The US drone in Iran : an American affair by Paolo Dealberti

Fact 1 : from a legal point of view if an airplane of the country Alpha flies without any authorization over the country Beta it is espionage and an act of war.
Do we remember the U2 ? The USSR did not have any interest to consider it an act of war because that should have as consequence a new world war.
Also Teheran today has only a rhetoric interest on describing it as an act of war because of its internal struggles and its reduced roles after the growing setbacks in the Gulf, (Bahrain),and in the Middle East, (Syria and Lebanon).
It is clear that someone has gained inside the internal struggle of power as well as it is clear that someone has lost. The latter are whom who were not able to crash down the US drones.

But these are collateral effects because the real meaning and related problem with what is happened ,( the interception and forced crash down of a US drone),must be found in the USA.

Fact 2 : it has not a lot of sense from an intelligence point of view to send a drone in Iran because all the information can be gathered via satellite. A drone means to be able to strike in 10 minutes but to strike what in Iran ? That will be an act of war .

Fact 3 : but it has a value in term of psychological warfare to show either to the Iranians and to others that the USA can do what ,when and how they want on the Iranian sky and soil.

But if that is the only plausible reason it is almost illogic to use a drone like the RQ170 Sentinel ,one of the most hi-tech of US arsenal.
Now we face the first problem or the first absurdity.

If the USA need to use the RQ170 because the Iranian military forces has a so developed counter-electronic capability that any other model will be forced down that “simply” means that the USA is around 30 years beyond the EU top technology and at the same level of the Iranian one. In other words Iran has a technology most advanced than Germany, Italy, the UK, France and Russia. Something that it is a bit hard to sell ,is it ?

But if the reason it is not military, ( to contrast the sophisticated counter-electronic technology of the adversary),why ?

There is not a reason, or better the only plausible reason is that someone has interest that this technological jewel that not advanced EU country can build up ,(not mention China or Russia), is forced down by the Iranian army.

This open the “Pandora box” and we talk about something that normally is not thinkable. Something that can exists only in a Le Carre´or Forsight ´novel.

But before to talk about this dimension we need to focus on something and this something is the weaponry the Pentagon needs.

The US Army has simply not rivals. They have a total SSLS ,( space, sky, land, sea),control of the planet. Only an alien force can think to face and win the Pentagon. This will last at least till 2070 if not longer.

In other words and for the first time in history the USA simply can afford to avoid to up-grade its hardware for at least a generation. .

That means that the USA can use the current arsenal of super high-tech weaponry without upgrade and focus on other dimensions. Logically the USA will never stop the R&D but it can afford to test and to experiment and to wait for before to deploy a new weapon.

What is more urgent now is to develop :

-a better cyber war capabilities : in the 2010 the USA suffered 1.8 bilion cyber attacks each month ,( on average 70 each second),and in the 2010 only 662 were able to make large and consistent breaches. It seems not a lot , ( 662/21.600.000.000),but unlucky this is not the case and two example can explain it better then one billion words.
Example 1 : a Christian fundamentalist group can by-pass the cyber defense of the US army and a Minuteman ballistic missiles with a multiple warheads ogiva is launched against the Arabian Peninsula. Or a NSA can launch a ballistic missile in order to create a socio-political situation that can better fits its interests. If someone is smiling thinking to a “James Bond vs. OCRA” scenario we kindly remind that the report for the President of the USA about future trends “Global Trends 2015, ( 2000),mentioned 2015 as the year where American NSA´s will fight against the US Government. It was the year 2000. We remember also that since years at the US Navy Academy of Annnapolis is contemplated as part of the training the killing of US Citizens as well as the destruction of US Companies assets in black listed countries and few years ago a prestigious American journal of international policy dedicated an issue to the risk of a putsch in the USA.

Example 2 : someone is able to penetrate the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and to activate a general selling during a market session. A selling no one is able to stop… in a 24/7 world the consequences are terrific. If you consider that this it is not possible after 9/11 we kindly remind that in 2010 an American think tank made a simulation game where it was possible to destroy around the 35% of the output of the US refineries.

That means that even 662 major breaches on 21.600.000.000 failed attacks are a problem if one of them is ” one too much” if ,for example, launches a nuclear ogiva.

- a diversified counter-insurgency approach focused not only against local forces but also against PSF ones under a NSA contract. We kindly remind that for the first time in 2003 in Iraq American contractors fought against US G-men.

- more linguistic and cultural training to better understand the local realities in a global scenario.

All that told that the USA do not need more drones, stealth ships and aircrafts. Or at least it seems not till Dec. 6th 2011.

Since that moment we should start to believe that the American military technological superiority is more a legend than a reality. And ,consequently, also that Iran is a technological superpower more advanced than Germany. ,France, the UK , Japan, Brasil, China ,Russia… .
Each of us can believe what he wants but we at Prosumerzen cannot buy it.

In the next weeks we will assist to a growing chorus of expert s and analysts that will use this event as the “ultimate evidence” of the fact that the USA need NOW a new generation of super-high XXI century-style weaponry.

A kind of weaponry that will change also the social structure of the Army and will influence the society, ( more and deeper than the “industrial-military complex “ denounced by President Eisenhower).

It is not so important that Russians and Chinese engineers will evaluate this drone because they will find nothing. The drone is an empty shell because no one in the USA is so stupid to activate this “ affair” giving to a mortal enemy vital information.

But we must believe that vital software is now in the Iranian hands and there is not alternative to the implementation of a new generation of weapons.
As told we consider it as part of a struggle of power between different powers in the USA, (and not only), that is forging new political assets. Something we have yet mentioned talking about the NSA´s.

This and only this is the key. For the rest let the Iranian intelligence to share an empty shell with anyone they want.

… alea jacta est ?

Paolo Dealberti ©2011
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