Jacob Shapiro: Hello listeners.
Welcome to another episode of the Jacob Shapiro podcast.
Sorry for the brief, uh, hiatus.
It was not intentional.
Just had some guest cancel, some personal life.
Things come up, but we're back at it.
Um, after the Ukrainian drone attack on Russia, I had to get sim on the
podcast as quickly as possible because I have been very, uh, spun up on this.
Uh, and sim was a nice sober corrective.
He told me some of the ways that I was right to.
Feel this way, but also was like, Hey, Jacob, like, read it back a little bit.
It's not like, it's not like, uh, fundamentally earth shattering either.
So, um, I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did.
I always learn so much when I, when I talk to sim and the folks of his ilk.
You can write to me@jacobatjacob.com if you have any questions, comments,
concerns, et cetera about the podcast.
Otherwise, we've got a full slate of guests coming up for this month.
So buckle your seat belts, uh, cheers and see you up.
All right, SIM it's been too long since, uh, you were on the podcast, which
by the way, I think, um, reflects the general level of fatigue around the
Russia, Ukraine war, the ongoing war.
Like even I have gotten fatigued by some of the news around it.
Um, and so we haven't had you on recently to check in.
And then lo and behold, last week, the Ukrainians, uh, pull, pull
a real rabbit out of their hat.
Um, they.
They attack Russia with what?
Over a hundred drones.
Uh, the reporting I've seen, you know, the drones cost like, you know,
a couple hundred dollars per drone.
Um, and they destroy somewhere between, I don't know, uh, a fourth and a third
of Russia strategic bomber fleet.
Like those are some of the statistics that I've seen.
Um, and for me, it made me stand up in my, or sit up in my chair, stand
up in my chair too, uh, and rethink.
You know, the global military balance of power.
What does this mean for great conventional powers versus asymmetric?
Um.
Attacks from smaller powers that are next to them.
Uh, it's hard not to think of the Israeli attack on Hezbollah with the pagers.
And it's hard not to think of the Houthis just chilling there and Yemen like still
bombing whatever they wanna bomb, even though Biden and Trump have both tried to
scare them and bomb them into submission.
Um, so I wanted to have you on to ask.
You, I mean, we can talk about, and I'm sure we'll get into sort of the tactical
aspects of the Russia, Ukraine war, because even with this massive Ukrainian
success, it doesn't look like things are going particularly well for Ukraine.
And Russia's been using drones to its own, uh, to its own, you know,
great effect on their side and seizing territory from Ukraine.
But tell me, as somebody who follows this, this stuff much more granularly
than I do, was it a similar Oh shit moment for you, or was it like.
Yeah, this is like, they just, I mean, yeah, it's a, it's a higher value target.
Like they upped the ante a little bit, but this is what we've been seeing
for years, and this is gonna be, is continued gonna be the future of war.
So take that, whatever direction you want and we can dive into what all this means.
Sim Tack: Yeah.
Thank you fir First of all, thank you for, uh, for having me again.
Um, so on, on the attack itself, um, I, I think it definitely stands out as.
Um, an anomalous operation, right?
Both in the way that it was set up and the effects that it achieved.
Um, so it's, you know, we've seen a lot of back and forth attacks with
drones, but not quite like this, right?
Not these type of targets, not this type of simultaneous reach, uh, across Russia.
Um, one big thing maybe to start at, uh, to address is you, you were
mentioning you've seen a lot of those.
Statistics numbers being thrown around.
Initially I think the, the Ukrainian SBU was claiming 41 aircraft destroyed.
Mm-hmm.
Um, you know, people making calculations, that's this percentage of the
strategic fleet, et cetera, et cetera.
Um, so obviously one of the first things that, that I've been
doing, one of the things I've been looking at for the past week is.
Um, the satellite imagery coming out of those different bases that were struck
right, or allegedly struck, um, because there were five air bases inside Russia
that were initially mentioned, four main ones where there were some indications
that that strikes actually taken place.
Um, so the interesting thing is that at least in satellite imagery.
We can only observe damage to aircraft in two of those air bases.
The other air bases might have been attacked.
I can't rule that out, but there's no indications of that.
There's no visible damage to aircraft, there's no burnt down plots of grass or
foliage as we see at the other places where the explosives set that off.
Um, so you know that that's the first kind of dampener on, on just.
The scale of, of this operational, at least the scale of its success.
Um, second to that is when we look at those two air fields where there was
actually damage observed, the number of aircraft that was destroyed gets
nowhere near the, the number of 41 that Ukrainian sources initially alleged.
Um, I think all combined we've got, um.
11 aircraft that were completely destroyed.
Uh, seven, uh, I'm just gonna check the numbers, make sure
I'm saying the right thing.
But yeah, seven T 95 Bear bombers.
Um, and then four TU 22, uh, which are, uh, the, the jets versus the, um, uh,
the bear, which are the, the big kind of B 52 ish looking, uh, aircraft.
Um.
So four to 20 twos, and then there's two additional T 20 twos, one that
in satellite imagery we can see it was at least damaged, uh, to one of
the wings, not completely destroyed.
Um, and then there's another to 22 that was likely critically damaged
based on some of the, some of the videos that Ukraine's put out.
So there's, there's one aircraft that's not among the others that we could see
in satellite imagery where you can see.
