Iran is doing to the US what Ukraine did to Russia — Washington didn’t learn

Despite being vastly outgunned, with its navy decimated, Tehran has shut down 20% of global oil shipping. Iranians are using anti-ship missiles, kamikaze naval drones, and speedboats to control access through an enclosed body of water along their coast.

Despite killing thousands, with dominance in the air, the US is struggling to contain the Iranians. US President Donald Trump was forced to ask for assistance from allies after bragging that the war would be over very quickly, sans outside help. 

This may sound familiar to anyone who’s followed Russia’s full-scale invasion in the past four years. 

Asymmetric naval warfare isn't new, but Ukraine helped popularize it. Now it's spreading — Iran is applying similar principles against a far more powerful adversary than Russia. The US doesn’t seem to have learned this lesson, even after last year’s NATO exercises off the coast of Portugal, where Ukraine took a frigate out of commission using nothing but sea drones, before they were even detected.  

"We have to constantly convince our partners to pay attention to Ukraine's experience," Pavlo Lakiychuk, a retired Ukrainian naval officer, told Euromaidan Press. "I've repeatedly encountered colleagues in the West, who told me: 'you know, your war with Russia isn't like other wars. We fight differently... we establish air superiority, clean everything up, and it's over in three days.’" 

"What's happening in the Persian Gulf is evidence that everything turns out to be not so simple," he added.

Warfare in the Persian Gulf is different from that in the Black Sea. Iran is in worse shape relative to its attackers, with a worse loss ratio. The drones it uses are, in general, less technologically advanced. Though both Tehran and Kyiv are denying an area, their objectives are different. Ukraine’s goal is to make the Black Sea Fleet cower in the corner. Iran’s is to close the Hormuz Strait to commercial vessels, to inflict economic pressure that’s too hard to bear. 

However, in both cases, the weaker littoral states have demonstrated their more powerful adversaries’ struggle to adapt to how modern asymmetrical war is fought at sea, at least inside enclosed bodies of water. 

"We see a country whose conventional navy was defeated in a matter of days," said Omar Ashour, a military scholar with the University of Exeter, who also works in Ukraine. "But it still may end up undermining... and moving the strategic objectives of the US and its allies.” 

“It's not a matter of the US being outgunned — it was out-adapted. And this out-adaptation was born in Ukraine. Ukraine showed that quite clearly with Russia. And now the rest will have to copy,” he added. “If they do not upgrade their doctrines, their concepts of operation, and how they perform sea warfare, then they will be out-adapted as well.”

The joys of asymmetry

First of all, the weapons are cheap relative to their targets and flexible, whether they are speedboats, uncrewed surface vessels (USVs), or anti-ship missiles. This is especially useful when the goal is to deny the sea to one’s opponent, rather than trying to control it oneself. 

Ukraine proved this by sinking the Russian flagship Moskva with Neptune missiles in the opening months of the Kremlin’s “special military operation,” then proceeded to develop USVs like the Magura and Sea Baby that demolished a big part of the Black Sea fleet, including a submarine. 

Over time, these naval drones grew in sophistication evolving from simple kamikaze swarm attacks, to being able to simulate combined arms operations in tandem with UAVs. Ukraine is now adding submersible drones to its arsenal.

Iran is also using a variety of anti-ship missiles. These include the widely-produced Noor and its longer range cousin, the Qader, which can skim along the surface, defying radar to detect them. Iran also has the heavier Abu Mahdi cruise missiles, which can attack far beyond the Hormuz Strait.

Iran also employs USVs. These tend to have less tech built into them than Ukrainian craft — for example, they appear to rely on radio control, without access to Starlink. But the principle is similar, with at least one oil tanker being hit by a USV.

Second of all, these weapons are sneaky.

Iranian missile systems can be deployed on a variety of mobile platforms on land and sea. These platforms can hide, shoot, and scoot, making them very difficult to hunt to extinction, despite the US's best attempts to do so.

Underwater capabilities can also be problematic in this regard. Lakiychuk said that while the US destroyed Iran’s Russian Varshavyanka submarines, the bigger threat will likely come from the mini-subs, adapted to work in the region. Their compact size makes them hard to detect, requiring attackers to commit significant anti-submarine capabilities.

USVs and speedboats are sneaky, too. They are not very hard to destroy, but one must first detect them in time. Ashour said that while the detection-destruction window is short, “it is not zero.” They also tend to come in groups, raising the likelihood that at least one will get through.

Ukraine reportedly demonstrated this stealth at the REPMUS/Dynamic Messenger 2025 wargames off the coast of Portugal. According to German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, a Ukrainian team, playing the opposing force in the exercise, prevailed against a force of NATO vessels, even “sinking” a frigate.

Under the rules of the exercise, successfully targeting the opponent counted as a hit. FAZ's sources said that during one simulated attack on a convoy, the Ukrainian team used their Magura V7s to score multiple hits before the NATO force even knew they were there. 

Five minutes later, the NATO team reportedly asked in a shared chat: “So, are you going to attack us?” A Ukrainian source told FAZ: “The problem wasn't that they couldn't stop us — they hadn't even seen our weapons."

While analysts cautioned against oversensationalizing the outcome of a wargame with rules and conditions, they said that it does demonstrate that NATO navies may not be as ready as they ought to be to fight this kind of asymmetrical war. NATO said that they learned valuable lessons from the exercise. 

“What happened off the coast of Portugal is like a preview of what could happen in the Gulf to be honest — against ports, against tankers, against critical infrastructure,” Ashouri said. “The tactics were born in Ukraine but they can be copied by whatever side.”

While he said that ships are by no means irrelevant, “the lesson is brutal — layered, cheap, scalable, beats exquisite, expensive, and finite.”

Demand for Ukrainian sea drones rising

Much like demand for cheap, battle-tested Ukrainian air defenses has surged, so has interest in Ukraine’s naval capabilities, according to Bogdan Popov, an analyst with Ukraine’s Triada Trade Partners advisory group. Ashour concurred, saying that Ukraine's showing at an arms exhibition in Qatar last year drew a lot of attention, including naval weapons.

“This is no longer about niche procurement, but about a systemic push to build a new maritime security architecture amid escalating tensions with Iran,” Popov told Euromaidan Press. These platforms are being considered for several operational scenarios. 

First, they may come useful in protecting and escorting tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. Second, they could provide a tool of asymmetric pressure-enabling potential strikes on Iranian tankers and logistics in and around the strait. 

Third, they can open up the possibility of conducting targeted strikes against Iran’s critical oil infrastructure, particularly export terminals on Kharg Island and facilities along the Iranian coastline.

“In effect, an unmanned fleet is becoming a means for regional actors to project force without direct reliance on conventional naval assets-reducing political exposure while significantly increasing escalation pressure on Iran,” Popov said.