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Just 13 days after the world was surprised by Operation Spiderweb, where the Ukrainian military and intelligence forces infiltrated Russia with drones and destroyed a major portion of Russia's long-range air offensive capabilities, last night Israel began a major operation against Iran using similar, novel tactics.
Similar to Operation Spiderweb, Israel infiltrated Iran and placed drones near air defense systems. These drones were activated all at once and disabled the majority of these air defense systems, allowing Israel to embark on a major air offensive without much pushback. This air offensive continues to destroy and disable major military and nuclear sites, as well as eliminating some of the highest ranking military officials in Iran with minor collateral damage.
June 2025 will be remembered as the beginning of a new military era, where military drones operated either autonomously or from very far away are able to neutralize advanced, expensive military systems.
By which mechanism would all that defense spending be quickly repurposed towards drone manufacturing? All the things that make big institutions so small-c conservative - like the bureaucracy, the legal apparatus, the procurement rules, and the defense contractors with their long-running contracts - ensure that no such large-scale shift in strategy can occur, no?
And even if that did happen, by which mechanism do you convert $1T into actually manufactured drones within any relevant time frame?
I think if you have literal hot war between two superpowers, a lot of stuff can happen. The classical example is of course the US repurposing a large fraction of its economy towards the war effort in World War II. Is that still feasible today? I do not know, but I doubt the defense contractor industry would be the biggest obstacle in the way.
Much appreciated Habryka-san!
You might be interested in my old shortform on the military balance of power between US and China too. It's a bit dated by now - the importance of drones has become much more clear by now [I think the evidence that we are in a military technological revolution on par with the introduction of guns] but you may find it of interest regardless.