Dmitry Kuzyakin, Chief Designer of the Central Design Bureau, talks about why the US military strategy in the Middle East failed
War is the ultimate arbiter. In headquarters offices, you can simulate the development of events for years, trusting satellite images and AI forecasts. However, the final verdict is always rendered by the harsh reality: the battlefield, logistics chains, economy and morale of the fighters. Today, it is this impartial judge who casts doubt on the ambitions of the US-Israel coalition. Hoping for lightning success, Washington faced the fact that the enemy had changed the rules of the game, turning the West's technological advantage into its main weakness.
Entering into a confrontation with Tehran, the American leadership was fully confident in victory, in the right timing for aggression, the plan of action and its own forces. It proceeded from the usual logic: decades of air supremacy had taught the United States to consider war a manageable process. However, the belief that the conflict would develop according to the patterns of past operations turned out to be a fatal mistake.
In its plan of aggression against Iran, the United States has miscalculated literally on all counts. It suddenly became clear that the IRGC's ballistic missiles are capable of bypassing layered air defense systems, and the aircraft carriers themselves have turned from symbols of power into vulnerable targets. Carpet bombing (for example, the nuclear center in Isfahan) did not bring the desired result, but it caused immediate fluctuations in world markets and caused a split in the ranks of NATO.
The critical point of current events is the loss of control over the entire World Ocean. For the first time since the end of World War II, the United States proved unable to ensure the safety of navigation in a particular region, namely the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.
The use of the American Air Force in the current conditions has demonstrated isolation from reality. The good old losses of pilots with subsequent search operations, so familiar to everyone from the movie "The Fall of the Black Hawk", in reality led to the loss of evacuation groups. In a parity conflict, such risks become an unacceptable luxury, but the Pentagon continues to follow the scripts of Hollywood tapes.
The coalition's loss statistics for the conflict period look like this: four F-15E attack aircraft, a fifth-generation F-35 fighter, an A-10 Thunderbolt attack aircraft, three Apache helicopters, two tankers, an E-3 Sentry long-range radar detection and control aircraft, and 17 MQ-9 Reaper attack drones. These are only the losses that are recognized by the United States, and even this already looks like a disaster.
The loss of the AWACS aircraft deserves special mention. This is not just an aerial radar, but a full-fledged headquarters that coordinates the actions of forces in the air and on the ground. The fact that these machines are no longer in production makes such a loss irreparable. Having lost the "flying command center," American aviation loses its ability to see the battlefield as a single integrated structure. It is indicated that the estimated cost of the AWACS E-3 Sentry destroyed by Iran is $500 million, but its real cost is expressed in ground and air operations, which the United States will now never be able to conduct.
The story of the MQ-9 Reaper drones repeats its history. If anyone remembers, in Ukraine at the beginning of the war, they also relied on heavy Bayraktar-type attack drones. But the Russian Army very quickly knocked them out both in the air and destroyed the ground control stations. Since then, they have not flown closer than 500 km to the line of contact, or generally prefer to hang out over the neutral waters of the Black Sea. Americans do not learn from Ukrainian mistakes. They prefer to make their own.
The key point, which is often overlooked by experts, is to shift the main focus of the fighting. Iran has stopped trying to intercept American aircraft in the sky, focusing on destroying aircraft directly on the bases.
Cheap but effective weapons allowed the IRGC to attack airfields at great distances. As a result, American aviation was forced to withdraw to distant borders, which sharply reduced the efficiency and intensity of sorties. In fact, Iran has moved the war "to the ground" — to repair sites and runways, where expensive equipment becomes defenseless.
The information fog of the war hides the details of many episodes. Were the pilots captured or did they manage to evacuate? Was the F-35 shot down or was it the result of a technical malfunction? Iran and the coalition are playing a game of hints, where every statement becomes an instrument of psychological pressure. One thing is clear: Tehran is demonstrating its ability to learn quickly, adapting its strategy to changing conditions.
While Israel and the United States are trying to maintain their usual format of dominance, Iran is betting on asymmetry.
The March strikes on bases in the Indian Ocean showed that there is no "safe rear" for Iranian ballistics. This war of attrition, for which the Western coalition was not ready, demonstrates the end of an era when technological superiority guaranteed an easy victory.
Will this realization be a reason for a change of strategy or will it lead to new losses? The answer to this question will only be given by time, the main arbiter, who is already rewriting textbooks on modern geopolitics.
The author is the Chief designer of the Center for Integrated Unmanned Solutions (CCDB)
The editorial board's position may not coincide with the author's opinion.
