One of the more interesting questions emerging from the current confrontation with Iran is not simply whether Western forces can defeat the drone-air threat technically, but whether western naval operating culture has drifted into the same mindset that caused massive Russian naval losses in Ukraine.
Through open-source media it can be observed with a trained eye that Iran is fighting an air war like Ukraine; they are leaning on massed drones and decentralised strike systems to place overwhelming pressure on high-value and high PR targets. What this means is that western attacking forces, potentially including the Royal Navy should HMS Dragon join the fray, are fighting like Russia at sea. By relying heavily on a small number of expensive, high-visibility platforms in littoral waters, that carry enormous strategic and political risk if they are lost. Fighting like a Russian is not necessarily a bad thing; the question is though: is America fighting like Russia in 2022, or Russia in 2026? What does that mean for the UK?
Iranian drone warfare today looks strikingly similar to the tactics Ukraine adopted to repel Russian threats from sea. Both nations in that conflict rely heavily on inexpensive systems sometimes classed as loitering munitions1 such as the Shahed family of weapon systems, or locally produced clones of similar tech, which, while rudimentary, can carry modest warheads and become dangerous when launched in large numbers. The strategic logic behind these systems is simple: they are cheap and used in huge numbers to overwhelm and expend conventional air defence by attrition alone. Rather than relying on a single decisive strike, the attacker (or defender depending on your viewpoint) launches large, low, slow, drone salvos to saturate defensive systems, forcing them to expend their small stock of exquisite interceptor missiles (originally designed to fend of ballistic missiles or shoot down fighter jets) with the eventual result that some percentage of the barrage will get through.
Over the last few years lessons have been learned; rather than attempting to intercept every incoming drone with high-end missiles, Russian and Ukrainian forces have constructed a ground based layered defensive ecosystem built from a mixture of electronic warfare, anti-aircraft guns, interceptor drones and short-range missiles. This approach deliberately inverts the cost equation. Cheap threats are countered with relatively cheap defensive tools wherever possible, preserving expensive systems for the most dangerous incoming targets.
Iran and neighbouring Gulf states appear to have absorbed and applied many of the same lessons here in defence and counterattack. The Iranian drone arsenal and industrial base is estimated to be huge, facilitating the evolution of a strategic strike capability without relying on traditional air power. Tehran is still able to project force using large numbers of weapons launched from land or dispersed platforms. The result is a form of warfare that is financially imbalanced. Iran risks very little financially or politically when a drone is destroyed, but Allied Naval forces risk significant cost and embarrassment if even one weapon gets through.
The attack on Akrotiri
A small detail from recent reporting illustrates the point rather well. The incident at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus reportedly involved a single drone striking a hanger. Taken at face value, that is operationally unusual. In the doctrinal playbook of drones, developed through both Russian and Ukrainian drone operations, and copied by Iranian proxies, attacks are almost never conducted with a solitary system. Shahed-style weapons are designed to be launched in groups precisely because their effectiveness relies on numbers. Multiple drones are typically sent along slightly different trajectories in order to dilute radar coverage and force air-defence operators to make rapid engagement priority decisions.
“Western naval doctrine still revolves around relatively small numbers of extremely capable and extremely expensive ships.”
A lone drone is therefore something of an anomaly within the established pattern of employment. There are several possible explanations. It could have been a reconnaissance probe intended to test radar coverage and reaction times before a larger strike. It could have been a navigation failure within a larger wave. Or it may simply have been an opportunistic launch rather than a coordinated attack. But the episode still illustrates how the threat environment has shifted, with a single crude drone penetrating deep enough to create headlines and raise uncomfortable questions about western defensive postures.
Public opinion appears to have disregarded the question of where Akrotiri’s ground based air defence was for the moment and concentrated instead on the noticeable lack of Royal Navy presence, especially given the assumed utility of the Type 45 Air Defence Destroyer. Western naval doctrine still revolves around relatively small numbers of extremely capable and extremely expensive ships. A Type 45 destroyer represents an extraordinary concentration of capability: advanced SAMPSON MFR Radar, x48 ASTER air defence missiles and command facilities capable of controlling a vast battlespace. But it is also a limited billion-pound asset that carries immense symbolic weight. The destruction of such a ship would instantly become a global political and media event.
This dynamic has historical precedent. One of the defining naval moments of the Ukraine war was the sinking of the Russian cruiser Moskva in 2022 after being struck by Neptune sea skimming missiles while being distracted by USVs in the black sea. Following this successful raid Ukraine used relatively modest anti-ship missiles, UAVs and USVs to sink and damage a wide range Russian Frigates before a change in Russian tactics removed the opportunity. The loss of a large, iconic warship demonstrated that modern rudimentary weapons could destroy major naval assets with ease and instantly dominate the global narrative of a conflict.
The imagery of war
The informational dimension of warfare has grown even more powerful since then. Modern combat is fought across the social media environment to weaponise opinion. Images and video circulate instantly and shape perceptions of success or failure far beyond the physical scale of the event itself. The United States still understands the power of highly visible naval destruction. That dynamic was evident again only days ago in the Indian Ocean. On 4 March 2026, a US Navy attack submarine fired a Mark 48 torpedo that struck and sank the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena in international waters roughly 40 nautical miles off the coast of Galle, Sri Lanka. The ship, which had recently taken part in an international naval exercise hosted by India, went down after the torpedo impact, killing at least 87 sailors while 32 survivors were rescued by Sri Lankan authorities.
