drones

96 drones with a science fiction launch

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In recent years, the cost of many drones has dropped to the point that many military models are infinitely cheaper than the missile that tries to shoot them down. At the same time, advances in artificial intelligence have allowed relatively simple machines execute tasks that previously required entire human teams. In China they have taken an unprecedented step towards the war of the future. The next step. Yes, Beijing just taught in a video something that goes far beyond the individual drone: a coordinated swarm of up to 96 units which works like a single system intelligent at a devilish speed. This is not about launching devices, but about orchestrating a distributed air force where each drone has a role and all act as a single organism, marking a clear leap towards a dominated war by software, algorithms and autonomy. The demonstration also leaves a clear idea: the future will not be a more advanced drone, but rather many drones working together as if they were one. The “kill chain” converted into a single system. As can be seen, the Atlas system integrates a single sequence the entire combat process, from detection to attack, eliminating traditional intermediate steps along the way. In the test, the swarm identified a target among several similar ones, made decisions autonomously and executed a precise attack in mid-flight, displaying a chain of destruction continuous and automated. There is no doubt, this approach completely transforms war, because it is no longer a question of isolated platforms, but of complete systems capable of to perceive, decide and act without interruptions. Science fiction. The heart of the system is its deployability: we are talking about a vehicle that can launch drones at a rate of one every three secondsquickly generating a critical mass in the air. This technical detail is key, because it allows one to be built in a matter of minutes. dense and coordinated formationone capable of saturating defenses or executing complex attacks. It is, therefore, not just speed, it is the ability to turn a launch into a controlled avalanche of perfectly synchronized units. A swarm that thinks and reorganizes itself. As we said, each drone is equipped with algorithms that allow you to communicateshare information and adapt in real time, avoiding collisions and adjusting your position within the group. Besides, can be reassigned during the mission, changing functions as the combat evolves, which introduces unprecedented flexibility in conflicts. In other words, this kind of “collective brain” turns the swarm into something closer to a distributed intelligence than to a set of independent machines. Algorithmic control. They had something in the PLA that already we had seen beforethat one of the most profound changes has to do with the fact that a single operator can control the entire system, delegating complex tasks such as target recognition, mission assignment or route planning to artificial intelligence. This reduces human burden and accelerates decision times to levels that are difficult to match by traditional systems. War thus goes from depending on operators to depending on previously trained algorithms. Attack and defend in another way. Plus: the system allows combine different types of drones in the same mission, from reconnaissance to electronic warfare and attack, creating staggered waves capable of overcoming defenses or penetrating in depth. That is to say, for either side, progress blurs the line. between front and rear and forces us to completely rethink anti-aircraft defenses, which no longer face just one missile or drone, but dozens of them acting in a coordinated manner. A new and disturbing scenario where the real weapon is no longer the drone itself, but the system that connects them. Image | CCTV In Xataka | Ukraine is close to achieving a milestone that no one has achieved: building the largest drone industry without China’s help In Xataka | 200 drones in the hands of a single soldier: China is advancing very quickly in a type of war that seemed like science fiction

