The video provides an in-depth analysis of recent military developments in the Middle East, focusing on the escalating tensions in northern Gaza, the Jabalia refugee camp, and particularly, a significant drone attack on an Israeli military base by Hezbollah. The discussion includes the strategic military implications of these events, the tactical advances being employed by Hezbollah, such as overwhelming existing defense systems like the Iron Dome, and the growing challenge posed by drone warfare.

It explores the impacts of evolving drone technology on modern warfare, highlighting how unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are adapting in range, payload, and stealth capacity to become more effective in asymmetric warfare contexts. The video contrasts the drone's penetration tactics with historical countermeasures, like those used during WWII, and outlines the current limitations and future prospects of defense systems against such advanced aerial threats.

Main takeaways from the video:

Please remember to turn on the CC button to view the subtitles.

Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. deterioration [dɪˌtɪriəˈreɪʃən] - (noun) - The process of becoming progressively worse. - Synonyms: (decline, worsening, degeneration)

The deterioration in northern Gaza and that worsening situation in the Jabalia refugee camp.

2. asymmetric warfare [ˌæsɪˈmɛtrɪk ˈwɔːrˌfɛr] - (noun phrase) - A type of conflict where opposing groups have unequal resources or capabilities. - Synonyms: (unbalanced warfare, unconventional warfare, guerilla warfare)

What this week's drone attack has highlighted significantly is the major threat that the IDF now face given this sort of asymmetric warfare.

3. payload [ˈpeɪloʊd] - (noun) - The carrying capacity of an aircraft or ship, including cargo and passengers. - Synonyms: (cargo, load, freight)

It's got a range of about 120km, a payload of up to 40kg of explosives.

4. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (Uav) [ˌʌnˈmænd ˈɛriəl ˈviːəkl] - (noun phrase) - An aircraft operated without a human pilot on board. - Synonyms: (drone, unmanned aircraft, remote-controlled aircraft)

UAVs, as you call them in the business.

5. countermeasure [ˈkaʊntəˌmɛʒə] - (noun) - An action or device designed to counter another action or device. - Synonyms: (counteraction, defense, safeguard)

I think the important bit of that is it can also fly very low and very slow, which makes it harder to counter.

6. radar cross section [ˈreɪdɑr krɔs ˈsɛkʃən] - (noun phrase) - A measure of how detectable an object is with radar. - Synonyms: (radar signature, radar visibility, radar detectability)

It's got a low radar cross section.

7. force projection [fɔːrs prəˈdʒɛkʃən] - (noun phrase) - A nation’s ability to project military power at a distance. - Synonyms: (military reach, power extension, strategic projection)

They can deter and provide force projection and significant effect inside Ukraine with this capability.

8. surveillance [sərˈveɪləns] - (noun) - Close observation, especially of a suspected spy or criminal. - Synonyms: (monitoring, observation, scrutiny)

The Russians launched 1300 drones inside Ukrainian territory in September for intelligence surveillance and gathering.

9. kamikaze [ˌkæmɪˈkɑːzi] - (adjective) - Related to or resembling the Japanese World War II tactic of suicide attacks from aircraft loaded with explosives. - Synonyms: (suicidal, sacrificial, self-destructive)

They're calling it a suicide drone, but that doesn't really make sense because there's no one flying it inside it. So more sort of a kamikaze style attack.

10. swarm [swɔːrm] - (noun) - A large or dense group moving in a mass. - Synonyms: (horde, flock, multitude)

Plus they're launching many, many, many drones, which is called swarming.

How drone technology is changing warfare - BBC News

A lot has happened since we last did this, some of which we had anticipated in the earlier editions of the Security brief. The deterioration in northern Gaza and that worsening situation in the Jabalia refugee camp. The time that has passed between Iran's ballistic missile attack and the subsequent Israeli response. We told you two weeks ago it might be delayed until Israel's missile defense supplies have been replenished. We've just seen this week the deployment with 100 US troops of an American high altitude anti missile system known as Thaad. And that brings us to the other big story this week. Hezbollah's surprise attack on a military base near Haifa with a uav, a drone. Four soldiers killed, dozens more injured with a drone that somehow penetrated the Israeli defense system.

