By putting their faith in drones, Iranian strategists have turned to “asymmetric warfare” (Pic: Creative Commons)
The pattern will be familiar to anyone versed in the history of empire, or perhaps even the Old Testament Bible.
An overconfident ruler, with massive military superiority, is humiliated by a smaller and apparently weaker enemy who surprises them on the battlefield.
If the parable of David vs Goliath is apt for the United States and Israel’s humiliation in Iran, then drones have become one its most popular symbols.
Iran developed the Shahed-136 drone early in this decade as a simple weapon, constructed from locally sourced parts and materials—including balsa wood and a model aircraft engine.
Defence experts originally derided it as an amateur “fire and forget” weapon. But recent military briefings are far less dismissive.
“The Shahed-136 has evolved from a simple GPS-guided loitering munition into a networked weapons system capable of relay-assisted mid-flight correction, and mesh command and control coordination,” says the geeky research website, Drone Warfare.
In other words, the Shahed is now a highly capable weapon.
It can, in coordination with hundreds of other drones, strike precise targets or even select targets autonomously if its control signal is disrupted.
And it has a reported range of up to 1,000 miles. Russia has used the Shahed in its imperialist war against Ukraine, passing back details of its battlefield tactics and modifications to its originators.
Some variants now use optical fibre technology rather than electronic circuitry to stop enemies from jamming their controls.
The Iranian drone is so successful that a US arms firm reverse engineered a captured one, re-badging and reproducing it as the “Lucas” for Western markets.
Iran has produced thousands of Shaheds—costing between just $20,000 and $50,000—as part of a plan to respond to a massive foreign bombardment by targeting military and economic infrastructure across the region.
By putting their faith in drones, Iranian strategists have turned to “asymmetric warfare”—a term used to describe conflicts in which weaker forces seek to offset an opponent’s superiority.
As in the past, the aim today is to make war economically, militarily and politically unsustainable for the opponent, even if that’s the US which outspends Iran on arms by more than 10 to 1.
In response to massive US and Israeli bombing, Iran has launched huge numbers of drones at targets across the Middle East, including military bases and energy and transport infrastructure.
The West tries to shoot down the low cost drones with aircraft valued at more than $20 million, firing missiles that cost $400,000 and flown by pilots whose training costs millions of dollars.
And the “defensive shield” Patriot missiles, used by the West’s Middle East allies against missile and drone attacks, cost between $3.7 million and $7 million each. The US alone used 325 of them during the first 96 hours of the war—a vast expense.
As well as being costly, Patriots are extremely complex to manufacture.
Operation “Epic Fury” is already causing a crisis of supply, forcing the US to draw from stockpiles in Europe and the Indo-Pacific region, where the weapons were primed to be used against Russia and China.
By now, it is expected that well over 1,000 Patriots have been fired—and, according to the US Centre for Strategic and International Studies, the Iran war is costing America some $891 million per day.
No wonder the White House last month had to demand an extra $200 billion from Congress to fund the war.
For how long will the American public put up with fast rising prices and decimated jobs and public services while military spending rockets?
The Iranian regime’s guess is not that long. And even the US’s claimed “success rate” of shooting down up to 90 percent of Shaheds is not what it’s cracked up to be.
If Iran fires 100 drones at a target and only ten make it through US defences, that can still create disproportionate economic and social carnage.
Iranian drones have so far hit the Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia, destroying a US E-3 command and control aircraft worth up to $300 million. And they’ve damaged or destroyed five KC-135 refuelling aircraft costing up to $80 million each.
Drones also struck the home of the US Navy’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain, destroying a major communications centre.
The New York Times newspaper reports further successful attacks in Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The attack on Dubai, in the UAE, even forced some British tax avoiders to flee for the security of “home.”
“There is a disconnect,” says international affairs professor, Denise Garcia. “The US and other major powers built massive aircraft carriers, fighter jets and costly missiles, yet it is the cheaper drones that are causing terror—an example of asymmetric warfare at its best.”
Anticipating Donald Trump’s “a whole civilisation will die” threat, the Iranian regime has decentralised its drone operation, following a system known as the “Mosaic Doctrine.”
According to the Eurasia Review journal, it has reorganised its command and control structure into 31 largely autonomous units.
