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Countering Iran's uncrewed threats: Operational realities from the Middle East frontline

A Q&A with Robbie Draper, Director of Operations – MARSS, Middle East

As attacks across the Gulf continue into a second week, Robbie Draper, Director of Operations for MARSS Middle East, offers an on-the-ground perspective on what it actually takes to defend against Iran's campaign of drone and missile strikes, and the lessons that extend beyond the region.

When you look at what's unfolded over the past week – with regard to Iranian attacks on states in the Middle East – what do you think the media commentary is missing/has missed?

The media has certainly conveyed a sense of the scale of what's happening: the volumes of missiles fired, the intercepts caught on camera, the visible drama of air defences in action. What that coverage hasn’t fully captured is the human dimension behind those defences. Behind every successful intercept, and behind every failure, there is a person making a decision under extreme stress. The capability of those systems is only as good as the people operating them.

For many of the commanders responding to these attacks, this may be the first time they have experienced anything like it. They are learning in real time, under fire – something no peacetime exercise can fully replicate. There is an enormous learning curve involved, and in the early days of this campaign, any gaps in training and readiness are readily exposed.

The incident involving three US F-15s over Kuwait is a case in point. Those aircraft were shot down by friendly forces after returning from a mission, not because the technology failed, but possibly because there wasn't a unified understanding of the battlespace. The fog of war is real, and it is not something that additional hardware alone can address.

 

Iran's attacks have been indiscriminate and geographically disparate – targeting civilian infrastructure, oil facilities, and military sites. How does that change the challenge for defenders?

This method of warfare exposes a fundamental tension in how defensive architecture is typically built. Most assets in the region are fixed: fixed positions, fixed coverage. Operational planners have to make hard choices, prioritising what is most critical to protect through what is known as a Defended Asset List. Civilian facilities, energy infrastructure and government sites each compete for that coverage, and there will always be gaps.

The nature of the threat also matters, because not all inbound weapons are detected, and therefore tackled, in the same way.  Ballistic missiles are arguably the more manageable problem, not because they are easier to intercept, but because satellite technology can assist to detect a launch almost immediately, calculate trajectory and project a likely point of impact. That early warning flows through shared networks, giving defenders meaningful time to respond.

Drones and cruise missiles are a fundamentally different problem. They fly low, use terrain to mask their approach, and can travel thousands of kilometres while evading radar detection. Many of the Shahed drones can use a combination of GPS and terrain-matching guidance, having been refined through years of operational experience and battle-testing. Relatively cheap and quick to assemble, these can be launched en masse to swarm defences.  You don’t get satellite warning of a drone launch. By the time ground-based sensors detect it, your decision window is already compressed.

 

 

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Volume of simultaneous threats is a defining feature of this campaign. What does effective defence look like under those conditions?

Multiple simultaneous threats are where conventional C2 systems come under their greatest pressure. The challenge is getting the right information to the right person fast enough to act on it. A traditional C2 architecture means multiple operators, each trained on their own specific operating station, each looking at their own display, trying to cross-reference what they are all seeing simultaneously under combat stress. That process is slow, it is fragile, and it depends entirely on those individuals performing at their peak at precisely the moment the pressure is greatest.

The smarter approach is to automate as much of the decision support cycle as possible: automated detection, tracking, classification, and threat prioritisation, so that by the time a human makes a decision, they have the clearest possible picture of what they're facing and time to think. The goal isn't to remove the human from the loop – not yet, under existing ConOps – but to ensure that when they're in the loop, they're not drowning in noise.

"The clearest lesson is that there is no silver bullet, or single solution, to asymmetric threats. Countering them effectively requires scalable, layered capability, a credible supply chain to sustain it, and the investment in human performance to use it well."

What role does a layered defence play – and what are its limits?

A layered defence gives the warfighter options. Options mean economy: you can match the appropriate response to the specific threat rather than defaulting to your most expensive asset every time. Soft-kill options, particularly jamming, have proven effective against GPS-guided threats; a jammed Shahad loses its guidance and this limits its outcome. 

When soft-kill options are ineffective, you need kinetic ones. That means short-range cannon and interceptor systems working alongside medium and long-range assets like utilising beyond line of sight capability. Against a mass drone attack, you want to match the right effector to the right threat. Firing a multi-million-dollar interceptor missile at a $20,000 drone is economically unsustainable. The "missile math" debate is real: at some point, you exhaust your stockpile before the adversary exhausts theirs. Your supply chain and stockpiling readiness becomes your limiting factor.

 

What should Western governments take away from this?

The clearest lesson is that there is no silver bullet, or single solution, to asymmetric threats. Countering them effectively requires scalable, layered capability, a credible supply chain to sustain it, and the investment in human performance to use it well.

What we are seeing unfold in the Middle East is not a distant or abstract scenario for Western nations. The technology being deployed is accessible, affordable, and battle-proven. The question is not whether these threats could be directed at them and their bases, but whether the forces tasked with responding to them are ready.

The operators currently responding to this campaign are learning on the job in ways that no peacetime exercise can fully replicate. When this settles, the smart question for all allied forces is not how did our systems perform, but how do we make sure the next generation of operators are not starting from scratch. Governments that invest heavily in equipment but lightly in the human performance required to use it are exposed in ways that only become visible under real pressure.

The lesson is urgent. The technology to prosecute these threats is accessible, affordable and proven. What you cannot improvise, when it matters, is a trained, current and competent force who know exactly what to do when the first track appears on screen.

 

About Robbie Draper:

Robbie Draper joined MARSS in April 2023, bringing with him 36 years of distinguished UK Army service. Throughout his military career, he developed extensive expertise in Complex Weapons and Command and Control, specializing in Battlespace Management, Anti-Air Warfare, and Counter Drone operations.

Upon joining MARSS, he initially served as Deputy Managing Director of MARSS Middle East, overseeing commercial operations across the business. Robbie has since advanced to Head of MARSS Middle East, where he leads Operational delivery and Support efforts for the Global Defence business.

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