Some distinct damage behind the cockpit, uh, to diffuse lodge, um, which likely
makes it in a critical condition, needing some, some very serious repairs,
uh, if, if not a full write off.
So, um, you know, all combined, we're, we're talking about, um,
uh, about 13 of these, uh, of these bombers, these strategic
bombers that are out of action.
At least now one big caveat is, you know, there might be damage to some
other bombers that wasn't, um, easily observed in, in satellite imagery
that wasn't proven in the videos.
So there, there might be additional damage, but that number of 13 is
already several, um, several degrees lower than the, the 41 and the huge
percentages of that bomber fleet.
Um, even in, in those.
Individual air bases, there were many more aircraft that were not
hit than, than that were hit.
Right.
So, um, that's just an, an important thing.
So, um, when people are talking about what this means for the, you know,
nuclear balance of power in the world, um, obviously this has some effect,
but I don't think that this is a qualitative shift where, where Russia,
Russia's nuclear deed is suddenly.
Um, suddenly inoperable because of the loss of, of these aircraft.
Right.
I, I also don't think that, um, you know, something that a lot of people have
been talking about online is the, the potential threat to us strategic bombers,
uh, from similar type of drone attacks.
I, I also don't think that, um, that this attack necessarily shows that.
Uh, bombers are extremely weak or that would need to completely rethink
how bombers fit into the nuclear triad and, and, and things like that.
Um, so I, I think there's, there's a lot of, a lot of big talk, big
reactions to a very exciting operation.
Um, but I think as things calm down, we, we haven't strayed too far from the norm.
Jacob Shapiro: Okay.
That's, that's a good sober corrective.
Um, let's, um, let's dive into a little bit more, 'cause I, I wanna
talk about the US bombers and the nuclear deterrent and everything
else, and I have questions about that.
But let's talk about just the nature of the attack itself.
Um, so taking, taking your point that, um, at least what we know based on the
satellite imagery and the data that you've been able to gather, maybe not as big an
attack as what the Ukrainian said, um, but is it, is the quality of even if it was
only two bases, and even if it is only.
13, uh, you know, strategic bombers, that's 13 more than they were able
to bomb this entire war so far.
Is, is this a qualitative shift in the ability of smaller
powers to attack larger powers?
Does this give Ukraine some kind of long, long range, like strike
capability that it didn't have before?
Or to your point, is this really just like, hey, like the, the,
the fact that they have lowered the numbers, um, suggests that
this is just, uh, relatively.
Relatively normal.
It seems not normal to me 'cause I can't think of Ukraine being able to
do, you know, if, if even a quarter of what they've claimed is true.
That seems like a big deal to me.
Are you saying that well, even that's not that big of a deal?
Or are you, are you sort of correcting down from the numbers but saying No,
this still represents a transformative moment in the history of war?
Sim Tack: Uh, I don't believe it's a transformative moment, um,
because this threat has existed.
Right.
We, we have seen.
Similar kinds of drone attacks.
Um, uh, I think it was 2008, 2009, when, when we had those,
uh, alleged assassination drones targeting Maduro in, in Venezuela.
We've seen Israel use, um, these kind of quadcopter, explosive
laden drones, uh, for attacks.
So the idea of using these kind of drones to.
To attack military targets is, is definitely not new.
Um, what stands out about this operation is how close they managed to get
inside Russia, far behind enemy lines.
'cause that's where these bombers live, right?
They, they sit at airfields that are nowhere near the front line.
So your, your other systems with more limited range cannot get there.
Um, I mean, these drones themselves have fairly limited range.
You physically have to get next to the airport to be
able to conduct these strikes.
So what sets this operation apart is the, the nature of it as an
intelligence operation, right?
It's, it's the, the infiltration of Russia, it's the preparation of the
equipment, the, you know, a lot of people talking about the, the wooden
boxes on the, on the trucks, et cetera.
Um, it's, it's that kind of intelligence operation that allowed Ukraine
to get close to the air fields.
Then strike them simultaneously, which is an important element
because that starts to go into repeatability of an attack like this.
Why do you strike all these air airports or air bases at the same time?
Because you know, you might only get one shot, right?
Once you conduct an attack like that.
Russia is aware of this kind of operation.
They're gonna be on alert looking for Ukrainian infiltrate inside Russia.
Trucks showing up near air bases, things like that.
So doing the exact same thing over again is probably gonna be
more difficult in the future.
Um, and, and that I think is also the key reason why I don't see it
as a transformative event in the way war is conducted because, um,
these kind of one-off creative, clandestine, or intelligence operations,
whatever you want to call it.
Um, you're always going to have those in war.
They're, they're, you know, the product of creative approaches to, to real problems.
Um, but if something is not a, a threat or a capability that is
sustainable, um, I don't think it really reshapes the battlefield.
And, and that's the big thing here where yes, it's, it's great for
Ukraine that they were able to take out these aircraft and these aircraft.
Apart from being, uh, part of, of Russia's strategic force.
Uh, of course we're also very much engaged in launching, uh, precision missiles into
Ukraine, into western Ukraine, et cetera.
Um, so there's a very direct reason for Ukraine to want to
take out these air airplanes.
And, um, so their success is definitely not meaningless.
But I think in the longer term, this capability or this operation does not.
Deny Russia the use of those bombers.
For the duration of the conflict.
Jacob Shapiro: Mm-hmm.
Okay.
I, I, I wanna get to you Ukrainian.