just bombed the “Uber of shahed drones” between Russia and Iran

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Although more than 90% of world trade travels by sea, there are routes that do not even appear on common trade maps and yet concentrate all types of critical flows of goods and technology. In some of these corridors, it is enough to turn off a simple transponder to disappear from the radar and turn an ordinary journey into something much more difficult to track. And one of them directly “connects” the war in Ukraine with that in Iran. The “Uber of the shahed.” Israel has found and beaten much more than a port: it has attacked the invisible highway that connected two apparently separate wars, that of Ukraine and the Middle East. As? For months, the Caspian Sea functioned as a discreet runner where Russia and Iran exchanged Shahed drones, ammunition and technology far from Western reach, a true “Uber of the Shahed” that moved weapons silently while the ships they turned off their transponders. This logistical system allowed the same drones that fell on kyiv or Kharkiv to also fuel attacks in the Gulf, and its partial destruction It not only aims to disrupt supplies, but also reveals the extent to which both conflicts are intertwined. A key route for two simultaneous wars. Because the Caspian corridor was not a secondary route, but a centerpiece of the Russian and Iranian military equipment, used to transport hundreds of thousands of projectiles and millions of ammunition, in addition to drones that both countries they already produce jointly. They remembered in the Wall Street Journal that Russia depended on this route to sustain its war effort in Ukraine, while Iran used it to project power in the Middle East, turning maritime traffic between Bandar Anzali and Russian ports into a critical logistics artery. Its hybrid nature, mixing civil commerce with military shipments, made its detection and blocking even more difficult. Technological and total war partners. I was counting this morning the financial times that the relationship between Moscow and Tehran has evolved from one-off cooperation to integration ever deeperone in which Russia provides intelligence, satellite images and technological improvements, while Iran provides expertise in cheap drones and mass production. However, that relationship is no longer one-way: Russia has perfected the Shahed in Ukraine (improving navigation, payload and jam resistance) and is now in a position to return Iran vmore advanced versionscapable of increasing the effectiveness of their attacks or serving as a basis for new generations of weapons. The Israeli coup and its effect. Apparently the attack against Bandar Anzali It has destroyed key infrastructure, from ships to command and maintenance centers, with the explicit aim of demonstrating that not even the Caspian is a safe space for Iran. Beyond the physical damage, the operation also seeks to disorganize temporarily the flow of weapons and send a strategic message: Israel can reach critical logistical nodes even in areas considered outside of direct conflict. Plus: By affecting a route that also transports civilian goods such as wheat or energy, the coup places additional pressure on Iranian internal stability. A system also vulnerable. Despite the impact, neither Russia nor Iran depend on a single path, and it is likely that redirect your shipments to other ports or routes, maintaining the flow, although with greater costs and delays. That said, the attack has exposed a structural weaknessThere is no doubt: the need to maintain discreet but concentrated logistics corridors, susceptible to being identified and hit. Put another way, modern war is not only fought on the front lines, but in these invisible networks that sustain production and supply. Strategic message. If you also want, what has happened in the Caspian redefines the map of the conflict, because it shows that wars are no longer a kind of watertight compartments, but rather interconnected systems where a logistics chain can feed multiple fronts. By bombing this route, Israel has not only hit Iran, but also indirectly the russian military machinery in Ukraine, showing that the battle for drones (and the chains that transport them) is a global conflict. From that prism, the “Uber of the Shahed” was not just another route: it was the symbol of a new form of war, one that is now also a priority objective. Image | Alma, Wikimedia, Kyiv City State Administration In Xataka | Drones and ballistic missiles have revolutionized warfare. Iran suspects there is another weapon: rain theft In Xataka | Iran has sent a message with a ballistic missile 4,000 km away: Europe is within reach, including Spain

One trick is unblocking the passage of ships in Hormuz without the need for drones or escorts. And the US is not going to be amused

