Within the season premiere of Defence Uncut (S02E01), Bilal Khan and Arslan Khan look at the operational classes rising from the continuing US-Iran warfare and what they imply for Pakistan’s defence planning.
The dialogue spans three interconnected areas: the confirmed worth of low-cost loitering munitions just like the Shahed-136, the extra restricted returns from Iran’s ballistic missile investments, and the naval dynamics of the Strait of Hormuz disaster – notably what they sign for the Pakistan Navy’s submarine and floor fleet technique.
We additionally talk about counter-unmanned aerial system (C-UAS) options – from high-powered microwave (HPM) emitters to kinetic drone interceptors – and the case for a multinational defence consortium amongst center powers like Pakistan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia.
Take heed to the complete episode on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform.
Shahed Drones: Why Low-Price Loitering Munitions Have Confirmed Their Value
The Shahed-136 has turn out to be the defining loitering munition of this period. First deployed at scale by Russia towards Ukraine, and now by Iran towards US and Gulf targets, the Shahed has validated the attritional drone mannequin – the place the price of every munition is negligible relative to the price of intercepting it.
Within the episode, Arslan unpacks why the Shahed design succeeded the place extra complicated methods have struggled. The airframe is straightforward – a big, principally hole construction powered by a reverse-engineered piston engine derived from the German Limbach 550E. The engine doesn’t must final 1000’s of hours; it must survive a single 10-to-20-hour mission earlier than the munition reaches its goal. Inner elements are largely industrial off-the-shelf (COTS), together with Ublox satellite tv for pc navigation receivers and commonplace industrial reminiscence and video processing models.
Russia took this baseline design and iterated on it beneath sustained fight stress. The ensuing Geran variants now function in swarms, with lead drones carrying sensors that map the electromagnetic surroundings – figuring out radar emissions and air defence positions – earlier than relaying up to date flight paths to the trailing munitions. This bidirectional expertise pipeline between Iran and Russia has accelerated the Shahed’s evolution past what both nation may have achieved independently.
The price estimates mentioned within the episode vary from $20,000 to $30,000 per unit – similar to a single Joint Direct Assault Munition (JDAM) equipment, however with out requiring an plane to ship it. Even when a big proportion of a Shahed wave is intercepted, the attacker solely wants a handful to achieve crucial infrastructure to realize a disproportionate return. This cost-exchange downside has pushed the US and Gulf states to urgently pursue low-cost drone interceptors and directed vitality weapons to counter the Shahed risk.
For Pakistan, the implications are direct. As Arslan notes, the manufacturing threshold for Shahed-class drones is surprisingly low. Pakistan already mass-produces the CD70 motorbike engine in vital numbers; whereas the engine itself will not be appropriate for a loitering munition, the manufacturing services and machining capabilities behind it could possibly be repurposed for piston-engine drone propulsion. The broader level is that Pakistan’s rising loitering munitions portfolio – together with the GIDS Sarkash-I, Blaze-series, and NASTP KaGeM V3 – already attracts on lots of the identical rules that made the Shahed efficient: simplicity, scalability, and COTS elements.
Nevertheless, the dialogue additionally raises a crucial concern. India is creating its personal loitering munitions at scale. Indian distributors have quoted the power to provide 10,000 to twenty,000 models per yr – per vendor – and the Indian personal sector has dozens of companies on this area. Pakistan can not match India’s manufacturing scale vendor-for-vendor. Thus, the precedence is to make sure that Pakistan’s personal loitering munition technique is oriented round jet-powered one-way effectors that may problem superior, multi-layered air defences, moderately than slower piston and electric-powered designs alone.
The Limits of Ballistic Missiles: Worry Issue vs. Degradation
Iran’s ballistic missiles have generated dramatic imagery – cluster warheads penetrating Israeli air defences, fireballs captured on social media – however the dialogue within the episode takes a extra measured view of their precise operational utility.
The warheads on lots of Iran’s medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) carry comparatively small sub-munitions, within the vary of 4 to 5 kilograms every. Whereas the psychological affect of a ballistic missile strike is appreciable, the bodily harm inflicted by these small warheads has not meaningfully degraded the adversary’s means to strike Iran. In different phrases, the ‘worry issue’ of ballistic missiles is actual, however their use has not modified the operational trajectory of the battle.
This is a vital distinction for Pakistan’s personal missile planning. Each Pakistan and India possess ballistic missile inventories, however the episode means that Pakistan ought to strategy these weapons as tactical enablers – instruments for destroying particular high-value targets like bridges, radar websites, and command nodes – moderately than strategic devices of coercion. The precedent from Ukraine is instructive: Kyiv used its restricted ballistic and cruise missile shares to degrade particular Russian logistics and command infrastructure, to not instil broad psychological stress. Pakistan’s rising Fatah-series tactical ballistic missiles and standard cruise missiles align with this strategy.
A Naval Warfare Pakistan Can’t Ignore
Maybe essentially the most consequential – and least mentioned – dimension of the US-Iran warfare is the naval equation, and the episode devotes vital consideration to its implications for the Pakistan Navy (PN).
Iran’s naval property had been largely destroyed at port. Most, if not all, of its submarines and floor vessels had been struck earlier than they might sortie. This can be a direct consequence of Iran’s decades-long underinvestment in its standard navy and its failure to offer survivable basing infrastructure, akin to underground submarine pens constructed into coastal mountain terrain.
