Zulfiqar Ali Shirazi<\/p>\n
The USA developed the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) doctrine, taking the lead from the erstwhile Soviet army\u2019s concept of technology-based military operations. This framework for the USA was written down by the Pentagon\u2019s Andrew Krepinevich in 1992, which was later drawn into an actual war-fighting policy in 2003 by Donald Rumsfeld. It envisioned precision replacing mass, networks replacing deployments and speed replacing occupation. Almost two and a half decades down the road, the doctrine has evolved into its latest edition. More externalised and more explicit for all to assess. On February 28, 2026, precision strikes by the USA successfully targeted Iran\u2019s top leadership in a single opening move, the cleanest expression of RMA doctrine in action. There was no ground invasion but just the use of precision munitions and real-time intelligence targeting Iran\u2019s command structure. Preceding and following these strikes, the USA\u2019s military unleashed its dominant manoeuvre by sending aircraft carriers in the conflict zone and major reinforcements to its bases in the Middle East, another manifestation of RMA.
\nFive months on, the Strait of Hormuz is still contested. Indian Ocean waters are still under blockade. USA\u2019s war mission has widened from nuclear disarmament to regime change to the threat of complete annihilation, none of which seems achievable through conventional means alone. Underneath the war headlines, the Middle East witnessed something unprecedented. Iran, however, matched the American precision with out-of-the-box and innovative solutions. A decentralised but net-centric response by Iran- another improvised manifestation of RMA- grabbed the honours in the very first week of the war, firing missiles from dispersed launchers, opening multiple fronts through proxies, and choking shipping lanes rather than meeting anyone in open battle. This seemed to be the unfinished business of the USA\u2019s RMA. It proved that precision strike wins the first hour but may not win the war. And an enemy who fights back on improvised RMAs\u2019 terms can make even the most dominant military machine bleed out slowly, one missile and one drone at a time. Iran\u2019s retaliation campaign was characterised by drone attacks accounting for almost three-quarters of recorded strikes on Gulf states in that time period. The Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a USA-based, bipartisan, non-profit research organisation, reports that the UAE alone reportedly faced almost fourteen hundred detected drones and around 250 missiles over a span of eight days. Similar trends were seen in Ukraine, but the USA-Iran War has changed the very anatomy of modern-day conflict. What we are witnessing now is the era of precise mass in war. Up to this war, precision warfare meant a handful of cruise missiles and a combo of stealth bombers or fighter jets, which now seems to have been replaced by a one-way drone launched in swarms. Producing enhanced or hi-tech weapon systems and munitions previously warranted a corresponding industrial base, but drones like the Iranian \u201cShahed\u201d can be assembled, tested, scaled and commissioned without much ado. The cost of these drones has toppled the scale of economics of war. A Shahed drone costing USD 35,000 requires a Patriot interceptor worth USD 4 Mn; here I leave the cost-benefit analysis to the reader. This is the new arithmetic of conflict, being attacked by an adversary spending thousands and in response the defender burning millions.
\nThis, in fact, is a paradigm shift. It heralds a new military architecture based on cost-effective autonomous systems with AI-assisted targeting, supported by commercial satellite imagery, reliably tiered communications and integrated sensors, all cooperating in cyberspace. The consequence is the time compression for decision-making to outthink the enemy in movement and cover. To win a future war, a side may not be the one with the single best platform and maybe the one that can feed and apply multiple good platforms, cost-effectively, quickly and networked intelligently.
\nThe Ukrainian experience of war with Russia is worth quoting here. It is a case of adaptation on the go. Ukraine\u2019s interceptor drones are proving to be game changers when it comes to cost, range and scale at which they are being produced and replenished. According to Reuters, learning to fly these drones takes only three or four days for those who can already operate any type of drone. Their value goes beyond hardware. Ukraine has opened access to its battlefield data for allies to train drone AI, which includes millions of annotated images, enhancing recognition and target detection capabilities of combat flights. The most valuable output of war, therefore, is not hardware, but data. The implications therefore stretch far beyond Europe and the Middle East. The future war is no longer about technological sophistication, but it is about industrial scale, software integration, and the speed with which lessons from the battlefield are turned into mass production.
\nThe deeper implication of this revolution in military affairs, with drones lurking around everywhere, is taking the battlefields to homes. War is easier to contemplate but even easier to be checkmated. Asymmetric war waging can once again rule the roost, but this time with cheap and quality technological backup at the disposal of terror groups, drug cartels, and criminal gangs. Organised armies therefore stare at a resurgent asymmetric war; a well-known and rehearsed concept for the last three decades, but with improvised technological bite. e
\nWeaker adversaries like Ukraine and Iran proved to the world that precision now can be mass-produced. Only those countries shall prevail who can combine small numbers of sophisticated weaponry with a large number of cheaper means for outreach. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zulfiqar Ali Shirazi The USA developed the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) doctrine, taking the lead from the erstwhile Soviet army\u2019s concept of technology-based military operations. This framework for the USA was written down by the Pentagon\u2019s Andrew Krepinevich in 1992, which was later drawn into an actual war-fighting policy in 2003 by Donald Rumsfeld. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[13717],"class_list":["post-557647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-article","tag-zulfiqar-ali-shirazi"],"yoast_head":"\n