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In 2023, some of the world’s largest oil tankers have already begun sailing with transponders off in risk areas to avoid being tracked, a known practice like “dark shipping” which makes it difficult to know what cargo they are transporting and where they are going. In scenarios of maximum tension, these opaque movements tend to multiply and anticipate deeper changes in how it circulates really the energy for the world. The new rules. Although it may seem like it, in reality, the Strait of Hormuz is not formally closed, but in practice it has stopped be a neutral space to become a conditional passage through Iran, where transit depends on implicit authorizations and specific routes under its control. In the midst of attacks, mines and a constant threat that has paralyzed hundreds of ships, some oil tankers have managed to cross a simple tactic: follow trajectories close to the Iranian coast, avoiding the usual corridors and suggesting the existence of a selective passage system that redefines who can circulate and under what conditions. Tehran’s invisible filter. The ships that manage to cross the strait do not do so by chance, but within a pattern increasingly clear: negotiated transit, “acceptable” flags and destinations aligned with countries that do not directly participate in the conflict or without directly “friends.” There it appears mainly India and China along with neutral actors who have begun to secure shipments through diplomatic contacts, while ships linked to the West remain outside or directly exposed. This model allows Iran to maintain a minimum flow of energy that avoids a total collapse of the market, but at the same time turns the passage into a tool of geopolitical pressure, where each transit is a concession and not a right. Minimum flow with global impact. Although the number of ships that manage to cross is still a fraction of the usual, that small trickle is enough to influence prices energy and avoid further escalation, especially towards Asia. That said, the bottleneck is enormous, with hundreds of ships waiting and logistics extremely limited in a passage that already functions as a two-lane highway. The constant threat of drones, mines or specific attacks maintains the risk at maximum levels and deters the majority of operators, consolidating a system where the exception, and not the normality, sets the pace of commerce. China in the lead. In this context, China emerges as one of the main beneficiaries of this selective system, absorbing much of the crude oil that manages to get out of the Gulf and using its ambiguous position to keep open supply lines that others cannot guarantee. In other words, the appearance of ships with Chinese ties among the few that cross the strait reinforces the idea that access to Hormuz no longer depends only on geography, but rather on political alignment, consolidating a transit network where Beijing gains margin while other actors lose access. The Eurasian plan B. In parallel, China and Russia are accelerating construction of structural alternatives to vulnerable routes such as Hormuz, promoting its own logistics corridors that include lto Arctic Route and terrestrial networks across Eurasia. With investments in ports, icebreaking vessels and independent logistics systems, both countries seek to reduce their exposure to bottlenecks controlled by third parties and create a commercial architecture more resilient and politically aligned. This strategy not only responds to the current crisis, but also aims at a lasting reorganization of global trade. An uncomfortable scenario for the United States. There is no doubt, the combination of a partially narrow controlled by Iranan energy flow that is redirected towards Asia and development of alternative routes Outside of Western influence, it sets up an increasingly unfavorable scenario for the United States. As Washington tries to respond with naval escorts and pressure international (although at the last minute started again back saying that it does not need help from the allies), its capacity to guarantee free transit is limited compared to a system where a mine or a drone is enough to paralyze everything. The result is a silent but profound change: the control of energy flows begins to depend less on direct military force and more of political and logistical networks that escape US control. Image | x In Xataka | The war with Iran is leading the US to a plan B that no one imagined: avoiding the nuclear objective at all costs In Xataka | The US nuclear supercarrier has a problem: its marines are sleeping on the ground in the middle of the war with Iran

If Ukraine promoted the use of drones, Iran has triggered the Terminator algorithm. And that was already a problem in science fiction

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In the gulf war 1991, the international coalition took more than a month to launch some 100,000 airstrikes after weeks of planning. Three decades later, the ability to process military information has changed radically: satellites, sensors and drones generate amounts of data that no human team could analyze alone. In this new technological environment, the true battlefield is no longer just the air or the land, but the speed at which information is interpreted. From the drone to the algorithm. Recent wars had already anticipated a profound transformation of modern combat, but the conflict with Iran seems to have crossed a different technological frontier. If the war in ukraine popularized the massive use of drones as a dominant tool from the battlefield, the campaign against Iran has introduced a logical even more radical: integration artificial intelligence at the very heart of military decisions. In fact, the initial attacks showed an intensity difficult to imagine just a few years ago, with hundreds of targets hit in a matter of hours and thousands in a few days. That speed was not only the result of greater firepower, but also of the use of capable systems of analyzing enormous volumes of data and transforming that information into almost instantaneous attack plans. Understanding the “kill chain”. I remembered this morning the financial times that traditional war, the so-called chain of destruction (from identifying a target to launching the attack) was a long and bureaucratic process. Intelligence officers analyzed information, wrote reports, commanders evaluated options and finally the coup was authorized. A process that could take hours or even days. The incorporation of AI is reducing that cycle drastically. We are talking about platforms that integrate data from satellites, drones, sensors and intercepted communications that are capable of generating lists of targets, prioritizing them and suggesting the appropriate weapon in a matter of seconds. The result is extreme and disturbing compression of the kill chain: What once required prolonged deliberation now becomes an almost instantaneous sequence. The digital brain of the battlefield. Behind this acceleration are data analysis systems that act as a true operational “brain.” These platforms combine geospatial intelligence, machine learning and advanced language models to interpret information and propose military actions. Its most disruptive capacity is that it no longer only summarizes data, but can reason step by stepevaluate alternatives and generate tactical recommendations. This allows military commanders to process volumes of information that are impossible to handle manually and multiply the number of operational decisions made in the same period of time. In practice, algorithms are allowing select and execute objectives at a scale and speed that were previously unthinkable. Bomb faster than thought. The result of this transformation is a war that begins to move at a rapid speed. higher than human pace. Artificial intelligence can now analyze information, detect patterns and propose attacks faster than a team of analysts could even formulate the right questions. Some experts describe This phenomenon as a form of “compressed decision,” in which planning is reduced to such short windows of time that human managers can barely review what the machine has already processed. In this context, another disturbing idea: that destruction can precede the human reflection process itself, that is, first comes the recommendation generated by the algorithm and then the formal approval of the person who must execute it. And there, there is no doubt, we can have a problem of colossal dimensions. The human dilemma in algorithmic warfare. Because this technological acceleration is generating a growing debate about the real role of humans in military decision-making. Although the armed forces they insist As final control remains in the hands of people, the time available to evaluate system recommendations is increasingly reduced. Some analysts fear that this will lead to a form of “cognitive download”one in which military leaders end up automatically trusting the decisions generated by algorithms. Other countries like China itself observe this evolution with concern and warn of the risk that automated systems end up directly influencing life or death decisions on the battlefield, associating the scenario with the closest thing to the “Terminator algorithm” due to the unequivocal way in which all paths approach James Cameron’s fantastic proposal. A new accelerated war. If you will also, what is emerging is not just a new military technology, but rather a new time of the war. AI makes it possible to process information on a massive scale, identify targets more quickly, and execute attacks with unprecedented simultaneity. This means that military campaigns can develop at a pace that overflows the models traditional planning. From this perspective, war no longer advances solely at the pace of logistics or firepower, but at the pace of algorithms capable of interpreting the battlefield in real time. And in this unprecedented scenario, strategic advantage could increasingly depend on who is able to think (or calculate) faster than the adversary. Although neither of them be human. Image | Ministry of Defense of Ukraine In Xataka | China has just found a hole in the US’s quietest weapon: an algorithm has hacked its B-2s in Iran In Xataka | The great paradox of war: the US ignored Ukraine’s pleas to Russia and now needs it in Iran