One of the biggest attacks on an IDF position in over a year of fighting. With me to discuss, as ever, our resident analyst, former senior British officer Mikey Kay, who for 20 years flew assault helicopters for the RAF. He is a former strategic military planner. And if you followed us before, you will know that we do this as he would deliver it within the armed forces. Good to see you. Obviously, we've talked before on the program about how the Israelis have dismantled the Hezbollah leadership and yet they are still able to fire these rockets and the drones.

Why? Well, they're still firing rockets which are not guided fairly indiscriminate. But I think what this week's drone attack has highlighted significantly is the major threat that the IDF now face given this sort of asymmetric warfare, if you like, that Western forces have seemingly found quite difficult to counter. Let me go slide, please. If we just take a look at this week's attack, I think there's a couple of significant points about it. The first one being that it was roughly 40 miles inside of Israeli territory. And I think that that makes it significant when it comes to Israel defending against attacks on, you know, some of its elite units. This was the Golan Brigade. They are the special special forces unit with inside the IDF. And as you say, it killed four and injured over 60.

So. So that's significant. UAVs, as you call them in the business. Unmanned aerial vehicle, drone. To the rest of us, they're an ever evolving dynamic of the battlefield. Do we know what type of drones they have, what this one was and what sort of capability the group has? Yeah, well, we'll come to sort of the breadth of the technology a little bit later on in the security brief. But what's interesting about this is analysts are calling or Identifying UAV as the Mersad one. Slide please. So the Merced one is an Iranian developed drone. It's very small and lightweight in comparison to some of the bigger drones that we'll see later on. It's got a range of about 120km, a payload of up to 40kg of explosives. So you can see the devastation that, you know, flying one of these drones into a target can create.

The IDF is saying that it actually launched two projectiles on the target before actually going into the target. They're calling it a suicide drone, but that doesn't really make sense because there's no one flying it inside it. So more sort of a kamikaze style attack. It does have a top speed of about 370km. But I think the important bit of that is it can also fly very low and very slow, which makes it harder to counter. And the last bit of I think important information is it's got a low radar cross section. And a radar cross section is the thing that any targeting radar or any search radar will look at and try to try to identify a potential target.

Now what this strike tells us, which I think is very interesting, is that yes, the leadership has been taken out, Nizra Nizala has been taken out, but the IDF still have the ability to launch rockets and launch attacks like we've seen with this drone. So they've still got intelligence gathering capability and the command and control structure seems to be in place. But critically, when it comes to how the drone got through Iron Dome and the layered defense system is interesting because Hezbollah and the IDF are saying this is that they're using a tactic where they basically overwhelm the Iron Dome system with rockets and then place these drones underneath it, which makes it harder to target. Right.

So when they talked about altitude, it wasn't per se the altitude itself. It was the fact that it was coming in perhaps at a different altitude than a volley of missiles that was coming with it. Right. With a lower radar cross section of a missile and a lower speed of a missile, which is what the targeting systems will look for. They'll look for speed and they'll look for direction of the target. And Iron Dome will only take out a missile if it knows that it's projecting onto a specific target that could be lethal for the idf.

That's really interesting. I mean, when you look at this, what are you seeing in terms of the development of this drone technology? And in particular in the two major wars that we're focusing on, the one in the Middle east, and of course, the one in Ukraine.

Yeah. Two of the buzzwords that you'll hear when talking about drones. Drones is obviously a very generic term, are rps, which is a remotely piloted system. So there are Predator drones over Iraq that are flown by US forces inside the States. The US and there are UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles, which could have a controller, but also could be GPS guided and not have a controller and not have that ability to. To interrupt what's called the radio frequency signal between a controller that you'd see on a drone and the actual drone itself.

Right, okay, so can you give us some examples of that? I mean, can you talk us through maybe some of the things that we've seen from the theaters in both wars?

Yeah, I think there are four categories that are really important to look at, but actually, this idea of using an autonomous weapon goes back a long, long way. And if we go to World War II, for example. Slide. This is the V1 rocket, the Nazi V1 rocket, and it was nicknamed the Doodle Bug, which was used to great effect. And the Nazis would effectively. Obviously there's no GPS inside that, but the Nazis would calculate how much fuel would needed to go in, and then when the fuel ran out somewhere over London, the V1 would just drop out of the sky and indiscriminately hit what was below it.