We'll, we'll put a pin in that 'cause we'll come back to Ukrainian
intentions and the timing of this and all those other things.
Uh, but I want to push a little bit more on the nature of this attack, because you
raised, you know, Israel using drones.
Um, okay.
But Israel is going after, you know, non-state militias, maybe sort of
sclerotic, you know, authoritarian, uh, Arab regimes when it, when it has
those drones, Maduro like, okay, like some drones going after a single guy.
This is, you know, going after a country's conventional air force and.
Striking a meaningful blow against a, a country's conventional air force.
So in that way it seems like a huge escalation.
But you, what you might, I, I can hear you saying to me, okay, but that's
just a difference in degree, Jacob.
But let me give you a tangible example, um, to sort of test what you're saying.
Um, you know, one of the things I've sort of taken for granted, um, for.
I don't know.
Over a decade now, since you and and I, since you and I were together at
Stratford, I've taken for granted that Israel could never really
strike Iran's nuclear capability because it was just too far away.
Like the planes were, their planes couldn't get there.
They would need help refueling, or they would need some, you know, they would
need the United States or some other actor to help make a strike realistic.
And it wasn't clear that any actor was gonna support them.
And if they were, you were gonna see those actions before it happened.
So it wasn't gonna be that big of a secret.
Um.
Could that change?
Like can Israel use these drones that you've been talking about?
Not to just wipe out parking lots in the Gaza Strip, but to go after Iran's
nuclear program because that, like, that's where then that would be a sort
of change and the capability of a nation to conduct war, if it is or is this like,
well, not unless Jacob, they have the Mossad on the ground having recruited
Iranians who are actually controlling the things and doing the things.
So you would need the intel operation in order to pull it off
and maybe you only get one shot.
So, uh, react to that example for me.
Sim Tack: So they, they have done that, not, not necessarily with
these same kind of drone attacks, but um, that has been a massive part
of, of Israel's, um, efforts to, to contain, uh, Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Um, and I'm thinking specifically of the, the attacks against
Iranian nuclear scientists.
Um, so there, there's been.
I, I can't even think of the, the exact dates, but the, by
the time we met at Stratford, it was already ongoing for years.
Um.
But, uh, I, I don't know if you remember those, uh, those operations,
like where, where they use a remote controlled gun in, in the back of an
SUV to target a vehicle that was driving by, you know, a, a real, real action
movie type intelligence operation.
You know, um, so that, that sub happens.
And, and Israel is definitely leaning on that, especially
at times when they don't have.
Um, um, that conventional ability to just go in and wipe everything out.
Um, I would say more recently we have seen another major change, which is the
complete disappearance of the Syrian Air Defense Network due to mm-hmm.
Events that occurred in Syria and that, uh, Israel very swiftly exploited to
take out anything remotely, uh, uh, air defense capable in inside Syria,
because now this actually does leave.
Uh, Israel with a large, um, a, a, an open flight route from Israel towards.
Uh, towards Iran that it didn't have before.
Um, by which I mean to say like, like, yes, conditions change, right?
Things, things change.
Um, so as, as operations by Mossad inside Iran occur, maybe, maybe they do get
experience from this and they, they are able to launch some kind of drone based,
uh, attack against these facilities.
But where all of that eventually comes back, and I'm gonna.
Link it to another element of our days at Strat four, um, when we used
to, um, have the guys in the tactical team talk about, um, the attack cycle.
Remember that?
Mm-hmm.
Like the, the whole course, you know, you start with, with surveillance,
your, your preparation, et cetera, before the actual attack.
So there's, there's a lot of components that take place.
Before, you know, in those cases we're talking about terrorist attacks, but
I think the attack cycle looks very similar when we're talking about, um,
you know, Israeli operations inside Iran or Ukrainian operations inside Russia.
Um, and I think that's where Russia really dropped the ball.
Um, in, in these cases.
The, the fact that Ukraine was able to.
Get these, um, these systems assembled inside.
Russia was able to deploy them near air bases, was able to scout those air bases.
Um, that's where you would normally have expected them to
have gotten caught or discovered.
Right.
Um, and, and that's why when we're talking about the risk of similar kind of attacks
against Western Air bases, um, in, in the US in in other NATO countries, um.
I would expect, and I would hope that, um, security procedures are much,
much tighter, and that if you start to drive around an airbase that hosts B
two bombers multiple times in a, in a short timeframe, you would probably get
pulled over and you'd have some really tough questions to, uh, to answer.
Um, same thing with a truck suddenly appearing.
Um, my assumption would be that there is very active, um, scanning for, for
objects appearing that don't belong in the areas of these strategic facilities.
Um, I, I think those are all types of things that are less ingrained
in the, the kind of Soviet style security services in Russia.
So maybe that exposes them.
A little more to this kind of attack.
But then as that attack happens, of course, that that also means that the next
time you try to hit those bombers, you're gonna have to do it slightly differently.
So it becomes another new creative intelligence operation that you have
to set up and you might succeed.
But I think that still makes it like a one-off type of attack rather than, you
know, we're able to actually suppress that capability on the Russian side.
Jacob Shapiro: I think you're a little too sanguine of, at least in
the United States, about the, the thoroughness of the security here.
I mean, we're talking about a country that just a couple months ago accidentally
fired a bunch of the employees that were supposed to be working on nuclear
safety and then tried to hire them back.
