that makes it possible to intercept them. Without them, even the most advanced anti-missile systems remain partially blind or rely on incomplete information.

Hitting these sensors, therefore, has a multiplier effect– Each radar out of service increases the likelihood that future waves of attacks will penetrate defenses. In that sense, the Shahed seem to have aimed at the same target since the beginning of the conflict: the eyes of the American anti-missile shield. And the more that network is degraded, the greater the scope for other, more dangerous weapons (stored in underground silos and fortified bases) can come into play with greater chances of success.

The problem of radars. The episode also highlights a structural weakness that analysts have long pointed out. Large early warning radars are extremely sophisticated, but also huge, expensive and largely static. Each one costs hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars and there are very few in the world, which means that replacing them can take years.

At the same time, their size and fixed nature make them on relatively easy targets to locate through intelligence or commercial satellite images. Even seemingly minor damage can cause a “mission kill”that is, leaving the radar inoperative for long periods, even if the structure is still standing. In other words, a cheap drone can temporarily disable a central piece of the strategic defense of an entire region.

The new logic of air war. Plus: what is happening reflects a deeper change in the way defensive systems are attacked. For decades it was assumed that destroying strategic radars required sophisticated missiles or large-scale complex attacks. The proliferation of drones has altered that equation.

Today even actors with limited resources can employ cheap platforms to degrade sensors that cost hundreds of millions. This logic has already been seen in other conflictsfrom Ukrainian attacks against Russian radars to Israeli operations against Iranian air defenses. In all cases the principle is the same: “shoot the archer” before facing his arrows. If the system that detects threats disappears or is degraded, the entire shield loses effectiveness.

A warning for the future. Beyond the immediate damage, these attacks have opened a broader strategic debate about resilience of American missile defense. The current architecture relies heavily on a small number of extremely valuable ground sensors. If those sensors are destroyed or neutralized, even temporarily, the defensive balance can quickly shift.

That is why more and more experts advocate complementing or replacing part of these capabilities. with space sensors capable of tracking missiles from orbit, creating redundancy against ground attacks. However, these technologies, if they arrive, will take years to be fully deployed. Meanwhile, the current war has left an uncomfortable lesson: a system designed to stop the world’s most sophisticated weapons can be weakened. by swarms of drones cheap. And when the radars stop seeingthe next move on the board can be much more dangerous.

Image | Google Earth, X, Missile Defense Agency, Airbus

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