Modern warfare

The West has become its own worst enemy

From our UK edition

On 27 January 2024, Iranian-backed militants launched a one-way attack drone at the US base known as Tower 22 in the Syria-Iraq borderlands. It hit and killed three American soldiers and injured many other members of the 350-strong garrison. The attack was a pivotal moment. Before it, no US ground troops had been killed by an enemy aircraft since the Korean War. But they had been now, and would be again. Two years later, a similar attack, this time by Iran itself, evaded US air defences, hit a US command centre in Kuwait and killed six personnel. It was the deadliest Iranian strike of the recent conflict. Steve Feldstein is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an expert on technology, democracy and national security and an award-winning author.