Iran’s Drone Industry Invented Very Cheap Guided Missiles
One of the key innovations in modern drone warfare has come, surprisingly, from a developing country cordoned off from the global economy by sanctions. This necessity may spur further innovations.
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The Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the largest countries in the Middle East and an independent regional military power with an interventionist foreign policy opposed to the United States and Israel. Under heavy Western sanctions, the country’s foreign policy and regional standing have for decades relied on building up a relatively autarkic if underdeveloped domestic arms industry and industrial base capable of suitably arming both its own military forces, as well as armed Iranian clients abroad, like Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, or Hezbollah in Lebanon. Recently, Iran has also begun arming Russia, a far larger industrial and military power, in particular exporting large quantities of Iranian-designed and manufactured military drones. These Iranian drones have been extensively used in the ongoing war in Ukraine, and Russia has also begun manufacturing their own versions based on Iranian designs. Iran is therefore one of the few countries driving technological development in and adoption of drones, and their transformation of modern warfare.