The fault lies with some inhibitors to confuse drones

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All eyes are on the Strait of Hormuz, through which it passes 20% of the world’s oil. Chaos reigns in this funnel of just 33km and there is something that is contributing to complicating everything much more: the GPS does not work. It is not a specific problem, it is something increasingly common that is having consequences that go beyond the war itself. Chaos in Hormuz (even more). They count on BBC There are hundreds of ships in the Strait of Hormuz area and the location systems place them in positions that make no sense; some are stacked on top of each other, others form impossible circles on the earth… The cause is that their GPS coordinates have been altered by some type of inhibitor. This increases the risk of maritime collisions, especially if visibility is poor. Objective: confuse. In a complete report of Wall Street Journalsay that GPS signal jammers and spoofers have become an essential tool in conflict zones like Ukraine and, now Iranas you can see on this map. What they do is confuse drones and guided munitions so that they fail. Works. The Ukraine conflict has shown that these systems work. According to a report delivered to the US department of defensethe accuracy of Excalibur artillery was 70% when it was first used in Ukraine, but six weeks later it was only 6% thanks to “the Russians adapting their electronic warfare systems to counter it” with GPS jammers. Many of these devices are very affordable and fit in your pocket, making them very easy to use in the field. Consequences. In 2024, An American Airlines flight flew over Pakistan when the alert started to sound “pull up“, which is what it sounds like when the plane is too close to the ground, but the aircraft was at 32,000 feet above sea level. It was a GPS interference. In April of the same year, the airline Finnair suspended its flights to Tartu for a month. The reason: Russia. Airlines depend a lot on GPS and these interferences sometimes cause errors like the one we mentioned at the beginning. Flights have also had to be diverted to other airports for this reason, such as happened with the flight in which Ursula Von Der Leyen was traveling in September of last year. GPS cracks. He Global Positioning System It is a satellite navigation system created by the United States in the 1960s. It was created for military use, but it has ended up being part of the critical infrastructure of the digital economy. There are other similar systems that use satellites such as GLONASS (Russia), BeiDou (China) and Galileo (Europe), but GPS is the most used globally. The fact that we depend so much on GPS means that any degradation has a cascading impact on many essential services, but the signal also has to travel 20,000 kilometers from the satellite, so when it reaches us it is very weak. It is the perfect breeding ground to make it extremely easy to alter them. Solutions. The weaknesses of GPS make it urgent to search for robust alternatives for critical sectors such as aviation. There are the inertial navigation systems which use gyroscopes and accelerometers to calculate position and are already used in the aerospace industry, defense and autonomous vehicles. Also a system is being developed which uses quantum sensors that orient themselves with the Earth’s magnetism and cameras combined with AI algorithms are used to “read” the terrain. However, despite the weaknesses, GPS remains the most powerful system of all due to its ubiquity and accuracy. These systems do not cover the entire range, so the tendency is to use several sources to cover these gaps. In Xataka | Radar warning, detector and inhibitor: what is legal, what is not and why the DGT can fine me this Easter Image | gpsjam.org