I also, I don't know if you've seen the picture of this 22-year-old, uh,
who is now apparently being tasked with, um, heading up the Center
for Prevention Programs at DHS.
So like one of the primary like US departments for going after terrorism.
Was working.
I mean, no offense to those working in grocery stores, but he was in a
grocery store a year ago in his picture.
Like if I was a terrorist, and I'm looking at this picture on, um, the
Department of Homeland Securities website, I would be like, cool, like,
probably security's not so good here.
But, um, in, in any case, uh, I, I think though in your response,
like, yes, Israel has assassinated Iranian scientists by car bombs in
some of these other ways, but could Israel knock out Iranian air defense?
With a coordinated, huge, massive drone strike.
Could it take out a nuclear facility with drones?
Like that's the, the sort of leap.
And I guess another, I'll let you respond to that, but another sort of
test example for what you're talking about, and this is one that I think has
gotten a lot of currency and I'm, I'm curious to hear what your response is.
I mean, I'm, I'm on record as saying I don't think China is
gonna invade Taiwan anytime soon.
But let's say there's a naval conflict in the South China Sea and
China's on one side and the United States is on the other side of it.
Um.
United States, like key to its naval power is its aircraft carriers.
Uh, does using drones in this sort of manner basically just make the carriers
sitting ducks, like, I'm not thinking really about, oh, that the Chinese are
gonna use drones to attack us, you know, air assets inside of the United States.
But if you're in the South China Sea and you've got three carriers deployed.
What at this point, makes those key warriors?
Anything but sitting ducks for massive drone attacks from the Chinese, like that
seems another way in which this completely transformed the balance of power in,
in a conflict that we could imagine.
Sim Tack: I, I mean, I mean, that's a very good use case.
And there's, there's actually a very good recent example on the use of
drones in, in kind of a conventional setting outside of Ukraine.
Um.
One of the big things I wanna say is when I'm saying that this attack by
Ukraine is not a transformative event.
That doesn't mean that the drones by themselves are not
transformative in warfare, right?
I just don't think that this event is the big unveiling of a new
capability that changes things.
But you're absolutely right.
The existence of these small drones and growing capabilities in coordinating
these drones with other types of operations, using swans, et cetera,
things that have been theorized and and talked about and practiced for decades.
Um, but that are now becoming more practical knowledge as they're
being executed on the battlefields.
Right.
I, I do believe that is a big difference and, and, you know, a big threat
to any, any war fighter out there.
Um, now the example I wanted to to mention is that in, um, uh, in the, the current
kind of simmering troubles between, uh, Pakistan and India, um, there, there
was actually an incident recently.
Um, that I, I heard from some people, um, where, uh, Pakistan used a number
of regular civilian drones, um, without arming or anything, no explosives
involved, um, to go and harass, uh, Indian forces as a distraction.
So they were, they were literally just flying drones into Indian
troops and into their positions, um, to keep them occupied while.
Actually executing other, uh, operations at the same time.
Um, so even something as simple as that when you're talking about Israel
leveraging this to, um, um, suppress or, or destroy Iranian air defenses or China
leveraging it to, um, to, let's, let's say distract the defenses of a US carrier
group, uh, I think that's very feasible.
The, the question is, how, how are you actually going to conduct it?
There's a lot of ways that you can approach that.
Um, obviously these drones themselves don't have the range to go from mainland
China to wherever, uh, a US carrier group might be hanging out at open seas.
Um, but, you know, let, let's assume the Chinese are launching these drones
from, from somewhere in the water.
Maybe they're even carrying them all the way there in unmanned.
Uh, unmanned surface vessels.
Uh, which, you know, another thing that we've seen really growing in importance
in Ukraine, the way, the way that Ukraine has used those kind of vessels to even
take down aircraft, uh, from open sea.
Um, so people, people are using these, these remote operated platforms or,
or even autonomous platforms in really creative ways and, and obviously
that is going to change a lot.
About the ways that that wars are fought.
And I, I don't think there's even a limit to that.
Um, but I think that just becomes an, an, uh, an overall part of the, the
technological evolution of, of warfare.
Right?
Um, and it's not necessarily specifically targeted against those strategic assets
like, uh, like the nuclear bombers.
Um, it's, it's a more.
General, um, evolution of, of the level of technology that your, your
standard war fighter is employing.
Jacob Shapiro: Yeah.
Sim Tack: Does that make sense?
It does, it does.
A little bit of a
Jacob Shapiro: rant.
No, no, no.
You're this, you're, you're literally here to go on rants.
That's the whole point.
Um, uh, okay.
Well, one last example I wanna throw at you, and then I want to get into some
of the, well, actually, there's, there's two more conceptual questions I want to
ask you, and then we'll get into some of the specifics about Russia, Ukraine.
Um, you know, we talked about Israel, Iran, uh, it sounds to
me like you answered to China.
Taiwan was, yeah.
Actually, this does shake up how you would think about a
conflict in the South China Sea.
Uh, correct me if I'm wrong, you talked about India,
Pakistan using its distraction.
There's also, and, and this is the one where it starts to get very dystopian,
um, where this now empowers non-state actors in a way that pre drones, they
wouldn't necessarily have had that power.
I'm thinking specifically about Mexico, but you can imagine other examples
where you have groups like cartels who exist outside of the government, um, and
who have problems with the government.