For the PN, it is a clarifying lesson. The PN has already launched Operation Muhafiz-ul-Bahr to escort Pakistani service provider vessels by means of the Strait of Hormuz, demonstrating the quick worth of floor combatants in hybrid maritime safety eventualities. Nevertheless, in a full-scale battle, the survivability of floor warships – notably high-value frigates – is more and more questionable.
The episode argues that the PN ought to rethink the size of its giant floor combatant ambitions. The deliberate objective of 20 main floor vessels might have to offer strategy to a extra submarine-heavy pressure construction. The forthcoming Hangor-class (S26) submarines will considerably enlarge the PN’s sub-surface fleet, however the important thing operational lesson from Iran is that submarines are solely efficient if they’re at sea – not trapped in port. Arslan argues that the PN ought to put money into hardened underground submarine pens, probably constructed into the mountainous shoreline close to the deliberate Ormara naval base.
On this vein, one can see the PN probably doubling down on its subsurface funding on the expense of extra giant floor combatants. The shallow-water assault submarine (SWATS) programme and next-generation unmanned underwater automobile (UUV) tasks mentioned within the episode align with this reorientation. A disproportionately giant submarine fleet – complemented by coastal defence methods like anti-ship ballistic missiles and anti-ship cruise missiles – may give Pakistan significant uneven benefits within the western Arabian Sea, an space the place Pakistan’s geographic place permits its submarines to threaten the ocean strains of communication (SLOC) that India’s economic system relies upon upon.
That mentioned, the PN’s floor fleet nonetheless has a task, notably within the escort and maritime safety missions demonstrated by Operation Muhafiz-ul-Bahr. The dialogue means that the PN could also be higher served by a bigger variety of smaller, well-armed corvettes – akin to an expanded Damen Diamond-series or a reworked Babur-class (MILGEM) – moderately than fewer, costlier Jinnah-class frigates. The Jinnah-class programme shouldn’t be but past the purpose of no return, and the episode notes that the PN has cancelled or scaled again formidable floor ship programmes earlier than.
Countering the Drone Menace: HPMs, Interceptors, and Airborne Patrols
The opposite aspect of the loitering munition equation is find out how to defend towards them. The episode discusses three complementary approaches that would type the premise of Pakistan’s future counter-UAS structure.
Excessive-powered microwave (HPM) emitters are the popular answer for space defence. In contrast to lasers, which should have interaction targets separately, HPMs can disable a number of COTS-electronics-dependent drones concurrently throughout a large space. The price per engagement is negligible, making them nicely suited to the cost-exchange downside that loitering munitions create.
Kinetic drone interceptors – exemplified by Ukraine’s Wild Hornets Sting – supply a complementary local-area defence functionality at prices as little as $1,000 to $5,000 per unit. These are greatest deployed round high-value level targets akin to air defence nodes, command centres, and significant infrastructure.
The episode additionally raises an unconventional idea: utilizing slow-flying, low-cost manned or unmanned plane for airborne counter-drone patrols. Arslan discusses the SubSonex private jet – a tiny experimental plane with a stall pace of round 60 knots, powered by PBS turbojets. Earlier than the producer went bankrupt, the design was transformed right into a twin-engine unmanned aerial automobile (UAV) able to sustained loitering on one engine and sprinting on two. At an airframe price of roughly $55,000 (excluding engines), a fleet of such platforms may supply persistent airborne protection towards slow-moving drone swarms at a fraction of the price of deploying fighter plane – which, at 120-to-130-knot engagement speeds towards Shahed-class targets, are working on the very fringe of their flight envelopes.
The Case for a Multinational Defence Consortium
The ultimate phase of the episode steps again from particular platforms to deal with a broader structural problem: Pakistan’s lack of ability to maintain high-intensity munition consumption past the primary few days of a battle.
Each Iran’s tapering of ballistic missile launches and the speedy depletion of Gulf states’ Patriot shares illustrate the identical dynamic. International locations with restricted manufacturing capability and single-source provide chains burn by means of their munitions sooner than they are often replenished. For Pakistan, that is an acute danger throughout a number of classes – from air defence interceptors to precision-guided munitions to loitering munitions.
Arslan proposes what he phrases an ‘Jap MBDA’ – a multinational missile and munitions consortium linking Pakistan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. Every nation has complementary industrial strengths and overlapping necessities, notably in short-range ballistic missiles, air defence interceptors, and one-way effectors. A consortium would allow joint design to scale back unit prices, distributed manufacturing strains that present redundancy in wartime, and the power to attract on allied stockpiles throughout a battle – a lot as america drew on Japanese and South Korean missile shares in the course of the present Strait of Hormuz disaster.
The sensible obstacles to such a consortium are actual. Pakistan’s institutional desire for Chinese language methods, pushed partly by obtainable credit score strains, limits near-term diversification. Diplomatic ambiguity within the Saudi relationship – notably relating to mutual defence obligations in the course of the present Iran warfare – additional complicates issues. And domestically, the focus of programme authority in retired army officers moderately than engineers and enterprise growth professionals constrains the form of cross-border industrial partnerships that Turkey, particularly, has excelled at constructing.
Nevertheless, the strategic logic is sound, and the US-Iran warfare has made the case extra pressing. One can see the PN’s escort operations within the Strait of Hormuz, the broader disruption to Gulf vitality provides, and the rising relevance of Pakistani munitions on the World Defence Present in Riyadh all contributing to a political surroundings the place such a consortium turns into extra viable – offered Pakistan’s decision-makers can transfer past institutional inertia.
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