Footage of the event quickly acquired a public dimension. The US Department of War released footage of the attack showing the torpedo strike and the violent explosion that followed beneath the hull of the Iranian vessel. The images circulated widely as the broader conflict between the United States and Iran expanded beyond the Middle East into the Indian Ocean.
The important point is not the mechanics of those engagements but the informational effect. Naval combat is uniquely visual. A burning warship produces images that travel around the world instantly and carry enormous psychological weight. The sinking of Moskva illustrated how quickly such imagery can reshape the narrative of a conflict.
The back seat fleet
Russia appears to have drawn a lesson from that event. Since the loss of Moskva, the Russian Navy has largely kept its major surface combatants well away from the Ukrainian coastline. Rather than risk additional high-profile losses, Russian doctrine in the Black Sea has shifted toward operating at greater distance, relying on aircraft, drones and land-based missile systems to project power while keeping its most visible platforms out of the most dangerous engagement zones. The reasons are no great secret, just simple maths: 48 missiles can only offer a defence for so long against 400 drones. The Russian fleet still exists, but it is cornered from the fight, deliberately being preserved rather than risked.
That pattern is obvious when observing Western naval deployments in environments where drone and missile saturation is a credible threat. The absence of a British Type 45 destroyer in certain theatres feels, superficially, reminiscent of the Russian approach post Moskva. This does not necessarily reflect weakness or incapacity. It may instead reflect a very rational appreciation of the physical and political risks attached to deploying highly visible and highly capable – but limited – assets into environments where huge numbers of crude weapons can produce overwhelming effects. The ships are capable of shooting down enemy drones (although their defences were designed with higher, faster missiles in mind), but faced with incoming ordnance by the thousand, it’s only a matter of time before they take a hit.
The dilemma facing modern naval planners
If a warship is not deployed into a contested environment, the political cost may be criticism for caution or a perceived lack of commitment. Yet if a warship is deployed and then lost in a sea of fire – broadcast to the world via Sky News – to a barrage of relatively inexpensive weapons, then the mass loss of life, and political damage, will be far greater.
In that sense the comparison between Iran and Ukraine becomes revealing. Both actors rely heavily on distributed strike systems designed to erode the advantages of larger conventional forces operated by both Russian and Western Navies. Iran and Ukraine accept the loss of individual drones or missiles as a routine cost of operations. The side using cheap weapons en-mass can afford to lose them all if needs be in pursuit of a single successful strike. However, the side operating billion-pound warships cannot make the same calculation.
“The absence of a British Type 45 destroyer does not necessarily reflect weakness or incapacity. It may instead reflect a very rational appreciation of the physical and political risks attached to deploying a highly visible and highly capable – but limited – asset”
None of this means that modern destroyers are obsolete or incapable of defending themselves. Ships like the Type 45 remain among the most capable air-defence platforms ever built, equipped with sophisticated radar and missile systems designed to intercept large numbers of aerial threats. When operating as part of a task group with layered air defence and electronic warfare support they are extremely competent combatants. The difficulty of saturation emerges when those ships operate within reach of large numbers of low-cost weapons. Even highly capable systems have limits to the number of targets they can engage simultaneously and the number of missiles and bullets they can carry at once.
To the broader strategic question. If Iran has learned from Ukraine how to wage asymmetric drone warfare, Western navies must ensure they are not unconsciously drifting into the role Russia occupied in the early years of their conflict: defending a handful of high-value platforms against waves of cheap systems designed to expose vulnerabilities. Whether that dynamic explains particular deployment decisions is impossible to determine from outside government planning circles. But the strategic dilemma is increasingly clear. In the era of drone warfare and distributed strike systems, the greatest risk to a modern warship may not simply be its physical loss, but the narrative shockwave that follows. Iran has backed Western governments into a corner. Refuse to send a warship to certain peril and the accusation becomes weakness or retreat. But send one and risk something potentially worse: a billion pound UK mass casualty event burning on the front page of every newspaper after being hit by the kind of cheap systems shaping the conflict. Politically, either outcome carries the scent of failure. In that sense the strategy is quietly effective. Far from the battlefield itself, Iran has engineered a situation in which Western governments are forced to wrestle with a no-win decision. Commit political suicide by not showing up or commit political suicide by showing up and losing in full view of the world. Either way, the pressure is no longer military; it sits squarely inside Western political decision-making.
ENDNOTES
1. The Shahed-136 is commonly classified as a loitering munition, though some analysts describe it as a “one-way attack UAV.” Loitering munitions are unmanned systems launched like drones that carry a warhead and destroy themselves on impact with a target. The Shahed-136 fits this definition because it is an expendable UAV designed to strike targets by self-detonation. However, unlike many traditional loitering munitions that circle and search for targets using onboard sensors, the Shahed-136 typically flies to pre-programmed coordinates using GPS/INS guidance, meaning it sometimes behaves more like a slow, low-cost cruise missile. For this reason, it is often described as a system that blurs the line between loitering munition and cruise missile in modern military classifications. For this reason the Shahed is often referred to as a ‘One-Way-Attack-Drone’, avoiding categorisation as a loitering munition or missile.
