The ongoing war in Iran is a different saga as the beleaguered Iranian political regime is treating it as an existential war, especially after the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
It indeed is Iran’s war to survive, which, after being waged for years economically & coercively, has now reached its ultimate kinetic culmination & is likely to escalate further and might even conflagrate into an all-out, full-blown regional war.
It further complicates the overall strategic calculus of the war as it may turn into a protracted conflict, which if happens, will favor Iran significantly in its bid to survive this heavy knock-out punch.
Iran is already trying to inflict economic pain and cost upon top American allies in the region, namely, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar & Bahrain by targeting civilian infrastructure, too for missile strikes, in addition, to existing U.S. military bases & assets in the region, besides closure of the Strait of Hormuz, unleashing energy shockwaves across the world, all of which, is aimed effectively at creating a spill over effect on the rest of the region and inflict economic cost & penalty, thereby, forcing the GCC and the rest of the world to, in turn, pressurize the U.S. & Israel to end their ongoing military campaign against Iran besides domestic pressure.
Further, the overall cost exchange ratio, for low-cost missiles & drones against conventional missile interceptors, is skewed highly in favor of the aggressor as $3-4 million Patriots are pitted against Iran's $800K missiles & $20K drones with their remaining stockpiles across the GCC region being expended quickly, which would last for a week to 10 days at the most, while Iran still has a sizeable stock of missiles & drones still remaining which will give it a clear leg-up.
Thus, the longer it drags out the better it will be for Iran to survive the intended heavy duty knock out blow...
Technically & doctrinally, it is very similar to what an underdog Ukraine has been doing to Russia, as the nuclear-powered belligerent holding numerical superiority, except the outward, regional expansion of war, unlike, Iran, (which Russia too explored with European drone incursions but retracted) which is likely to become the standard playbook going forward in asymmetric wars between the unequals or conventional wars with disruptive tech as the potential equalizer & gamechanger with even the larger aggressors in asymettric wars, too, replicating the same playbook, as being seen with Russia having adopted Shaheds & the U.S. developing it's copy, the LUCAS...
Rarely does it happen in the annals of warfare history that underdogs like Ukraine & Iran get to fundamentally alter the tactical & doctrinal aspects of warfare with disruptive modern tech against behemoths like Russia & America even without winning...Such is the power of disruptive tech..!
