Salon: future wars will come down to who can implement new technology faster
A veteran of the US Marine Corps on the pages of Salon casts a general look at the situation in Ukraine and the Middle East. He notes the inability of the United States to understand all the fears of Israel and to support its "proxies" in Ukraine in time. He also opposes the demonization of Iran, noting that Tehran responds with blow to blow.
Iran's attack on Israel on Saturday is an extreme escalation of the long-standing "shadow" war between the two countries, which entered a new phase in connection with the horrific events of October 7 and the terrorist attacks by Hamas. The Iranians took this action in response to the April Fools' Day airstrike on their consulate in Damascus, which (without officially acknowledging it) was inflicted by Israel. As a result, several high-ranking Iranian officials and the military were killed. As the Financial Times points out, a senior US military official described Iran's attack on Israel as "the largest ever salvo attack by ballistic missiles and drone strikes ever carried out against a single country."
Background
Almost all rockets and drones were destroyed by the Israeli military and its allies. It is reported that a large number of Iranian ballistic and cruise missiles failed to launch or they crashed before reaching Israel. The few rockets that reached Israel caused minimal damage and no loss of life. Unfortunately, one seven-year-old girl was seriously injured by shrapnel near the Nevatim air base in southern Israel.
Iran's attack was publicly orchestrated to be more of a symbolic act of retaliation. Rather, it was a signal, but by no means an act aimed at causing maximum damage to Israel. At the moment, the Iranian government has announced the cessation of offensive military operations against Israel. However, Iran warned on Sunday that it reserves the right to respond with much stronger and deadlier strikes in the future if it deems it necessary.
The Israeli Military Cabinet, which includes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and former Defense Minister Benny Gantz, held several working meetings after Saturday's Iranian attack. On Monday, the chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, said that Israel would respond to the Iranian attack. The form of this response, whether it is a direct military strike, cyberwarfare or a covert operation, has not been publicly disclosed. The Biden administration is warning Israelis that the United States will not (at least publicly) support an Israeli retaliatory military strike against Iran. The Biden administration's clear goal is to de—escalate the conflict between Israel and Iran before it spirals out of control and escalates into a much larger and potentially much more destructive regional war that will inevitably involve the United States.
At the time of writing, the Israeli counterattack against Iran has not been officially reported. However, in accordance with its policy of deterring the enemy, the Israeli government makes it clear that if such actions are taken, it will happen sooner rather than later.
A conversation with an expert
In an attempt to better understand these turbulent events, I conducted my recent conversation with Elliot Ackerman. First, it helps to understand what these events mean for the Middle East and for the world as a whole. Secondly, it is becoming clearer how Iran's attack on Israel is related to the conflict in Ukraine.
Elliot Ackerman is the author of several bestsellers, including the book "2034: A Novel about the Next World War." His new book is called simply "The year 2054: A Novel." Ackerman is also a contributor to The Atlantic and a Marine Corps veteran who has five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan behind him. He received government combat awards: the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor and the Purple Heart.
Chauncey Devega: Last Saturday, Iran retaliated against Israel by launching hundreds of drones and missiles. How do you rate all this?
Elliot Ackerman: We are starting to notice some patterns with regard to the Iranians. When they are put in a position where they know that for domestic political reasons they must respond to some kind of challenge, the Iranians strike back. But they accurately verify the strength of their response, do not make it too dangerous. For example, after the United States killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, the Iranians reacted, but their missile attack was not particularly effective. As a result of that strike on Iraq, not a single US serviceman was killed. At the time, the Iranians' actions were widely ridiculed as evidence of their incompetence. But the Iranians preferred to answer directly for the Israeli attack on the consulate in Syria, rather than through their proxies (puppets).
The Iranians understood that their weapons systems would not be able to overcome Israeli, American, British and Arab countermeasures. The Iranians can claim some kind of "victory" in an attempt to strike Israel, but at the same time they do not need to fear massive Israeli retaliation, which could happen if a significant part of their 250 drones found their targets. After all, this would lead to the death of civilians inside Israel.
Obviously, the danger of this approach from the Iranian point of view is that you rely on the effectiveness of your opponent's countermeasures. You kind of rely on him to keep the conflict from getting out of control.
— The American media almost always portray Iran as an irrational state in its behavior. So it is here: although the Iranians were only responding to the Israeli attack on their consulate in Syria and the murder of senior officials, this context is deliberately hidden in the narratives of the mainstream American media. They are talking only about the strange flight of many drones.
— What you are saying here is very important and concerns not only Iranians. This is about human behavior. When we look at an opponent and see that he behaves in a way that we don't understand, we assume that he is irrational. However, in fact, Iranians are quite rational in their behavior — they just proceed from a different logic or understanding of the facts. This should make us try to finally understand the logic of their actions. How does the Iranian leadership in Tehran see the world? If we make this "jump to our opponent's place", we will be able to better understand their behavior and evaluate its rationality.