Grandparents used to talk about that. You'd hear it buzzing and then it would just stop. That's right. And that's when it fell. Yeah. Frightening. I mean, if you're underneath it. And the only way to count it. Later on in the segment, we will talk about the conventional uses of counter drone technology and what's out there in the future. But if you can go next, slide, please.

What the British Royal Air Force were doing, that's a Spitfire on the right and a V1 rocket on the left. And the only way that the Royal Air Force back in the day could actually counter that is by flying alongside the V1 and actually tipping the wing to put it off track and putting it into the countryside. And even today, there's this lack of counter drone technology, which we'll come to a bit later.

The Houthis are using it to quite good effect. The Houthis are. In fact. This is a good time to look at the spectrum of capability, if you like. And if you can go slide, please. This is the Black Hornet, and you can just see how small that drone is in the hands of that operator. It's 16 centimeters long. It has an ability to put a day camera on it and a night thermal camera on it.

And this will really come into its own. When you look at urban operations, look at soldiers operating in an urban environment. So, you know, they want to clear a block of houses, apartments, you can put this thing inside any room within those apartments or that building and that will clear any imminent threat before the troops go in. And then we upscale a little bit, we go to the next sort of category, Category two if you like.

Slide, please. Which is, viewers may recognize that that is a Chinese made DJI drone called the Quadcopter because it's got four rotors. And this is available all over the world to commercial filmmakers to surveying capability or just people using it for their own personal use. This is actually a photograph taken from Ukraine. And the Ukrainians have actually now weaponized this quadcopter, as you can see, and put a bomb on the bottom of it which does have devastating effect. And we've got some video footage a little bit later on of that.

Then we go to category three. Let's go back to the Mersad one. Slide please. This is now sort of, you see the rotor blades have now disappeared. Now you've got more of a fixed wing effect. So again, incredibly capable. Travels at 370 kilometers an hour, can go up to 3,000 meters. You can put a 40 kilogram payload in the top of it. But what this does is that it gives it range now. So now you're starting to bring range into it. 120km is significant.

When you look at the strike, which is 40 miles south of the Israeli border, that's almost double the capability of what this drone can do. Very low tech, very low radar cross section and can move slow, which makes it harder to, harder to target and detect.

And then sort of the, finally the upscale end, if you like, of drone technology. Slide please. This is the Triton, which is a replacement for the US Global Hawk system. What's really significant about this is it's got an altitude of 50,000ft, which is way higher than any civilian airline. It will fly at 30 hours endurance.

And what this does, it does ISR and targeting, so intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and target tracking as well. And this is currently in use with the US military for anti maritime operations. So you know, the breadth of where this capability has come from, right from that black Hornet at the very beginning all the way through to commercially made up to, you know, this type of capability. This has come about in the last 10 years and it's phenomenal.

You said you had some video. Can we See it in operation.

Yeah, there's some examples. Operation. Let's take a look at this video. First slide, please. This is a warship targeting a Houthi drone. And the Houthis are actually using drones to significant effect targeting shipping, commercial shipping, targeting destroyers, naval weapons.

And you can just see through that video that again, you know, this sort of Western lag and the ability to be able to take out drones is, is really hurting the west at the moment. Someone's actually watching that. This is the remote, this is the remote application you're talking about. Someone's flying it. Exactly. Well, yeah, someone could be either flying it or it could be GPS guided. So if it's GPS guided, then you don't have that radio frequency signal that you can interrupt, which would be a counter, but you can't with these.

Plus they're launching many, many, many drones, which is called swarming. So if you've got, you know, a couple of rockets that are available, then, you know, that's great. But if you've got 20, 20 drones and you only take out five, it only takes one to get through. And I think that is what is providing Western forces with a bit of a nightmare at the moment.

There was a Reuters report that we saw, I think in the last week, Russia now sourcing a lot of its technology from the Chinese. How much of a focus is this now for Moscow and what does that mean for the rest of the defense industry?