Does this now give them some kind of capability to go after
the conventional assets of the.
Of the military, of the country that they're in.
The cartels have used drones already for assassinations and for attacks in,
you know, far flung areas and some of their turf wars and things like that.
Even attacks on local police.
But you haven't seen a Mexican cartel say, go after like a Mexican military
garrison or after a Mexican strategic air asset or something like that.
In part 'cause the conflict hasn't gotten there yet.
But does this, like if you are a country where you have a non-state actor or you
have a rebel group or something like that.
Does this, even the balance of power in some meaningful way, like should now,
like can a cartel or you know, a militant group in some country in the world,
like take this playbook and strike the conventional capacity of the government
they're, that they're going against?
Or am I reaching too far there?
Sim Tack: Again, I think all the things that you're saying all are correct
except for that one little part.
The, this now.
Part, right.
Where mm-hmm.
I, I think all of this has been the case for over a decade.
We've, we've seen the use of these kind of drones emerge and, and grow and
become more professional over the course of the Syrian Civil War, uh, Islamic
state operations in both Syria and Iraq.
Um, and from there, it, it has panned out to the rest of the world.
Ukraine has been another.
Kind of big, um, uplift in, in the level of those capabilities.
Um, but we've also seen that kind of, uh, the, the adaptation of those same
kind of drones in places like Sudan, um, Mexico, as you mentioned, the cartels
using those kind of drones, I, I think that capability is, is well, well known
and, and being adopted by anyone that.
That is trying to grasp at any means they can to try and gain
advantage over their, uh, opponents.
And I think it's not even just an asymmetric warfare element where, um,
even conventional forces and, and you know, Ukraine being the big example of
that, even conventional forces order stronger actors in a conflict even want
to adopt these kind of technologies because they're just so damn effective.
Um, and in, in.
Mexico.
I think one of the reasons why we haven't seen them go after air bases or, or to
sink the, the Mexican Navy is because those, those assets simply aren't
what's troubling the cartels, right?
You want to focus your efforts against the things that you're, uh,
you're actually being troubled by.
Um, now I would say if, if, if we go all the way back to, um.
Uh, the Islamic State in, in Syria and Iraq.
Um, I remember them using drones to attack Syrian air assets, for example.
Um, of course Syria doesn't have nuclear bombers, but, um, still taking down.
Uh, attack helicopters, well, not taking down, but destroying attack
helicopters on the ground, destroying fighter aircraft on the ground.
That was a pretty big win for them.
Um, but I would also add to that, that I don't remember any incidents
where Islamic State was able to target coalition air bases in the same way.
Um, because obviously those, those coalition air bases were.
Much farther removed spatially from the battle space, um, had different levels
of security than the, the Syrian one.
So I, I think that's kind of the, um, the, uh, the struggle, uh, or, or I guess
the balancing that is happening, right?
Where on the one hand you have this capability, these groans, but it's also
limited in, uh, in range and access.
Um, and then you can actually set up security procedures against it.
There's also a lot of counter drone weaponry these days.
Um, some of it focusing on detecting these drones early.
Uh, some of it focusing on, um, disrupting the communications,
disrupting, uh, control of these drones.
Um, and that actually kind of.
Points to some of the interesting elements in that whole arms race as well.
Where in Ukraine you see evolutions towards the use of, um, uh, fiber
optic commanded drones, where, where the drones are actually leaving
a, a, a string of fiber optic that connects them to the controller.
Because then they can't be jammed or they're not detected by, uh,
by electronic warfare equipment.
Um, and then as we saw in the attack against the Russian air
bases, where allegedly these drones targeted the aircraft
purely based on, I. On AI training.
So they, they were, at least that's the story going around, that they were
trained on images of these bombers and kind of self targeted bombers that matched
the ones they were trained to target.
Um, which is, which is feasible for sure.
Um, but that dependence on AI is also way to cut off external
communications and, and dependencies.
It, it means that if, if everything, if your navigation you're targeting
is computed within the drone.
You don't have to rely on a radio signal in and out of the drone,
uh, to conduct your operation.
So again, that, that cuts off that potential line of defense in, in terms
of electronic detection or, or jamming.
Um, so I, I think it's a really fascinating, uh, a really fascinating
arms race because it's, it's a really.
It's, it's kind of niche technology going up against each other.
And that's why when we're talking about these potential future, uh,
scenarios where a US carrier group might face these kind of drone based
challenges, um, we also have to think about how, how is the US Navy
preparing for those kind of threats?
I, I would imagine they're very actively, uh, investing time and resources into.
Detecting those kind of drones, jamming, those kind of drones, kinetically,
taking out those kind of drones.
Um, so it, it's difficult to say just because they exist, they are a threat.
Right.
The, the counter threat
Jacob Shapiro: might also, I.
Already have been developed.
Yeah.
You sort of anticipated my next question, which is how do you
defend against these things?
Like is there already gonna be technology that makes this advantage
mood, and is that the sort of technology that only, you know, someone with
an advanced conventional capability is going to to have, I mean, the.
The flip side of this though is, I mean, this is where it does feel
asymmetric and here the example of Israel, you know, we're always gonna
come back, I think, to examples of Israel, Yemen, Ukraine, Russia.
'cause this is where war is happening.
Um, but, you know, uh, iron Dome and Israel's missile defense system, you
know, developed in, in cooperation with the United States, incredible,
like an incredible success rates, but also like extremely expensive.