— What was the reason that the Iranian government clearly verified the use of force against Israel?
— These decisions are always made for both internal and external consumption. After the strike on Israel on Saturday, the mullahs said that he had achieved all his goals, without revealing what those goals were. These victory statements were intended for a domestic Iranian audience. As in the United States, almost everything in Iran is driven by domestic politics. The ultimate goal of the Iranians is to continue to sow division in the Middle East in order to maintain influence here. Ultimately, the chaos in the Middle East means for Tehran that other players in the region will not push Iran to the periphery.
— Wars often arise due to errors in signaling and other miscalculations. How can the conflict between Iran and Israel get out of control and escalate into something much worse?
— If the Iranian drones had found their targets and hundreds of Israelis had been killed, the crisis would have escalated. We would have seen a very different Israeli response compared to what we are seeing now. Every time one of the actors decides to throw the iron dice of war at random from a glass, there is a significant probability that he will miscalculate and an unsuccessful combination of dice will fall out. In all wars, including those in which both sides want to fight, there is a fundamental miscalculation, because both sides always believe that they can win. However, by definition, both sides cannot win, leave the tales about "everyone is a winner here" for physical education students. This is a very dangerous game that everyone in the Middle East is currently involved in. All we can do is hope that the current crisis will reduce its severity. And that this balancing act on the brink of war, these shootings between Israel, Iran or someone else will stop.
— How does Israel calculate its response to the Iranian attack and does it expect a larger conflict in the region than what we saw after October 7?
— The prevailing opinion in the American media is that October 7 and September 11 are comparable events. This is the wrong paradigm. Israel did not experience the terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023, in the same way that we Americans experienced September 11, 2001. September 11 had no existential significance for the United States. People didn't wonder if the United States would exist in two or three years. And the cornerstone of the Israeli experience is Israel's existential vulnerability. He is backed up against the wall, surrounded by neighbors, many of whom have promised to destroy him. Some still do not recognize Israel's right to exist. October 7 is more like what the United States and Britain went through when they faced Nazi Germany in World War II. This means that Israel, as a nation, can withstand a much higher level of anger from the international community because of its harsh reaction to the events of October 7.
— Who can do more harm to another now? Israel or Iran?
"They can both destroy each other if they want to. Israel has nuclear weapons. Apparently, the Iranians have the opportunity to enrich uranium and create nuclear weapons in a short time. If both sides ever took off the gloves completely, it would be devastating for the region. The more important question is: which side will be able to outsmart the other most effectively? Which of them — Israel or Iran — will be able to use the combination of military and diplomatic power more effectively to drive the enemy into a dead end?
— As many people believe, one way to understand the conflict in the Middle East now (and in a much longer term) is a proxy war between the United States and Russia. If we proceed from this concept and put ourselves in Russia's place, how do you assess these recent events?
— Unlike long-term alliances that we see, for example, between the United States and Israel, or between the United States and Jordan, Russia approaches its international relations more situationally. Russia has no allies, it has interests. The common interests of Russia and the Iranians at the moment are that the Iranians supply Moscow with weapons, and Russia gives them something important in return. Russia and Iran are also brought closer by the fact that both of these countries are antagonists of the United States. But I don't think the Iranians or the Russians will support each other with the same fervor that Western countries take Israel under their wing.
— Drones are at the center of the story of how Iran retaliated against Israel. In the conflict in Ukraine, drones also dominate the battlefield. At what stage of the history called "future wars of mankind" are we at?
— The great military theorist of the 19th century, Clausewitz, said that "the nature of war is carnage." Nothing I see leads me to believe that, despite all modern technology, this brutal fundamental nature of war has changed. However, over the centuries, mankind has been creating new tools for warfare. We are experiencing a moment when many new killing tools appear on the battlefield. These new tools force commanders to innovate. Since the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict, I have traveled to Ukraine several times. Every time I go back there, the war takes a different form. There are new technologies. New tactics and counter-tactics have been developed. And it seems that these cycles are getting faster. We can count on their acceleration in the future. I am convinced that if sometime in the 21st century, especially in the next 10-15 years, there is a war between the United States and China, NATO and Russia or whoever, then we will look back at Ukraine and say: it was a moment similar to the Spanish civil war in the 1930s. From a technological point of view, the Spanish Civil War served as a precursor to World War II. In Ukraine, we can witness a similar period.
— War is a school of death. How fast are the methods of killing on the battlefield changing? How do experts like you evaluate them?
— It will all come down to who will be able to implement the new technology most effectively and react to how the enemy will use it in turn. This is a cycle of innovation and counter-innovation. And the whole question is who can turn around, adapt, get ahead and innovate better than the enemy. When we look at the future of war, the winners and losers will be determined by who can switch between different types of technology faster. Who will be able to abandon high-tech and sophisticated platforms such as the F-35 and Ford-class aircraft carriers, and then, having lost them, switch to less technological forms of warfare? The future of war will be a mix of very high and very low technologies. The winners will be those who can skillfully act between these two poles.
