Pacific Brief – How Drone war in Iran changes the Pacific
The Iran War is a littoral war, with many similarities to potential Pacific conflicts. It demonstrates how easily maritime chokepoints like straits, shallows and island archipelagos can be interdicted by the current generation of precision-guided weapons that are cheap to produce, easy to use and can be dispersed over large areas.
The new weapons make ‘area denial’ campaigns like blocking the Strait of Hormuz possible, and appear to be difficult to counter. A problem for the Western Pacific where several areas present similar tactical challenges to the Strait of Hormuz. For instance, the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, the Luzon Strait and the Melanesian archipelago.
Countering an ‘area denial’ campaign has been a concern for US planners since at least 2010, when it published its ‘Air Sea Battle’ doctrine for war in the Western Pacific. Historically, US planning focussed on China’s ‘area denial’ tactics and capabilities. Notably, the Iran War may demonstrate that US planning has not appreciated the wider impact of the technological revolution making precision-guided weapons cheaper and easy to manufacture. Whether its attack drones, cruise missiles or explosive packed uncrewed speed boats, advanced guidance technology is now readily available and easily mass-produced. This means that ‘area denial’ campaigns using masses of simple precision-guided weapons like we are currently witnessing in Iran will be part of any future Pacific conflict, whoever the adversaries are. Therefore, it is important that we learn from the Iran War and apply its lessons in this region.
Immediate adaptation is required
The age of easily-available precision-strike munitions has arrived and assumptions about tactics need to change very quickly. Since World War Two, the US and its allies have maintained a technological lead over potential adversaries. During recent conflicts the US, and its allies made extensive use of their technological advantages to monopolise precision-strike. US-led or backed forces use satellites and drones to maintain constant surveillance of battle zones in places like Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria.
Constant surveillance identified targets that could be engaged with precision-guided weapons. A tight ‘kill chain’ using digital networks for instant communication shortened the link between the observer and the shooter. Historically, precision guidance was expensive and difficult to deploy because guided weapons were hard to build and required costly digital communications to be effective. The result was a technological overlap that gave the US and its allies a battle winning advantage. But, recent advances in technology have reduced this overmatch.
Several recent conflicts demonstrate how precision guidance and digital communications proliferated and are now used by both large and small militaries, and even by insurgents. The Nagorno-Karabakh and Ukraine Wars demonstrate use of this technology by nation states. Israel’s conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah, and the Houthi’s campaign against shipping in the Red Sea provide examples of non-state actors making use of digital communications and precision guided drones and missiles.
A notable feature of all these conflicts is vast quantities of cheap but effective drones and missiles. Weapons that are simple to operate, require little infrastructure like airbases or logistics hubs to support, so can be widely dispersed and well-hidden. Essentially, precision-strike weapons are now widely available and can provide small forces with increase capability to strike a key target or conduct ‘area denial’ operations.
The Iran War is a good example of this trend. Although Iran is technologically sophisticated it is still no match for the US in a peer-conflict. Instead, Iran invested heavily in lower tech but reasonably effective precision-strike systems. Iran’s arsenal is low-cost so its munitions can be produced in enormous numbers. This feature allows Iran to increase its arsenal’s effectiveness by swamping opposition air defences. It also means Iran’s weapons can be widely dispersed over large areas, making them difficult to track down and destroy.
Any future conflict in the Pacific will include employment of precision-guided weapons by both sides, whether it is a peer-conflict between the US and China, a peace-support operation or a counter-insurgency. It is important that Pacific militaries understand this trend, and adapt quickly to the new reality.
‘Area denial’ is easier than anticipated
‘Area denial’ is a key tactical concept in modern war, especially in the Pacific. The term means using precision-guided weapons like drones and missiles to stop your opponent moving through an area. Historically, the concept developed as China sought a way to defeat US aircraft carrier battle groups. Instead of trying to compete symmetrically by building aircraft carriers, China focussed on developing accurate long-range missiles that can be easily produced in enormous numbers. Any US carriers operating in oceans subject to Chinese ‘area denial’ tactics would be attacked by large amounts of accurate missiles, in numbers sufficient to swamp the carrier’s defences. This tactic denies movement to opposition force within the designated area.
In recent years, ‘area denial’ tactics have spread and Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz is a good example of this doctrine in action. The US and Israel are running an extensive and destructive air campaign against Iran’s military capabilities. By conventional measures it has been successful at tactical-level. Iran’s navy is destroyed and its air-space is controlled by the US. An extensive bombing campaign is underway, US Central Command (CENTCOM) reporting 9,000 combat missions over Iran in the first 24 days of the war.
But is the campaign effective?
This question remains a moot point, and demonstrates an interesting consideration in tactics. The difference between ‘activity’ and ‘effect.’ The US and Israel are delivering an enormous number of tactical-level ‘activities’- the 8000 air strikes. However, Iran’s key operational-level ‘effect’ is its ability to restrict traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. At operational and strategic-level the conflict revolves around this question, and a product of US tactical-level ‘activities’ should be stopping Iran imposing this ‘effect’ on the campaign. But, to-date the US has not been able open the Strait of Hormuz.
A lesson from this situation is that ‘area denial’ is now easier to achieve. Iran’s arsenal is nowhere near as sophisticated as the US but new technology has created a generation of cheap, easily manufactured drones and missiles. The campaign demonstrates that an aggressor’s arsenal does not need to be sophisticated to create a credible threat and close a sea lane.