Like the Iranians showed this, where they can, you know, pop off relatively
cheap Rockets exhaust the supply of the.
The missile defense system and then, okay, like eventually you're
gonna run out of money and you're gonna run out of the counters.
Um, so I dunno, maybe somebody will invent some type of technology.
Maybe you can like send out an EMP pulse or something in one direction.
Like now we're getting really science fiction oriented.
But like, is is there a way to defend against these things like it, or are
we gonna see a whole industry of how to defend against drones in general?
Um, yeah.
Take that however you want.
Great.
That, that industry already
Sim Tack: exists and it's, it's definitely.
Pumping out revenue.
Um, but it's
Jacob Shapiro: a pumping out product though.
Sim Tack: Well, yes.
Yeah.
I, I, I think it is.
But there's also a lot of solutions that are not necessarily entirely
focused on this new threat.
So you, you have these companies, uh, pushing these anti drone guns, right?
Like the ray, the futuristic looking ray guns that you aim at the drone,
and, and it gives a very concentrated deem to jam the signal effectively.
Um.
But let's, let's not forget that, you know, the, the whole
electronic spectrum of warfare is, is not exactly something new.
That's, that's something that's been going on since the sixties, seventies when, uh,
um, when the use of various kinds of, uh, radars and jamming and, and restaurant,
all of those things has, has only grown.
Um, so.
You know, kind of as an example of that, one of the things that Ukraine has also
been doing to, um, to save on kinetic interceptions, um, 'cause as you mentioned
with Iron Dome, that's one of the reasons that the system is so damn expensive.
'cause those interceptors are one use by definition or single use.
Um, so.
One of the things that Ukraine has been doing is using the F sixteens,
um, that it got from, from European partners, um, to jam the Iranian shaha
drones that Russia fires at them.
So instead of kinetically targeting, they, they will target some of them
kinetically, obviously they, they, there's a lot of them to take down, but
they also use the electronic warfare equipment on the F 16 to jam it so
that the drone, you know, either.
Loses its navigation goes down or turns back or, or whatever they do based
on, on how exactly they're affected.
Um, so that's, that's another way that you can kind of limit the resources.
'cause, you know, electronic warfare is, is relatively cheap in
the sense that it doesn't require.
Ammunition, right?
It, it requires powering.
Of course, you need to acquire these systems and the systems themselves
surely aren't cheap, but, um, but there's no big logistical train
for the production of, of advanced missiles and, and things like that.
So, um, so I think that's why, why we're seeing a lot of focus on
that, um, on that electronic jamming component of, of fighting drone threats.
Um.
But of course there's, there's a lot of ways that, that the drones themselves are
being hardened against electronic warfare.
And, you know, I, I mentioned the, the fiber optics, which of
course is still limited in range.
You can only carry so heavy, a spool of, of fiber optics.
Um, and, and that'll only have a limited, uh, length that you can achieve.
Um.
The AI systems might, you know, not have that range restriction.
But then at the end of the day, you know, how, how complex of an
operation can you conduct purely on.
Like pre-program, pre-trained behavior, uh, without risking, you know,
either mission failure or collateral damage and, and things like that.
So there's, there's these, these pretty big trade-offs.
Um, I think one of the other things that we don't see a lot about today,
I'm, I'm sure it is being experimented with and a lot of these war zones, but.
Um, and another way to combat that kind of jamming is, is directional communications,
um, using lasers or, or antennas that are very specific about where they, they're
able to receive signal from so that it's, you know, any signal that comes in
from other directions is shielded out.
Um, so there's, there's a lot of things going on there, and I'm, I'm not sure.
Whether we can make a guess about like, you know, which, which side will win out.
Will it be, you know, the drone threat cannot be tamed or the
defenses will be so effective that it becomes completely irrelevant?
Um, I, I think right now we're in that phase where everybody is so actively
exploring it and, and pushing it as far as they can, that the two are, are
kind of constantly in balance, right.
Jacob Shapiro: Yeah, absolutely.
Um, and to all these things, there's a balance.
Um, alright, well let's, let's talk a little bit more specifically
about, um, Russia, Ukraine.
Um, I, um, I take your point about, um, you know, is this gonna lead to
the attack of US strategic bombers?
Probably not.
Is this gonna de deter Russia's nuclear deterrent or, uh, limit Russia's nuclear?
Uh, excuse me.
Is this going to limit Russia's ability to have a nuclear deterrent
or to have nuclear strike capability?
No, I thought that was pretty sensational.
Uh, I think specific question, and the one I don't have clarity on is,
does this meaningfully impact the operations of the Russian Air Force?
Does this mean that the Russian Air Force is going to be less capable of attacking
or bombing Ukraine in the future?
Are the security checks and protocols that Russia's gonna have to put in to protect
from Ukraine, is that going to create.
You know, supply chain havoc, or is that gonna limit the capacity of Russian
air power to respond to future attacks?
Uh, can Ukraine spoof a bunch of attacks in the future?
Just send shit across the border and like see if they can spin
things up and make them constantly guessing about what's going on.
So, um, I, I, I take your points on the bigger ones, but is there a, is
there a tangible impact on Russian air power in, in any way, whether that's
capacity to do bombing runs or how they think about future operations?