Well, I mean, I think some, some statistics coming out of Ukraine at the moment, Ukraine have lost 10,000 drones alone in the month of September. And again, information from Ukraine, The Russians launched 1300 drones inside Ukrainian territory in September. So the reliance on drone technology, whether it's for intelligence surveillance and gathering, or whether it's used as a, as a kamikaze style targeting capability, the Russians have now realized that actually, you know, they can deter and provide force projection and significant effect inside Ukraine with this capability.

So now they're outsourcing and it's from the European Intelligence agency that the sources came from for this Reuters article, and basically outsourcing a weapons program for drones inside China. So the Chinese are now in on this. And as you go back, the Chinese have got a lot of experience in this because of the DJI drone and the technology that's gone into that and made that so prolific. And I guess the big powers who've invested so much money in their defense systems are watching this slightly aghast at how fast it's advancing.

I mean, just coming back to that, that attack in Israel in Benjamin, how do you defend against, against the use of drones, particularly if they're coming in, as you say, in a swarm with great difficulty. And there's been a huge lag in counter drone capability that the west are slowly starting to keep up with. But it's a, it's a tit for tat game at the moment.

There are conventional aspects that are being used to target drones. So for example, the UK launched a mission against Houthi targets from Royal Air Force Akatura using Typhoons. A very good source has informed me that two ASRAM missiles. Slide please. I'll show you what an ASRA missile looks like. That's a advanced short range air to air missile and that has an IR seeker head, has a pretty good range on it. Two of those were launched by Typhoons to take out Houthi drones.

But as we spoke about earlier, if you've got 20 Houthi drones in the air, then this is going to be a really difficult thing to counter. Those aircraft can carry I think about four ASRAAMs and those units, those missiles are north of 200,000 a pop. The next layer of defense which could be used is what's called the C ram, the counter rocket artillery mortar.

These systems slide. If we can just go to a bit of footage please. Oh yeah, okay. That's the C RAM in use and they put it on strategic locations like Baghdad International Airport. It was used against an attack, attack in Iraq on the US Embassy for example. And it works on a hose pipe system effectively. So it'll just put loads and loads and loads of bullets in the air, all radar tracked in a hope the slew will take out the artillery or the rocket or the mortar that has been fired in.

It's a supremely advanced system but you know, with the generic use of drones you can't put these systems everywhere. So you are tied to strategic locations. And as we saw, drones can get into cafes, houses, apartment blocks. So that's not going to be significant. Now back to your point on the compact laser weapon system. This is where the future is going in terms of counter drone. Slide please. This has been made by Boeing and it's effectively a 5 kilowatt laser to defeat drones. Now up to 600 kilograms.

And now you're sort of getting into the Merced 1 range. It's a layered defense system. So the first thing it'll look at, one of the things it'll look at is the radio frequency. So if the UAV has been controlled, that will have to have a radar radio frequency to control, it can disrupt that if it's autonomous, the UAV with a GPS guided system, then you'll. Then you're starting to look at what's called a ATP radar, which is acquire, track and point. That will then be used to slew a laser beam onto the drone. And what this capability can do, the clws, is it can target many, many drones.

So this swarming capability, where all you need is one to get through this is where it really comes into its own. Now, what's interesting about this, Christian, is it's got a range of 650ft to 1.6 miles. That is key because the Iron Dome system has a range from 2.5 miles to 40 miles. And as we know, the Merced one managed to get through the Iron Dome system and attack its target. So with a little bit of anticipation of what we might see in the future, it wouldn't surprise me if this capability, which has only been deployed with the United States Marine Corps, who have recently proved it in trials in Saudi Arabia, it wouldn't surprise me if we see this compact laser weapon system with the IDF in the coming weeks and coming months.

Have you asked anything about it?

I think we should. I'm not sure we'll get the answer we want. It's a long step forward though, isn't it, from tipping the wing of a V1.

My goodness. It shows you how quickly it's advancing. That was an education and I think it will give people context for what, what they're looking at when they, when they hear about these attacks. In particular the one we saw in the last week. Mikey, as ever, thank you very much indeed.

Technology, Innovation, Global, Military Strategy, Drone Warfare, Middle East Conflict, Bbc News