John Robb on the Distributed Drone Deterrence Strategy Practiced by Iran
Discussion
John Robb:
"Classical deterrence theory (Thomas Schelling) focuses on how to use the threat of force to deter and enemy (to keep the status quo). Key concepts include;
Credibility. The adversary must believe you have the capability to do what you threaten.
Commitment and irreversible moves. Once deterrence fails, there’s no choice. The threatened action will occur.
Chance. If you test the limits of deterrence, the threat may be triggered by a random factor (error, miscalculation, loss of control, etc.).
Manipulation of risk. Both sides routinely demonstrate resolve (limited strikes, etc.) to show that the threat is real.
Reassurance. There must be negative assurances (signals that if the enemy refrains from escalatory actions, no harm will come).
In a conventional conflict, deterrence is very difficult to achieve unless the side threatening action has overwhelming military superiority and nearly impossible if far weaker. So, how did Iran pull this off?
The answer is drones (air, land, sea, undersea, space) and systems disruption. Let’s dive in. Years ago, I wrote a book (Brave New War) that posited that;
Rapidly advancing, relatively inexpensive, and globally available technology will offer small groups (terrorists -> small states) extreme leverage in warfare (do far more with much less).
To maximize the leverage the damage done by this new technology these groups will focus on disrupting networked systems, systems that the world has become utterly dependent upon — this focus amplifies the damage done to maximize the return on investment (ROI achieved based on the cost of the attack).
Furthermore, if these groups radically decentralize their command and control (either purposely or through the use of open source organizational forms), which due to the nature of the technology and the targets (systems), they can radically improve their survivability.
Here’s how this theory applies to the war with Iran.
Iran invested heavily in new technology (drones of all types) to provide it with extreme amounts of technological leverage, allowing it to ignore the fact that traditional conventional air, land, and sea assets would be quickly destroyed in any conflict with the US.
Iran’s proximity to critical global systems that have a vulnerable to drones (most networked systems, by their nature, are difficult to protect, particularly against a foe with the right degree of technological leverage) provided it with a way to radically amplify the damage of inexpensive, easily accomplished attacks.
From the closure of the Straits of Hormuz (>10 m barrels a day + the majority of LNG exports) to
- stranding thousands of ships (>3 k) in the Persian Gulf to
- the destruction of forward deployed US military assets in Gulf countries (>3 billion $ in damage so far).
To make the threat posed by its drones real, Iran radically decentralized its command and control, production facilities, and stockpiles. This decentralization, combined with Iran’s mountainous terrain, made the suppression of Iran’s drone capability nearly impossible (even with complete air superiority).
Drone Deterrence
Here’s what this means. The lasting lesson of this war should be that drones, decentralization and the proximity to vulnerable systems, can allow a weaker adversary to achieve a level of deterrence against larger foes that is similar to building nuclear weapons.
This war is a clear demonstration of what drones are capable of (similar to how Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrated the capability of nuclear weapons to people skeptical of the technology). As drones become more capable (more autonomy) and more plentiful, the damage that they can do will soon become catastrophic.
It also demonstrates that the decentralization of drone assets (air, space, sea, undersea, land) provides the survivability necessary for drone attacks to deliver on the damage that was threatened (similar to how nuclear weapons deployed across subs, bombers, or silos could survive an attack and still obliterate an enemy).
Networked systems will always present a level of vulnerabilities to this type of attack. While it is possible to radically improve the defenses of critical nodes, the vulnerabilies of our complex, internetworked systems will remain plentiful. Our inexorable drive to become globally interconnected (both logical and physical), means that our vulnerability will multiply both in quantity and degree."