Sim Tack: So, yeah, there's definitely an impact and I, I don't think the impacts
necessarily in, in terms of the collective capacity that Russia can muster, but it's,
um, it's imposing a lot of additional, uh, tail to, to these operations.
Um, by, by tail I mean like the, the, the force protection element of, of.
Uh, of their air operation.
So one part of that, as you mentioned, you know, they'll, they'll have
to contribute more resources to, um, to securing those airfields.
Even though they're far away from Ukraine, Russia cannot
afford to leave them unprotected.
Um, and that's, um, you know, that's, that's another.
Field of activity where they cannot just draw people away and push them
to the front in Ukraine, that it means you're actually gonna have to have
people there to protect the air bases.
Um, in addition to that, um, something that's already been happening, uh,
because of other attacks against Russian air assets, um, not, not so much the,
the big heavy bombers, but against, uh, airfields closer to the front line, um, is
that Russia has been forced to disperse.
It's air assets, right?
So, um, the less aircraft you keep at one single base, the more you spread
them out, the more difficult you make it for Ukraine to, uh, to destroy a
lot of aircraft in a single attack.
Um, so, and, and actually Russia has already been doing that with
their strategic bomber fleet.
For quite some time during the Ukraine conflict.
'cause there have been other attempts in the past to target them, um, like
at Angles Airbase, where they've launched the, the long range drones
to, uh, to target, uh, the air base.
Um, so they're constantly trying to play a game of cups where they're, they're
moving, they're moving their bombers around, they're moving their fighter
aircraft around to try and, um, you know, make, make it as difficult as
possible for Ukraine to, to target them.
But at the same time, that is, that is raising a cost on Russia's behalf, right?
Because on the one hand, your, your flight crews are constantly adapting to new
locations that they're operating from.
Um, the logistics, uh, uh, support for all of those operations
has to constantly be rerouted.
Uh, you know, so after the attacks, uh, against the Russian
airfields, uh, one of the first things that we saw appearing were.
Aircraft to transport equipment and personnel out of these bases to other
bases where they will now be basing some of these, uh, these bombers.
Uh, but all of those constant air bridges inside Russia, those are
also taking a toll, uh, a toll on, on Russia's capabilities.
'cause the, um, you know, there's the cost of the operations themselves and, and fuel
man hours, however you want to express it.
Um.
But the, the increased level of operations, the increased tempo of these
kind of flights also means that there is a higher, uh, potential for accidents.
Um, uh, Russia tends to not have the best reputation when it comes to, uh, aviation
safety and any kind of additional stress, additional flights that are required.
That, that only increases the, the potential of, of Russian aircraft going
down without Ukrainian intervention.
Um, so, you know, those are just a, a couple like, you know, examples that I,
that I'm pulling out, but in general, like yes, these kind of attacks, they, they
are putting a constant force protection, uh, stress on the Russian military.
And RAHA can decide to deal with that in two ways.
They can either.
Either commit to that and, and that means there's less resources that they could
otherwise have pushed to the frontline, or they can decide to ignore it and
prioritize that frontline, but then.
You know, essentially expose some of their more strategic assets
to, to those kind of threats.
Jacob Shapiro: Mm-hmm.
Which gets to the question of, and this is like always the question when
it comes to the thing, uh, when it comes to these things, why did Ukraine
you think, decide to do this Now?
They've been planning this for 18 months, they said, um, the situation does not
correct me if I'm wrong, does not appear to be going so well on the battlefield.
Um, they're getting pre, you know, they're.
Yes, they have Europe more in their corner, but, you know, the United States
is not what it was even, you know, six, eight months ago in terms of support.
Like Trump is very, very different than Biden.
So the diplomatic picture looks a lot more complicated.
Um, like I, I take your point that they're gonna put pressure on, on Russia,
but they're also are putting pressure on Russia to respond in a way that is
extremely meaningful, which might open up a whole Pandora's box there too.
So, should we see this as a sign of Ukrainian strength?
Do you think that they saw some sort of political moment where now is a time that
if they did this, they could push towards negotiations from a favorable position?
Should we read it as Ukrainian weakness, as a sign of desperation that they're
losing things on the front lines and they felt the need to push back or.
Punch back in any sort of way to either prove to themselves or to their allies
that they could continue forward.
How, how do you evaluate the timing or the answer also could just be because
they could, like they wanted to do it.
So like if you're fighting war, like you pull the levers, it's
not so strategic all the time.
But what do you think about the timing of this?
Sim Tack: I think it's very difficult to make, to draw conclusions from the timing.
Um.
There, there are so many different factors that could be at play here.
One, one of them is simply, you know, that preparation for that operation.
Were they, were they just ready And they launched it as soon as they could
before potentially being discovered?
Um, was there a risk of discovery and did they prematurely launch
it before everything, uh, went completely out the window?
Um.
Or you know, as, as you mentioned, was there some kind of political
initiative where it's like, Hey, this operation's been.
On the books, it's ready to go.
Now's a good time.
I, I have no idea.
And I, I, I don't think I could in, in, in any kind of useful way speculate about it.
Um,
Jacob Shapiro: but I think then, then, then spec, then speculate
about it in a non-useful way.
That's, that's also good too for me.
Sim Tack: Well, let, let try to pull it in, in, in a, in a, maybe
in another useful direction, which is in, instead of trying to think
about the, the intent of the timing.
We, we can talk about the impact of the timing, right?