Drones cannot be stored for more than eight weeks

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For years, many European countries filled huge underground warehouses with ammunition capable of remaining operational for decades. In fact, some projectiles stored in Finland They have been waiting for more than 30 years without losing effectiveness. However, the weapons that are redefining today’s conflicts work with software, radios and chips that change at a pace much more similar to that of consumer electronics than that of traditional artillery. This difference is forcing armies to reconsider an unexpected question: how to prepare for a future war when military technology ages almost as quickly as a simple mobile phone. Rearmament enters the era of the drone. Because European defense was based on a relatively simple logic inherited from the Cold War: fill warehouses with ammunition, missiles, mines or artillery shells capable of remaining operational for decades. In countries like Finland, as we said, there are camouflaged deposits with huge reserves of ammunition that have been stored for years and are still fully usable. However, the Ukrainian war has shown that the battlefield of the 21st century increasingly revolves around cheap drones, software and electronic warfare, which has led NATO and European governments to rethink your investments. At the next summit of the alliance, precisely how to shift part of military spending from traditional systems (such as tanks or heavy artillery) will be discussed. towards emerging technologies based on drones, AIs, satellites and digital networks, in an attempt to adapt to a form of warfare where the speed of innovation is as important as firepower. The big problem: drones expire. This strategic change has revealed an unexpected dilemma. Unlike an artillery projectile or missile that can be stored for decades, drones depend on software, communications and electronic components that evolve at a rapid pace. The experience in Ukraine has shown that a dominant model on the front can become unusable a few weeks later due to new jamming systemsfrequency changes or improvements in autonomous navigation. That is why several European officials warn that storing large quantities of drones may be useless: because by the time they reach the battlefield, many will already be obsolete. Even governments calculate that certain models may become outdated in just eight weeksa reality that completely breaks with the classic logic of accumulating arsenals for years for a future conflict. Electronic warfare and useful life of a weapon. The main reason for this accelerated expiration is not so much in the hardware of the drone as in the electronic environment in which it operates. On the Ukrainian front, the constant struggle to dominate the radio spectrum It forces you to continually change frequencies, antennas, radios and control systems to avoid enemy blockade. A drone that works correctly today can stop doing so in a matter of days if the adversary develop new techniques of interference. Therefore, what really ages is not the fuselage of the device but your digital ecosystem: software, data links and navigation algorithms. In this context, the life cycle of a drone is more similar to that of a phone or a computer than that of a tank or a missile, which makes constant updating an essential requirement if the drone is not to become a “brick.” The industrial paradox. This phenomenon places governments before an industrial paradox difficult to solve. To prepare for a crisis, Europe needs an industry capable of producing large-scale drones quickly, but producing them too soon can be counterproductive because they would be left outdated before use. Some manufacturers hold that the only way to solve this dilemma is to buy drones now to train the armed forces, develop doctrines and build an industrial base capable of increasing production in the event of war. However, even the most optimistic companies recognize that multiplying production has limits: They can escalate tenfold in an emergency, but hardly a hundredfold overnight. The military revolution. Despite these challenges, the strategic logic of drones is difficult to ignore. Analysts and companies in the sector highlight that, for the price of two Leopard tanksa country could deploy hundreds of teams of attack drones capable of stopping entire armored units. This economic change is transforming the way we think about war: cheap and numerous systems can neutralize heavy platforms that for decades symbolized military power. For this reason, Bloomberg reported that NATO is studying how to combine traditional hardware with new digital technologies that allow us to close the gap with the United States and adapt to the new operating environment. The future of rearmament. In summary and in view of this new reality, many European governments believe that the solution is not so much to fill warehouses with drones, but create industrial ecosystems able to adapt and quickly produce updated versions when necessary. This implies, a priori, connecting armed forces, software developers, engineers and manufacturers in a continuous cycle of innovation that allows systems to be modified several times a year. Thus, instead of static arsenals, the objective becomes a flexible industry capable of evolving at the pace of electronic warfare. In other words, the great challenge of European rearmament It is no longer just about spending more and more money to stockpile weapons like there is no tomorrow, but about accepting that, in 21st century warfare, even the most decisive weapons can become old before they leave the warehouse. Image | Aerospace, State Border Guard Service of Ukraine In Xataka | Europe has successfully tested a special command against Russia’s biggest threat: underwater drone swarms are ready In Xataka | Europe faces a question it can no longer avoid: how to respond to a war that is rarely declared

