Exclusively for Ofoq News... Brett McGurk writes: How are the threads of the Iran and Ukraine wars intertwined in the age of marches?

Analysis by Brett McGurk, an international affairs analyst for Ufoq News, who served in senior national security positions under Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. Last week, for the first time in human history, an attack launched by drones and robots succeeded in controlling an enemy position on the ground. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said: “The future has arrived,” after describing the automated attack launched by his forces against an advanced position of Russian forces.

This first historic event came as a surprise to Moscow, which - with Iran's support - believed it had mastered the art of drone warfare in Ukraine. Instead, Ukraine is now outpacing Russia in innovation, just as the United States is working to weaken Iran's drone and missile programs that, since 2023, have helped Russia continue its brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and towns.

Viewing these two theaters of conflict - Ukraine and Iran - as interconnected will help the United States better prepare for future wars and stay one step ahead of its adversaries. This could also help bring an end to the war in Ukraine.

Iran's Missiles and Drones: Targeting Americans I was the White House's chief coordinator for the Middle East throughout the crisis that swept the region following the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. In all respects, it was the most complex and terrifying situation I had witnessed in two decades, in part because Iran chose, from the beginning, to get into the chaos and attack Americans with missiles and drones.

On Christmas Day 2023, a complex attack launched using Iranian Shahed drones against American positions in northern Iraq resulted in an American soldier being seriously injured. One month later, on January 20, 2024, an Iranian drone killed 3 American soldiers in Jordan.

In the same month, specifically in the Red Sea, the US Navy succeeded in repelling 18 attack drones, two winged anti-ship missiles, and one anti-ship ballistic missile that was traveling at Mach 4. Thanks to our defensive systems and the skills of our sailors, no Americans were killed or injured in that attack.

Iran and Russia: Using the Same Technology and Tactics In the first months of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Iran transferred its Shahed drones to Russia for use against Ukrainian cities, towns, and infrastructure. Later, Russia transferred drone manufacturing technology and established joint production lines within its territory.

Soon, these assembly lines were producing approximately 400 Shahed drones per day. The mass production of Iranian drones has led to Russia launching regular swarm attacks against Ukrainian targets, something the world has never seen before.

Iran quickly adopted the same tactic. On April 13, 2024, it launched 180 Shahed drones, 120 ballistic missiles, and 30 cruise missiles toward Israeli cities. The goal behind this is to use swarms of drones to confuse and exhaust air defenses, paving the way for ballistic missiles - which are heavier and faster moving - to carry out their subsequent strikes.

Ukraine's response to Russia: innovation Over the course of more than four years of war - driven by the necessity of defending itself - Ukraine has succeeded in establishing a domestic drone and air defense industry that matches global standards. A decentralized defense industry has emerged from the ground up — involving moms in garages, programmers in startups, and soldiers on the front lines, all experimenting in real time — creating a drone economy, both offensive and defensive, that Russia has proven unable to keep up with.

Today, although Russia produces more drones per day, Ukraine far outpaces it in terms of adaptability and effectiveness. Its drones now dominate the front lines, causing thousands of casualties among Russian forces every week.

As one Ukrainian soldier told Reuters, no Russian soldier can enter an open field without being hit by a Ukrainian drone. According to a recent analysis by the Hudson Institute, Ukraine uses about 10,000 drones per day in war.

These aircraft are capable of directing strikes deep inside Russian territory, and are superior in their maneuvers to obsolete Russian defense systems. It works to destroy targets on the front lines, where it is now responsible for about 80% of the casualties among Russian forces.

In addition, it protects the lives of Ukrainians, as defensive drone systems work to shoot down enemy “Shahed” aircraft using interceptor aircraft that can be renewed and replaced. In an attack last week, it was reported that Ukraine succeeded in shooting down 309 of the 324 drones launched by Russia.

However, Russia is still capable of launching deadly swarm attacks against Ukraine, including one this week that killed 18 people. But even in terms of size and scope, Ukraine is accelerating the pace, as the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense announced plans to manufacture more than 7 million drones this year alone, a production scale that most Western defense companies are unable to keep up with.

Ukrainian drones are also cost-effective, with an interceptor costing up to 10 times less than a Shahed plane ($3,000 to $5,000, versus $20,000 to $50,000), according to a recent report by the Snake Island Institute, an independent Ukrainian security center. Trump's Response to Iran: Power Amid the differing interpretations of the current war with Iran, Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the clearest argument, recently stating that Iran has, over the past decade, developed so sophisticated a missile and drone program that it would soon have an "impenetrable shield" protecting its nuclear ambitions and efforts to spread terrorism around the world.

What he meant by that was a program that was advancing in size and complexity to the point of being able to overwhelm existing air defenses and deter any attack aimed at weakening this program. This is what military planners call the “zone of immunity,” a situation in which Iran has established a deterrence structure that makes its missile and military program immune to any military targeting.

Over the past decade, what Iran calls its “aerospace program” has witnessed tremendous and accelerating progress. The capabilities of its missiles have nearly doubled in terms of payload, range, and accuracy, going from being able to hit targets located miles away, to hitting them with an accuracy of only a few feet. What was in 2015 just a traditional Scud-like program had transformed, by 2025, into a game-changing strategic system capable of identifying targets with extreme precision and making any American sites throughout the region vulnerable to attack.

We have seen a glimpse of this reality in the current war, which is likely to be more severe and worse years from now, if this program is allowed to continue its progress according to its usual linear path. The recent US air campaign focused on these aerospace facilities - underground storage sites, production centers, and spare parts factories - with the aim of setting the program back years and buying the time needed to enable defense systems to catch up and keep pace with developments.

Zelensky comes to the rescue Perhaps one of the enduring images that will remain stuck in our minds from the “Iran War” is the visit of Ukrainian President Zelensky to the Middle East, even in the midst of the most intense phase of that war. He visited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, at a time when each of these countries - like his country - was facing attacks by hundreds of drones.

Zelensky was not just providing moral support, but was offering human resources, technical expertise, and an integrated defense system specifically designed to confront Iranian drone swarms. These three Gulf states have now signed defense agreements with Ukraine, harnessing their huge resources and investments to support Ukraine's world-class drone programme, an achievement that neither Iran nor Russia will be able to match or compete with.

Strategic Convergence Zelensky has demonstrated how the threads of war in Iran are interconnected and intertwined with the threads of war in Ukraine. The United States is systematically working to eradicate Iran's short-term ability to design, manufacture, and advance its drone and missile programs, and in return, Ukraine is systematically working to develop and deploy the systems necessary to counter and defeat those programs.

Likewise, the White House should no longer view these two campaigns as separate tracks. This is a critical moment when Western partners must join forces to support allies facing threats from Russia and Iran.

The weakening of Iran's missile and drone programme, coupled with Ukrainian innovations - and the possible turning of the tide of the conflict against Russia - represents a unique opportunity to shift the balance of power in favor of the Western alliance and against the adversary alliance of Russia and Iran (the letters R and I in the CRINK bloc, which includes: China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea). Unfortunately, Washington appears to be squandering this opportunity, as it once again threatens to withdraw from NATO and blames Ukraine for the failure of peace efforts with Russia.

If Trump wants his campaign against Iran to leave a lasting legacy, perhaps he should look to Zelensky, the only leader who came to the rescue during the most brutal phases of the war. After destroying a large part of Iran's defense capabilities, it is now time to strengthen Ukraine's defense capabilities.

In doing so, the president may finally find the leverage he needs to fully end the war in Ukraine.