Where, um, like as, as you mentioned, the conflict in Ukraine itself has kind of
stagnated a lot of people losing interest.
Um, Ukraine has that u European support, but I think one of the big things
about that U European support is that we've seen it also kind of evolve
to, to want to align with Trump's.
Uh, ambitions when it comes to Ukraine.
So, mm-hmm.
I feel like a lot of the conversations between Europe and Ukraine have started
to be about, uh, security guarantees once that hypothetical ceasefire is in action.
Um, there are of course still discussions going on about supporting Ukraine
and, and, and actions going on to support Ukraine during the actual
fighting short of such a ceasefire.
Um.
There's no real big qualitative shifts in that.
Um, I mean, there is the discussion with Germany about unleashing the,
the Taurus missiles, uh, which would give Ukraine another, um, you know,
long range precision weapon that, that they can launch into Russia.
Um.
But I also don't think that that's really going to turn the tide of
the war or anything like that.
The reality is that the war has evolved to a point where the lines
on the ground are very static.
Russia continues to push a lot of resources into the frontline,
and they continue to make gains, um, but in a positive sense.
And I, I think we've talked about that in, in previous, um,
in previous podcasts where, uh.
Russia kept advancing, but Ukraine was kind of, um, not doing its due
diligence in, in setting up additional defensive lines behind their current
positions, which caused them to, you know, quickly have to give up
terrain and then not necessarily do any better after withdrawing.
So that's something that we've seen change.
So since the beginning of this year.
Um, around February, March, we've seen some really impressive defensive
preparations behind the front lines on the Ukrainian side, um, which I think also
signals Ukraine's current position, right?
Dealing with Trump, with Europe.
Everybody's talking about the cease spire.
Um.
I think they're also being realistic and understanding like, hey, we're,
we're not gonna get into a position where we get the level of support that
allows us to quickly break through and take all this territory back.
Um, but if they can stabilize the frontline, if they can achieve some
kind of ceasefire, and if Europe and us come through with all the security
guarantees that they've been talking about, I think that's a, that's a
scenario that Ukraine is more and more.
Um, uh, looking more and more positively at, um, and then they're
putting the preparations in place by, by creating those defenses.
Um, meanwhile on, on the Russian end of things, even though, you know, Russia
continues to gain gain ground slowly but surely, um, they are still paying.
Heavy prices.
Um, they, you know, we've seen the impact on, on the Russian economy over time,
which has not really gotten better.
Um, we've seen, you know, Russia trying to replace some of the arms production
with supplies from North Korea.
Which hasn't really helped.
We've seen them bringing in North Korean troops.
I, I think that happened after we last spoke, or, or maybe around
the time we last spoke, I forgot.
But, um, you know, those came and went and that hasn't really made a big difference.
Um, so Russia is trying to really muster all it can to keep the war going.
They're not in a position right now where they want to accept
a ceasefire in these positions.
Um.
Because obviously they, they still want to try and, and use the current
advances they're making to, to bully Ukraine and or the West into, um,
achieving a higher political goal.
You know, I. Kind of like what they started the war for, but
never realistically could achieve.
Mm-hmm.
Um, so anyway, in, in that entire situation that, that's
kind of a long-winded sketch of, of the current situation.
But if, if you're looking at that situation and then you see this
attack occurring, um, against the, the Russian strategic barber fleet, um,
that's one of those elements where.
Ukraine can still have an impact beyond simply digging in on the
frontline, and that at the very least has a big visual impact on Russia.
Um, so it's another one of those stressor I. Events that, that put
stress internally in Russia on the government because the, the appearance
of, you know, the government is messing up the approach to this conflict.
We're gonna waste our, our nuclear deterrent over this
little patch of land in Ukraine.
Um, all of those ideas, um, start to put stress on, on
the, on the Russian government.
Um, of course this, this is a limited amount of stress compared to.
The whole full spectrum of, of stress that they're under.
Um, but I think that's, that's where I would kind of place this operation.
It's, it's one of those, one of those things where Ukraine can still
reach out and try to have a visible impact on Russian regime stability.
Um, and, and I think they'll continue to try and do those kind of things.
It, it probably won't be the same type of operation, probably
not the same type of target.
Um.
But that's, that's probably one of the, one of the big tools that they have.
Uh, without capabilities to actually reshape the, the
battlefield on the ground.
Jacob Shapiro: I'm not sure whether all this makes me feel better or worse, sim,
but I definitely feel like I know more.
And that is the point of all of this at the very end.
So I could talk to you for another hour, but unfortunately,
um, I have to wrap it here.
Um, but I. We will not wait another six months to have you back on.
We'll have you on extremely soon, I think, because, I mean, I didn't even get to ask
you how the heck the Houthis like made problems for the F 30 fives because I've
read the Wall Street Journal reporting and all of it just doesn't make sense to me.
But let's not open that can of worms right now.
We'll leave the listeners wanting more.
Thanks for making the time.
And it looks like, uh, I mean, listeners, you can't see this, but
there's a very nice collection of liquor behind, uh, behind your left.
Looks like you're primed for a good weekend.
Sim Tack: Uh, yeah.
Well, I'm, I'm, I'm hoping it lasts slaughtered on the weekend though.
Oh, yeah.
Jacob Shapiro: Yeah.
Sim Tack: You only love once.
Jacob Shapiro: Thank you so much for listening to the Jacob Shapiro podcast.
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