May 14, 2026:
The Chinese recently manufactured the Jiu Tian drone carrier. This is the world’s first drone mothership which is capable of distributing 100 smaller drones or loitering munitions.
On the first day of the US/Iran war, Iran nullified the American capacity to observe and control the battleground by expending drone swarms and hypersonic missiles to take out the American ground-based strategic early warning radar at the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
In mid-March an Iranian Shahed-136 attack drone directly hit the radome and phased array antenna of a long-range early warning radar in the Al-Qaysumah Airfield in Saudi Arabia.
A few days later Iran used drone swarms and low-flying cruise missiles to exhaust the interceptors of the THAAD battery in Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, then followed up with an Iranian Fattah-2 hypersonic missile strike to destroy the THAAD.
Still later in March a Shahed-136 and Fattah-2 joint strike took out another radar in the Rafha Region of Saudi Arabia. The destruction of the long-range early warning radars and THAAD batteries resulted in a gap in US mid/long-range air defense. This exposed terminal-phase defense platforms such as Patriot to Iranian attacks.
A Patriot system can track over 100 targets at the same time but can only guide 18 interceptors simultaneously, opening a window for attack by swarming drones and missiles too numerous to be shot down in one engagement. Other drones/missiles were able to penetrate a Patriot-only defense during reloading, destroying Patriot platforms which cost over $1 billion. At least 3 Patriot batteries were destroyed in the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.
Losses of Patriots led to gaps in terminal defense for key assets and air bases, resulting in Iranian destruction of one E-3 Sentry AWACS and at least 5 KC-135 Stratotanker refueling planes on the airfield runways in Saudi Arabia. This, in turn, led to a lower sortie rate of combat jets.
On March 19, Iran used its indigenous 358 missile, also known as the SA-67 to down a F-35A stealth fighter over central Iran.
Iran’s 2025 GDP and defense budget were $356 billion and $9 billion. In comparison, Singapore’s 2025 GDP and defense budget is $604 billion and $17 billion.
The American war machine underwhelms while the American military cannot keep up with Iran’s counter attacks or China’s technological leapfrog and cost advantages.