Bloomberg reports that Iran’s large scale attack may have yielded valuable data on Israel’s air defenses:
Iran will likely carefully monitor the Israeli and US response to see how its technology competes with Western air systems and tactics, according to a former US intelligence official, who asked not to be identified given the sensitivity of the issue. Iran could use those insights for future attacks, as well as share it with proxies to improve their effectiveness with Iranian weapons.
According to the Institute for the Study of War’s analysis, the attack “shows that Iran is learning from the Russians and the Houthis to develop increasingly dangerous and effective strike packages against Israel and the U.S.”:
The combination of Iranian drones and both cruise and ballistic missiles against Israel is meant to confuse and overwhelm Israeli air defenses. Launches of concurrent attacks by Iranian-backed actors in Lebanon and Yemen are part of this effort.
This Iranian approach mirrors Russia’s experimentation with combinations of ballistic and cruise missiles alongside Iranian drones to launch increasingly effective strike packages able to penetrate US and European anti-missile and air defense systems.
Iran has also learned from Houthi attacks targeting international shipping around Yemen. The Houthis have used combinations of Iranian drones and missiles against US air and missile defense systems, allowing Iran and the Houthis to test and improve their strike packages.
The continued use of Iranian-designed drones by multiple enemies of the US and the deepening ties between the actors using them will help Tehran, Russia, North Korea, and China to refine their use of these systems against the United States and its allies and partners. The US and its allies and partners face an increasingly interconnected group of adversaries helping one another and learning from one another.
