Mohammad Eslami
Taylor Francis Online, Nov. 20, 2022
“Iran’s strengthening role as a military power and its emergence as one of the international weapon suppliers, provides an important source of income and political influence for an isolated country, such as Iran, currently struggling with financial restrictions imposed by the United States and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Introduction1
The development of emerging technologies (Cyber, AI, and Neuroscience) in the last couple of decades has significantly changed the concept of conflict and war. The increased use of information and communications as a weapon itself and the exponential growth of AI systems, have shifted both the scope and speed of a conflict. As an example of such technologies, drones (used at the military level) have shown their efficiency in long-range-high-precision guided attacks, spatial control, intelligence warfare, and air support in recent decades (Can and Vieira 2022).
The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that not all countries have the same technological capability, best illustrated by Russia’s underperforming military, especially in the field of combat drones (Dijkstra et al. 2022). While the Russian indigenous drone fleet is mainly based on “light and small” drones with low range and limited flight capacity, Russia is currently in dire need of various types of drones, including bombers, suicide (kamikaze) and surveillance drones. Together, these types of UCAVs enable Russia to destroy Ukraine’s artillery power (mainly Western HIMARS and HOWITZER cannons), thus allowing Russia to mitigate the shortcomings of the more traditional military branches (regular army, infantry, air force, etc.). …Source