These last few years have been illuminating in terms of modern warfare. And terrifying.
Scanning the news about the ongoing conflict in Iran, a pattern emerges: The world has entered a new era of warfare.
Since Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on October 7, 2023 — and indeed, since Vladimir Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine in the year prior — some of the advancements in modern warfare have been peeking out from the shadows.
It’s a bit scary.
But someone blew up the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. And while major U.S. media outlets started out with “It was Ukraine,” some have come, in time, to entertain what many international media outlets were reporting from the beginning: That the United States, then under the Biden Administration, was probably involved. It was a sophisticated operation that suggested cooperation, or at least collaboration between nations and intelligence operations.
And it was a shrewd move, as far as geopolitical chess goes. That a thing could happen, and not even nations like Germany who were and are dependent on Russian oil and gas, would say a word against it surely confounded Vladimir Putin.
After October 7, 2023, more was revealed.
Hamas and Hezbollah attacked Israel in one of the cruelest, most unimaginable terror attacks the world has ever seen. The brutality of it was by design — not a byproduct. The brutality was designed to provoke Israel into a military response, which it did, and to arrest the peace that was developing between Israel and its neighbors, which it didn’t.
Gulf nations sued for peace in the press but let Israel defend itself without much censure. The peace and normalization process continued, if not apace, at least, steady while the Israeli military carried out one of the most sophisticated, mind-boggling military campaigns the world has ever seen.
“Every person, organization, and entity who played a part in the October 7 attack against Israel will be eliminated,” promised Israel’s government in the aftermath of October 7. To a man, they have kept their word.
One by one: The leadership echelons of Iran’s proxy terrorist networks in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East were eliminated. And in terrifying fashion.
Who can forget the pager caper, whereupon the Israeli military was able to — somehow — tamper with the pagers of known Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists?
It was unbelievable.
And that was before the United States got involved. The Nord Stream 2 was a smart, strategic move. Even better to not get caught with obvious fingerprints.
But fast forward to this year, and we have the brazen extraction and arrest of Venezuelan strongman Nicholas Maduro.
Despite being one of the most guarded people on the planet, U.S. military members managed to snatch Maduro in the dead of night without encountering much in the way of defense. Something, survivors report, incapacitated the soldiers and guards before any kind of resistance could be mounted.
This on the heels of the announcement by the U.S. government that 1.) Havana Syndrome, that strange combination of debilitating symptoms experienced by various diplomats and other government employees the world over, is real and 2.) the U.S. bought such a device on the black market, and 3.) it can fit in a backpack.
Looking back at this era, historians will someday likely conclude that this was the time in which warfare, and the constant arms race to which mankind has been sadly heir, took a sudden, giant lurch forward. Our time.
It’s the post-Nuclear era, in which new weapons of sound, energy, espionage, sabotage, asymmetrical warfare, AI, and who knows what else will rule our fortunes.
The militaries of the world have weapons we haven’t even been able to imagine. We are getting but a glimpse now, no doubt.
Hopefully, we won’t have to see much more.
(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)