Any potential aggressor now has a range of inexpensive and easily dispersed precision-guided anti-ship weapons to impose ‘area denial’ on a maritime chokepoint or to prevent an amphibious landing, for example:
- The Chinese designed YJ-83 antiship cruise missile, that is built under licence in Iran. The YJ-83 has a range of approx. 200km and is successfully used by Hezbollah and more recently by the Houthi. It is a mature, easily deployable weapon system.
- Simple sea drones based on speed boat hulls. Ukraine’s ‘Sea Baby’ is an example of this type of drone. An Uncrewed Surface Vessel (USV) that can be easily produced with limited resources. Sea drones are small and are hard for ship radars to detect because they merge into the ‘clutter’ produced by waves.
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- Semi-submersible drones, that are slightly more sophisticated and even harder to counter than USVs. The Pacific is already dealing with similar ‘narco subs,’ used to traffic drugs.[i] It is not a stretch of imagination to see this technology employed by smaller Pacific nations in the event of conflict.
- New technology also makes it easier to manufacture intelligent sea-mines, able to pick their targets. Iran deploys a range of these weapons and even a relatively small number can produce a significant impact on ships willingness to risk transiting the Strait of Hormuz. [ii]
- Air drones like the Iranian designed and built Shahed 136 are cheap and accurate enough to target bases and other logistics infra-structure supporting any force challenging an ‘area denial’ campaign. Versions of the Shahed 136 can hit targets approx. 2,000km away. For example, a Shahed 136 launched from Solomon Islands could hit targets in Townsville, Australia.
However, Iran’s ability to close the Strait of Hormuz, even after the destruction of its conventional military forces, demonstrates the resilience of these weapons. The ability to disperse and hide these weapons makes them difficult to find and destroy, while their low price and ease of production ensure availability. And, Iran currently has enough to deny access to the Strait of Hormuz regardless of the US’s best efforts. It is a tough, asymmetric problem that even the US is finding difficult to solve and will be feature of potential conflicts in the Pacific.
The risk of proliferation
Notably, Pacific strategists sometimes see ‘area denial’ as a tactic open only to peer-adversaries, typically China. However, the Houthi’s use of this tactic in the Red Sea provides a good example of a non-state actor deploying an ‘area denial’ campaign that taxed the resources of several vastly superior conventional militaries.
Proliferation and replication of these tactics is possible in the Pacific. A factor that increases this risk is that the Pacific region is contested. Notably, the US and it allies compete with China for influence but other powers like India and NATO are also starting to compete in the region. Great power competition can take many forms including supporting proxy forces to conduct military operations. Around the West Pacific a range of independence movements, insurgent groups and small nations that are keen to break away from historic relationships with former colonial powers provide opportunities for larger nations to develop local proxies.
This situation combined with the capabilities of the current generation of inexpensive, transportable precision-strike weapons needs to be appreciated and considered because the impact of these weapons proliferating on Pacific security could be significant. For instance, imagine if the Australian led peace support operations in East Timor in 1999, or Solomon Islands in 2022 were opposed by forces with access to some of these weapons?
Looking at the East Timor operation it is easy to speculate about how different the operation could have been if Timorese militias had access to the current generation of weapons. For instance, Australia’s base areas near Darwin today would be in range of Shahed 136 drones fired from East Timor. The movement of forces from Australia to East Timor involved securing Dili’s Komorro Airport followed by an amphibious landing. Operations that an insurgent force operating today could contest more easily denying air fields and ports to external forces with a barrage of homemade FPV drones, GPS guided long-range drones, cheap unguided missiles and perhaps even cruise missiles like YJ-83.
The Iran War reinforces a lesson from earlier Houthi activities in the Red Sea, that creating ‘area denial’ is no longer a capability limited to the largest nations. Proliferation of cheap but effective precision-strike weapons is a risk that needs to be considered by military planners in the Pacific region.
Countering precision-guided ‘area denial’ campaigns require more infantry soldiers
Currently, the US has two Marine Expeditionary Units (MEU) and a brigade from the 82nd Airborne Division en route to the Middle East.[iii] A force of approx. 7,000 infantry soldiers supported by their own artillery, armoured vehicles, helicopters and warplanes. The US’s deployment of infantry forces to the area reinforces a position I stated in May 2024, in an article titled ‘Break out the Infantry.’[iv] The article argued that counter-intuitively future wars would require more ground force resources, stating that “Control ofground to counter dispersal by hunting out and neutralising threats is now becoming essential for preventing area-denial operations. This means that large numbers of ‘average infantrymen and the all-arms combat teams supporting them will be required…’
The movement of infantry to the Middle East is an indication that US planners have appreciated that airpower by itself is not enough, that ground must be controlled. A job that only infantry forces can do. If they are deployed on Iranian territory, the MEUs will probably be used either occupy small islands in the Straits, or raid the coast – controlling territory long enough to ensure that hidden weapons are destroyed. Deployment of infantry into this conflict reinforces the argument made in ‘Break out the Infantry’ that the only way to defeat the proliferation of precision-strike platforms is to dominate ground, and this requires more infantry.
[i] https://www.abc.net.au/news/
[ii] https://gulfnews.com/world/
[iii] https://www.aljazeera.com/
[iv] https://benmorganmil.substack.
Ben Morgan is TDBs military blogger. If you like this content and want to support it you can ‘Buy me a Coffee’
