Impact of technology: Lessons learnt from Iran-US/Israel war
Why this matters: local context for readers following news across Pakistan and the region.
THE recent Iran vs US/Israel war has reshaped global strategic thinking. A regional conflict soon erupted into a war with global suffering. The world continues to pay up: the price of commodities has increased 30-40 percent in major categories; fuel shortages have hit supply chains and fertilizer is threatening food security in regions susceptible to vulnerability. Yet amid the suffering, several clear lessons have emerged. The war demonstrated one overriding truth: the size of a country or the sophistication of its arsenal matters far less than the determination of its people when fused with smart technology. Traditional measures of power GDP, army strength, billion-dollar weaponry proved to be second-best to solve, creativity and flexibility. Among the most notable lessons of this war is that high-end technology does not necessarily mean invincibility. The US aircraft carriers, which were already the epitome of global power projection, were left in the background and they managed to stay outside the Persian Gulf to avoid the no-go zones established by the advanced anti-access/area-denial capabilities of Iran. USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier even went around Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) to join naval force in the Arabian Sea rather than going through Suez Canal and Red Sea, denting Mahanian (US Admiral Alfred Mahan) concept of sea control through big/large ships. On the contrary, Iranian options of sea denial, advocated by Sir Julian Corbett (British naval strategist) is shaping the maritime warfare. The war between Iran vs US/Israel were a sharp revelation cost asymmetry and decentralized command structure. Iran defeated advanced western air defense due to the use of thousands of inexpensive Shahed kamikaze aircraft that cost 20,000-50,000 US $ apiece. The US and Israel, in turn, were compelled to spend billions of dollars on interceptors and the Patriot missiles cost as much as 4 million US $, and the Arrow 3 systems were even more. This proved that eve