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

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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. An Army and Navy transportable surveillance radar (AN/TPY-2) positioned on Kwajalein Atoll during FTI-01 flight testing 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. A satellite image taken on March 2, 2026 shows debris around a blackened THAAD radar at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan 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 In Xataka | You’ve probably never heard of urea. The missiles in Iran are destroying their production, and that will affect your food In Xataka … Read more

The war in Iran is going to repeat a suicidal scenario from 1980. But with drones and kamikaze boats in the most fearsome point on the planet

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At first glance it is just a strip of water between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula, but its importance it’s huge. The Strait of Hormuz is one of the few places on the planet where global trade it literally depends of a maritime corridor just a few kilometers wide. Every day dozens of supertankers and monster container ships pass through it, connecting the Middle East. with the rest of the planeta constant choreography that moves energy, raw materials and essential products on a global scale. Therefore, when something happens there, the effect is greatly felt. beyond the Gulf. The most dangerous bottleneck on the planet. As we said, the Strait of Hormuz is one of the most critical geographical points of the world economic system and also one of the most vulnerable. At its narrowest point it barely reaches 33 kilometers wide and thousands of ships pass through it every month connecting the Persian Gulf with the rest of the planet. Through this maritime strip it circulates around a fifth of oil that is traded in the world, large volumes of liquefied natural gas and an essential part of the industrial raw materials that sustain the global economy. But its importance goes beyond energy: it is also a key artery for trade in fertilizers and chemicals that end up directly influencing food production. When this route is interrupted, not only are the energy markets altered, the entire chain that connects agricultural fields, the chemical industry and supermarkets is shaken. War stops traffic. The military escalation between the United States, Israel and Iran has brought that critical point to the brink of a historic crisis. Attacks on oil tankers and commercial vessels, along with direct warnings from Tehran to shipping companies, have caused traffic through the strait to reduce. almost to zero in matter of days. Several vessels have been hit by projectiles or dronessome energy facilities in Gulf countries have been attacked and oil prices have reacted immediately with strong rises. Shipping companies and insurers have begun to cancel policies or dramatically raise war insurance costs, as some ships attempt to cross the zone with their location systems turned off to reduce the probability of being identified as a target. Washington’s response and the convoys. Faced with the risk that the global energy flow will be blocked, the United States has raised an extraordinary measure: escort oil tankers and commercial vessels with the US Navy and also offer financial guarantees and political insurance to reassure shipping companies. The idea seeks to avoid a global energy shock, but it implies send warships directly to the most dangerous area of ​​the Gulf. Organizing maritime convoys is a complex operation that requires destroyers, aircraft and military resources that could not be used in other missions. Furthermore, even with an escort, experts remember that ships would continue to navigate within an extremely hostile space, where reaction times to attacks can be reduced to minutes. The ghost of the eighties. I was counting this morning the financial times that the situation inevitably reminds one of the most tense episodes of the Cold War in the Middle East: the so-called “tanker war” which developed during the conflict between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s. So both countries They systematically attacked maritime traffic in the Gulf with missiles, naval mines and air strikes. A kamikaze battle involving more than four hundred commercial ships were damaged or sunk and the United States deployed dozens of ships to escort convoys and protect oil tankers. Still, the risk it was huge: American frigates were severely damaged by mines and missiles and dozens of sailors were killed. That crisis demonstrated the extent to which a regional conflict could put global trade in check. The difference: drones and kamikaze boats. The war in Iran is about to end repeat the scenario suicide bombing of 1980, but with a difference: now there are drones and kamikaze boats at the most fearsome point for the planet. From then until now the Iranian arsenal has evolved radically and today it combines long-range anti-ship missiles, thousands of cruise shellsarmed drones, diesel submarines, modern naval mines and fast vessels capable of swarming attacks. Added to this are unmanned surface vehicles, small ships loaded with explosives that hit the hulls of ships at the waterline, causing flooding in the engine room and rapid sinking. In a strait “so narrow” and close to the Iranian coast, these systems offer Tehran a obvious tactical advantage. An economic weapon to paralyze everything. Even without completely blocking the passage, the simple risk of attacks can paralyze maritime traffic. Recent history of the red seawhere attacks by militias allied with Iran diverted trade routes for months, shows that it only takes a few incidents to skyrocket shipping costs and force shipping companies to look for much longer alternative routes. In Hormuz the effect would be much greater because it is of the natural exit of the energy production of the entire Gulf. Tanker freight rates have already skyrocketed and any sign of mines or new attacks could double shipping prices again. A global pulse with unpredictable consequences. Close Hormuz also has a cost for Iranwhose economy depends largely on exporting its own oil, especially to China. However, the strategic logic of the conflict could push Tehran to use the strait as an economic lever to pressure Washington and its allies. In any case, the longer the war continues, the greater the temptation on both sides to use energy as a weapon. In that scenario, the world could face a perfect storm: skyrocketing oil, scarce fertilizers and more expensive food. All concentrated in a strait just a few kilometers wide that once again becomes the most fragile point in the global economic system. Image | eutrophication&hypoxiaNZ Defense Force, National Museum of the US Navy In Xataka | Shahed drones are spreading terror in the Gulf. Ukraine has offered the solution, and the price to pay has a name In Xataka | Spain has … Read more