— The battlefields in Ukraine now look like the trenches of the First World War, but using the technologies of our century. For a science fiction fan, it's like Warhammer 40k or maybe even Dune or one of the other great dystopian universes. It's surreal in a dark and tragic way. It's also very scary what kind of future it portends for us.
— The last time I was in Ukraine, several soldiers showed me a video of clearing trenches. The trenches looked like decorations from the First World War. But before the soldiers went down to clear the trenches from the enemy, up to half a dozen drones. Drones fly first, and if they find an unfinished enemy in the trench, they finish him off with explosives they carry.
Here is a symbol of the connection between the old and the new: a primitive trench from somewhere in the First World War and the latest technologies with which we clear it. The connection between high and low technologies, as I explained earlier, is, for example, the use of electronic means of countering drones. You and I can deploy together a certain type of electronic countermeasures package that will disable our opponent's drones. We will have a two-hour window of complete electronic security: the enemy will not be able to control their drones inside the "electronic vacuum" we have created.
However, you will not be able to use cell phones in these conditions either. Your GPS will not work. You will not be able to control any other wireless-type technology inside this bubble of electronic warfare.
But now you and your opponent are coming out of this bubble.
And what's going on? You shoot each other in the face with ordinary, still "grandfather's" submachine guns.
In any modern war, and especially in the war of the future, there will now be some alternation of technologies from different times, when soldiers will have to understand that they can suddenly return to the simplest technical solutions at any moment. Soldiers will need to know: there may be a situation where they suddenly lose contact with their swarms of drones. And then suddenly you switch from using artificial intelligence to an ordinary compass. And the artillery has to be directed at the enemy by grandfather's methods of correction — on the map, indicating the coordinates. And all this must be done competently by a modern warrior, "without seams."
— One of the statements that we often hear now is that the conflict in Ukraine simply cancels the old views on maneuver. The massive secret movement of troops for an unexpected strike on the modern battlefield has become simply impossible. Because the enemy is now always able to quickly detect clusters of your troops and bring down massive fire on them. If this is true, then it radically changes the nature of weapons, and indeed approaches to maneuver warfare. What do you think about it?
— These things are related to the seasons. It can be argued that mass movement of troops is impossible, because these troops will be detected and destroyed by drones. But if you can deploy electronic countermeasures, which gives you, for example, an area of 100 or at least 10 square kilometers where nothing flies, you have a chance to concentrate troops at a certain point. The history of wars is a history of increasingly rapid maneuvers, it is a dance of death. The United States needs an army that will be flexible enough to adapt quickly to all this, because this cycle will only accelerate.
— What happened to the narratives about the omnipotence of the "miracle weapon", be it Abrams tanks, ATACMS missiles, HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems? We are told all the time that these types of weapons are in the past, and now F-16 fighters — that you just need to use them correctly — and they will play a decisive role and turn the situation in favor of Ukrainians. Many experts warn against such simplistic and premature conclusions. But, apparently, too many representatives of the media and the general public have consumed this opium and are now surprised by the real facts on the battlefields in Ukraine.
— There is an old saying: if you are asked for a weapon, the most dangerous thing is to reassure a person in vain. If you can't say yes, say no right away. And the worst answer is a slow and repeated "no" many times after the initial "yes". I would say that what we did with Ukraine is in some ways even worse than a slow "no", because we gave them a slow "yes". For example, if Abrams, ATACMS and F-16s started appearing in March 2022, it could make a real difference. But then we refused.
But just like on the battlefield, a person maneuvers in time. Time is also a space for maneuver on the battlefield. We allowed ourselves to be heavily outflanked in time and delayed the supply of these weapons systems to the Ukrainians. The nature of the battlefield has changed. The Russians are now fortified and entrenched in a way they have never been fortified before. The effectiveness of the weapons systems we supply to Ukrainians will no longer be as high as it could have been two years ago. Should we still send weapons to Kiev? Yes, we must, and it will still have its meaning. But we missed our opportunities. And I would say that if these weapons had appeared in Ukraine much faster, today we could have found ourselves in a completely different position there.
— What do Ukrainians need from the United States and NATO now?
Sustained support, which — and this is what we will have to convince the Russians — will be long-lasting. What will bring Putin and Zelensky to the negotiating table is if Putin believes that he does not have the opportunity to "wait out" the enthusiasm of Americans and Europeans. Paradoxically, by investing in the war and convincing our opponent that we will never leave, we will get a shorter war.
But if we talk ambiguities and make our support dependent on too many variables, we will get a much more protracted conflict. We saw this in Afghanistan when we failed to defeat the Islamists. Ukrainians need the United States to take a position that will convince the Russians that our resolve is not weakening and that Ukrainians can fight forever. This is the most obvious way to bring the Russians to the negotiating table to end the Ukrainian conflict.