ABNA24 - The war between Iran and two military powers with claims of technological superiority and among the world's top weapons exporters has given many lessons about the nature and shape of the future wars to the military analysts; wars that, using AI and cheap technologies and cyber attacks, would have major distance from the past wars.
Meanwhile, just contrary to the calculations on the paper that talk about the US's absolute superiority, many analysts believe that Iran, using a well-calculated and precise strategy for linking the rings of asymmetric warfare, geopolitical advantage, and domestic military industry, has proven that not only it can resist the world's most powerful army, but also impose defeat on the military campaign aimed at bringing Iran to its Knees.
While the primary function of nuclear weapons for countries that possess them is deterrence, Iran, without a single nuclear bomb, has managed to create military balance against two nuclear powers using two far more effective weapons: cheap drones, low-cost missiles, and the Strait of Hormuz.
Decades of severe military sanctions prevented Iran from buying fleets of advanced fighter jets or warships like Arab nations. But that very limitation forced the Islamic Republic’s armed forces, drawing on the costly lessons of its eight-year war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, to prioritize the indigenous development of a defense industry centered on missiles and drones.
Now, with the US, as the world’s sole military superpower, bogged down by Iran’s war strategy, military analysts are talking about a new reality in combat: how a country’s ability to continuously launch massive swarms of missiles and drones can tip the battlefield balance, even amid a stark disparity in overall military power.
In this context, the New York Times has published a series of reports estimating Iran’s actual missile and drone stockpile at anywhere from several thousand to tens of thousands. On the flip side, it highlights the weakness of defense systems against this threat, especially the high cost of intercepting those cheap drones compared to their low production price.
This missile and drone power, mirrored at sea by the mass production of fast attack missile boats, has left the world baffled on how Iran could unveil an even more formidable weapon on the battlefield, what its officials call the “Iranian nuclear bomb”: the Strait of Hormuz.
During the war, Iran completely held control over the navigation through the strait, where around 20 percent of the oil produced in the region flows to the global markets and on which the global stability heavily depends. Once the war began, Iran, acting on the principle of territorial sovereignty and defending its national interests, announced it would exercise "smart control" over the Strait of Hormuz and halt oil transit permits for countries cooperating with the US and Israeli regime. The immediate result was a supply crunch and an explosive spike in global prices. That’s on top of inflation for other petrochemical-derived goods.
Western military and strategic analysts have now concluded that Iran “has already achieved its deterrence through control of the Strait of Hormuz.” Jim Krane, senior energy expert at Rice University’s Baker Institute, puts it bluntly: “It turns out the Strait of Hormuz works almost like a nuclear bomb. It is a strong trump card that holds the global economy hostage.”
This makes it clear that Iran’s military doctrine, mass production of drones and missiles, plus “missile and drone cities”, is tightly interwoven with its geographic advantage. So much so that despite all of Trump’s bluster about forcing the strait open, the world no longer doubts Iran’s ability to keep that strategic waterway shut.
In this connection, the New York Times writes that the Shahed loitering munitions are “the most effective and troublesome weapon” for the US and its bases across the Persian Gulf, the key Iran is using to control the strait and exert precise dominance over it during the current war. According to experts cited by the Times, Iran can continue and even ramp up drone production as the war goes on.
The report stresses that US celebrations over bombing Iran’s drone factories can be misleading, because these weapons can be assembled in small, untraceable workshops. Production sites are dispersed, which reduces the effectiveness of hitting any single facility.
Iranian military officials have repeatedly emphasized that its drone and missile industry cannot be stopped by bombing a few factories. Most recently, Brigadier General Alireza Sheikh, deputy chief of the Iranian Army for executive affairs, told Fars News that Iran’s drone production in the seven months following the second war was ten times the total output of the entire pre-war period.
Meanwhile, General Seyyed Majid Mousavi, commander of the IRGC’s Aerospace Force, posted on his UpScrolled social media account alongside images of one of Iran’s missile cities:
“During the ceasefire, we are updating and restocking missile and drone launch platforms even faster than before the war.
We know the enemy is incapable of matching this. they’re forced to drip-feed ammunition from the other side of the world.
They’ve lost this phase of the war. They’ve lost the strait. They’ve lost Lebanon and the region. Allahu Akbar.”
Given all these, we can decide that synergy of two weapons, namely large number of missiles and drones and the Strait of Hormuz closure, can bring down any power that covets Iran's land and sources. As Dany Citrinowicz, former head of the Iran branch in Israeli military intelligence, openly admits: “Everyone now knows that in case of a conflict, closing the strait will be Iran’s first move in the playbook. You cannot overcome geography.”
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