Each unit has “commanders able to act independently without waiting for orders,” it notes. “Each unit has its own missiles, drones, intelligence and command structure.”
It concludes, saying, “The Iranian strategy has never been to win a war against the US and Israel but merely to engage in an asymmetric fight where its survival is the sole objective.”
We are for the military defeat of the US and Israel in Iran, but don’t politically support the regime.
Iran is a regional imperialist power with its own set of interests, not a principled or consistent anti-imperialist force.
So it’s support for the Palestinian cause only goes so far—it held back from attacking Israel during the genocide. It could have, for example, closed the Strait of Hormuz in 2023.
It’s drones were battle-tested in Syria when it backed the brutal Assad regime.
Inflicting a lasting defeat of imperialism requires a social revolt by the people of the region, a revolt which can drive out both the imperialists and the corrupt, authoritarian regimes.
The window in which Iran’s drone superiority is able to hit Western assets in the Middle East may be closing.
Already, all the big world powers are rushing to produce their own versions of the Shahed—and new fleets of drones that will swarm to attack other foreign drones.
The US Pentagon issued a $1 billion “Drone Dominance” directive in late 2025 aimed at acquiring over 300,000 low cost attack drones by 2028.
Less than eight months later, the US began producing its Shahed-derived Lucas.
It was first used in combat against Iran in February.
Drones are not the only technology once dominated by the United States that is now mastered by the Iranians.
Tehran-based Explosive News is gaining millions of viewers for its brand of “Lego videos.”
These short films mock Donald Trump and his cronies, deride US imperialism and celebrate Iranian military successes.
One clip shows Lego Trump looking at pictures of himself and Israel’s Binyamin Netanyahu in the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Trump then creates a distraction by launching the missile that strikes an Iranian girl’s school, killing over 100 pupils.
Another depicts Trump’s rage as Iran shoots down a US F-15.
It then shows the race to capture the ejected air crew joined by a huge throng of Iranian Lego people.
Explosive News films have been reposted by both the Iranian and Russian governments, but have generated a popular life of their own.
Some marchers on the recent No Kings protests in the US even carried placards bearing Iran’s Lego Trump with its bottom on fire.
And, unlike most AI‑produced “Slopaganda,” these AI short films are actually funny.
One of the Explosive News team described it as a “student-led media team with a background in social activism.”
He said that the individuals behind it wished to remain anonymous out of fear that their success might make them a US and Israeli target.
He added, “Funny twist—some of our old universities got bombed.
“Yep. Quite a ‘gift’ from Donald Trump to Iranian science and culture!”
The term “asymmetrical warfare” developed in the wake of the wars of independence that followed the Second World War and the decline of European empires.
These wars were generally fought by poorly armed fighters, drawing on mass public opposition to colonisation for support.
They raged against some of the most advanced industrial nations in the world—and defeated them.
Chauvinistic, conventional wisdom held that the side with superior armaments and training would win any battle, even if they were outnumbered.
But wars in Indochina, Indonesia, Algeria, Cyprus, Aden, Morocco and Tunisia turned such notions upside‑down.
In Indochina, for example, the French successfully held down the people for more than 60 years with an army of just 15,000 soldiers.
But the situation changed dramatically in 1946, when the Vietnamese began a guerrilla struggle.
By 1954, those fighters forced the French into a humiliating defeat, despite French troop numbers having risen to 200,000.
Within 20 years a vast US military, armed with long-range bombers, helicopters and 500,000 troops, suffered the same fate.
Author Andrew Mack offers a useful summary of the insurgent strategy in his book, Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars.
“In every case, success for the insurgents arose not from a military victory on the ground—though military successes may have been a contributory cause,” he writes.
“But rather from the progressive attrition of their opponents’ political capacity to wage war.
“In such asymmetric conflicts, insurgents may gain political victory from a situation of military stalemate or even defeat.”
Another “forever war,” of exactly the kind Donald Trump resolved to end, now beckons. But it is unlikely that hard-pressed Americans will stand for that.
The Iranian regime, which was rocked by revolt from below earlier this year, cannot claim the popular mandate that national liberation movements were able to mobilise.
But the US-Israeli war on Iran means the regime can consolidate the legitimacy it was losing.
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