Russia and Iran are using Ukraine and Israel as “battlefield laboratories” to probe at Western military vulnerabilities, experts told a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee Wednesday.
“Together, Russia and Iran are using Ukraine and the Middle East as battlefield laboratories to improve their weapons and develop techniques to overcome U.S. and allied defensive systems,” Dana Stroul, director of research at the Washington Institute, told lawmakers at a hearing on the “Despotic Duo.”
“Iran is extracting from Russia lessons in combined strike packages as well as insights into the strengths and weaknesses of Western-origin air and missile defense systems,” Stroul said in her written statement.
And aren’t we doing the same? I mean, I’ve seen companies advertise their products as “battle tested” after sending them to Ukraine or Israel. Not to say that supporting Ukraine is bad, I’m a big supporter of Ukraine (and definitely not of Israel). But yeah, I don’t see the point of this article. It tries to “point out” something that we’ve been doing ourselves as if Iran or Russia first came up with the idea of battle testing their products.
Every country with geopolitical interests large enough in the world has analysts studying the war in Ukraine, even uninvolved third countries like China and Japan, but that doesn’t make for a good clickbaity headline.
To great effect too! I believe Poland (or another country near Russia) put in a huge order for HIMARS last year after seeing their massive success in Ukraine.