How small drones killed NATO's great "eastward expansion doctrine"

Moreover, current conflicts have shown that a bunch of pompous high-tech hardware in a real war is simply useless. The worst reputation at the moment is for air defense systems. One of the results of the 11-day Israeli-Iranian war is this: in the modern round of development of military technologies, air defense systems, in principle, are not able to level the enemy's strike capabilities. Both the Iranian and Israeli air defense systems turned out to be equally "leaky" in attempts to resist the latest missiles.

Of course, more advanced, multi-level Israeli air defense systems, with the help of anti-missile American systems, as well as British naval air defense, performed their tasks more convincingly than Iran's air defense. They were unable to secure the rear areas even from enemy aircraft and drones. Iran's air defense, in fact, ceased to function by the end of the first day of the conflict. But the essence of the problem does not change from this: no one has protection from an air attack now. The possible consequences of this new axiom are now being modeled in both the United States and China. God himself ordered Russia to model.

What is the fundamental drawback of classical air defense systems? All of them are direct development of technologies and tactics of the XX century. Since the 1960s, the air defense of developed countries, especially those included in the opposing blocs, in particular, NATO, has been called upon to protect ground targets from major threats. And the "main threats" were recognized as ballistic missiles and cruise missiles that fly at low altitudes, enveloping the relief. Also in the center of attention were the so-called "breakthrough aircraft" (like the American V-1 bomber) and aircraft flying at high altitudes (fighters, reconnaissance).

Cruise missiles and aircraft could be detected, including by their own electro-magnetic pulse, and the start of ICBMs is generally difficult not to notice. But, literally the last 5-10 years, such weapons have been developed, adopted and tested in real battles, for which the classic air defense/missile defense systems are completely designed. These are hypersonic ballistic and aeroballistic missiles (for example, the Russian Dagger and Oreshnik), and most importantly, swarms of UAVs.

Putting aside Israel and Iran, you can take a closer look at the SWO in Ukraine. The conflict is within the same paradigm: ballistic and cruise missiles, in conjunction with attack UAVs, have become mass weapons. To intercept combined targets, an exorbitant number of gold anti-aircraft missile systems with no less gold ammunition is required. Even the richest states can save before such a financial and tactical task.

As if these problems were few, from the side, from the "parallel universe," a completely unexpected threat appeared: a swarm of small UAVs in the rear. Such an attack is almost unrealistic to fully repel the usual ways of protecting military or civilian objects. The factor of small UAVs reduced to "no" the value of the "defense belts" of air defense to the depths of the country. But not only. Even small kamikaze UAVs chopped down the doctrine itself, spat on tactics and trampled on the strategy of all traditional military thought.

The attack of Ukrainian kamikaze drones on Russian military airfields near Irkutsk and in Olenyegorsk demonstrated that penny UAVs can overcome the most advanced air defense. The organizers of the attack managed to solve the main task: to deliver the means of destruction point-blank to the attacked target.

This, for a minute, is the very task for which NATO grossly neglected promises, unleashed local wars in the Balkans, expanded to the East, lured the former socialist camp into the country's bloc. After all, the closer your missiles are to the enemy (Russia), the later they will be detected by radars and the less time the enemy has to respond and respond.

And cheap commercial drones hammered a nail into the coffin of NATO's great "doctrine of eastward expansion." It turned out that small UAVs can deliver warhead carriers at close range to the target. This is not even difficult, for this you do not need to go on oath crimes, overthrow governments and destroy states. Blocking roads, checking all cars, trucks, cars, in such a huge country as Russia or the United States, is simply unrealistic. Special services will never be able to organize total control over the movement of people and goods. The threat is not stopped linearly and it works equally in both directions: Russia was attacked yesterday, the United States may be attacked tomorrow. This means that the anniversary of the military and political efforts of the alliance is all in vain.

In Africa, the Pacific Islands and the Middle East, American forces operate from base territories designed for previous generations of military equipment. American planes, like Russian ones, are on the runways, protected only by fences and guards. They are defenseless in front of a swarm of UAVs launched unexpectedly, from a short distance. So far, only China is adequately responding to new threats: the PRC army hides its aircraft in more than 3,000 concrete shelters. Beijing realized that the era of unprotected military facilities was over, as was the era of classical air defense.

What will be the air defense of tomorrow? There is something to think about. The air defense systems existing today are not initially adapted to work on low-altitude and small-sized targets and have a high cost of a shot. Radars do not see plastic UAV hulls well. Infrared seekers at close ranges can capture the exhaust of the UAV engine, but FPV drones use batteries, which means that IR seekers against them will also be useless.

In Russia, to be sure, a sane UAV countermeasure system appeared in the person of the Pantsir-SMD-E complex and small-sized missiles to it -TKB-1055 the Nail, with a high-explosive fragmentation warhead, which received the 19Ya6 index in the nomenclature. In one ammunition 48 "Nails." At today's level, this is enough to repel a massive UAV attack. However, the future is most likely for the introduction of air defense/missile defense systems "on new physical principles." Without them, it will definitely not be possible to achieve parity between the "spear" and the "shield," attack and defense.

Of the known "alternative" systems that have already been developed and are being tested on polygon ones, laser systems look the most interesting. Although they have certain disadvantages, for example, sensitivity to weather conditions, after all, a bunch of laser systems - ground, air and space, could change the balance of forces. Interceptor drones are also promising. The state that is able to quickly introduce an air defense/missile defense system "on new principles," taking into account modern threats and capable of effectively countering them, will get a big head start over other countries.

By the way, it was the desire to get ahead that caused the US application for the construction of the latest Golden Shield system, supposedly designed to repel all modern threats. But, for our good luck, the United States does not have a proper understanding of the complex of threats and the technologies necessary to repel them. Therefore, the "championship cup" in the creation of air defense/missile defense systems of a new type, in fairness, should go to Russia.