Shahed drones are spreading terror in the Gulf. Ukraine has offered the solution, and the price to pay has a name

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In the last four years, a flying device barely twelve feet long has gone from being a little-known Iranian military experiment to becoming a one of the protagonists of several simultaneous conflicts. Its design is so simple that it can be assembled in a few hours and its cost is thousands of times lower than the systems that try to take it down. That combination has changed the way many militaries understand air defense. The buzz that changed war. Since 2022, the sound of a small motorcycle-like engine was the alarm signal which preceded many explosions in Ukrainian cities. That metallic and persistent noise belongs al Shahed-136a cheap, relatively simple Iranian kamikaze drone designed to attack pre-programmed targets at long range. With about 3.5 meters in length and the capacity to transport an explosive charge of about 50 kilos, these devices have become one of the symbols of modern warfare because they combine two factors that are difficult to counteract: their low cost and the possibility of mass producing them. The jump between conflicts. After four years of war in Europe, these drones have reappeared in force in another scenario. Iran has launched hundreds of devices against Gulf countriesreaching military bases, airports, refineries and urban areas in Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait or Qatar. The attacks seek less physical destruction than psychological and economic pressureforcing the attacked countries to activate expensive defense systems to intercept weapons that can cost only about $50,000. Although many of the aircraft are shot down, even a small percentage that manages to penetrate the defenses is enough to cause damage to critical infrastructure or generate fear among the population. A strategy perfected by Ukraine. The pattern of these attacks is clearly reminiscent of the tactics Russia has employed since 2022 against cities and infrastructure Ukrainian energy companies. Moscow turned the Shahed into the center of a strategy of attrition and terror based on launching large drone waves together with missiles to saturate air defenses and increase the probability that some projectiles reach their target. The mass production has been key in that strategy: Russia not only imported thousands of Iranian drones, but also raised an own factory to manufacture them on a large scale, which allowed hundreds of devices to be launched in a single night against power plants, ports or residential neighborhoods. The anti-drone laboratory created in kyiv. This constant pressure forced Ukraine to become one of the countries more experienced of the world in the fight against these types of threats. After facing tens of thousands of Shahed, kyiv has developed a defense system in layers that combines radarselectronic warfare equipment, anti-aircraft missiles, mobile units and even interceptor drones capable of shooting down attackers in mid-flight. The result is an improvised network but extremely effective which has allowed most of the attacks to be neutralized despite the massive scale of the waves launched by Russia. Terror reaches the Gulf. That knowledge has now acquired a new strategic value. The Gulf countries, which were not used to facing constant drone attacks, have discovered how difficult it is to protect entire cities against weapons that fly low, are difficult to detect and can appear from multiple directions. Even advanced systems designed to intercept ballistic missiles can be overwhelmed by swarms of cheap drones. The recent attacks They have hit airports, refineries, ports and military bases, demonstrating that even critical infrastructures of highly protected economies can be exposed to this new form of air warfare. Zelensky’s offer. In this context, Ukraine has launched an unexpected proposal: share your experience to help Gulf countries neutralize the Shahed. President Volodymyr Zelensky has offered to send his best anti-drone defense specialists along with a group of experienced operators to reinforce regional defenses, but, of course, with one clear condition, a name. kyiv wants Middle Eastern governments to jointly use all his influence on Moscow to pressure Vladimir Putin and achieve at least a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine. If you like, it is an offer that mixes military cooperation and diplomatic calculation: one where Ukraine presents itself as the country that knows the enemy best, and there is not much doubt about that, asking in return help to stop the war which made him precisely that expert. Image | Kyiv City State Administration,X, National Police of Ukraine In Xataka | The US has launched its most ambitious weapon against Iran in the last decade: a missile that does not need fighters or warships In Xataka | It is not that Iran is resisting US attacks, it is that it has room to take the conflict to an explosive scenario.

Iran has put the price of oil at stake by attacking it with drones

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The world stage is Monday, a Monday marked by Iran bombing by the United States and Israel last Saturday. Iran has not sat idly byresponding with something it has already used in the past: suicide drones to attack bases of the allies of the aggressor countries. They have attacked Dubaibut also Saudi Arabia, causing the closure of one of the key refineries globally: Ras Tanura. And the result is -another- earthquake in the world market. In short. A few hours ago, Saudi Arabia and Aramco (the oil company) made the decision to stop production at the refinery Ras Tanura. The decision came when Saudi defenses intercepted several remains of Iranian drones. They did not impact, but their remains have caused some fires within the storage facilities of the power plant. Ras Tanura. We are talking about some of the largest refineries in the world, with an estimated capacity of about 550,000 barrels per day. Its closure implies that the export operations associated with the complex stop, which is addition to the closure of other energy infrastructures in the region, such as gas infrastructure in Israel and Kurdistan. As pointed out Bloombergthe problem is that Ras Tanura is one of the key refineries in the transportation fuel segment, specifically diesel, and not only have operations stopped, but very close is one of Aramco’s largest export terminals for refined products. This is the Strait of Hormuz, with dozens of ships waiting Hormuz. Uncertainty and military operations are once again causing the Strait of Hormuz to become abuzz. Hormuz is, after Malacca, the second largest oil corridor in the worldand a disturbance in normal functioning causes the entire chain to wobble. Uncertainty is causing a monumental bottleneck with ships stopped on both sides of the strait, waits that do not know when they will end, rescheduling, diversions to other ports and, ultimately, chaos in oil transportation. Impact. And you can already guess how the market is responding. Crude oil is one of the economic thermometers today, and the initial reaction has been as expected: a strong rise in prices. The barrel has risen around 10% in some markets after learning of the closure of the refinery, but it is already estimated that they could rise more than 20% if the situation continues and the strait closes. How much? Well, it is currently around $80, more than $100, according to some analysts, and it depends on how long the situation lasts that we begin to see how this price increase affects the fuel market. Vital. It is not the first time that refineries in the area have been attacked. They have become essential enclaves in the country’s economy, but also in global geopolitics. As pointed out Reuterssuch an attack is not just another military action, “it marks a significant escalation in violence.” It implies that Iran has the Gulf’s energy infrastructure in its sights because it knows its importance to the economy of the entire globe. And, evidently, an attack on its plants could cause Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbors to join the US and Israeli military operations against Iran. Now, Iran has also been ‘touched’ by that basic infrastructure for its economy. The country is the third largest producer in OPEC and on February 28, explosions were reported on the island of Kharg, where process 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports. In the end, it is one more example of the domino effect and the fragile nature of the supply chain for a basic good. It’s just a part of a perfect storm whose consequences are far from reaching their ceiling. Images | MarineTrafficUS Army, VALGO In xataka | Europe believed it had won the gas war against Russia. Now it faces a much more uncomfortable reality: its dependence on the United States.

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