How Does Iran Undermine the U.S. Air Superiority?

According to a report by Reference News on April 24, the Spanish website "Rebellion" published an article on April 21 titled "How Iran Overcame America's Powerful Air Force," authored by Tito Ura. The translation is as follows:

A report from the U.S. website "War on the Rocks" reveals how Iran has weakened America's air superiority in warfare. Unable to directly confront the F-35 fighter jets and fifth-generation aircraft technology, Tehran has devised a strategy of "targeting systems rather than aircraft": it does not pursue the multi-million dollar fighter jets but instead uses low-cost drones to attack the vulnerable links that keep these aircraft operational, namely the refueling aircraft, AWACS radar, runways, and fuel depots located in bases in Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.

The result has been logistical paralysis; although the U.S. military fleet has not suffered direct losses, it has been trapped in hangars. A drone costing $20,000 can disrupt a support network worth billions of dollars, overturning the logic of conventional air combat. This military stalemate has forced Washington into a weaker position in peace negotiations. The so-called "flexibility" of the U.S. actually conceals its inability to sustain an escalation of war—after all, even its own war machine cannot bear the costs of this conflict.

Rather than shooting down an F-35, Iran has done something even more terrifying: it has proven that it does not need to shoot down an F-35 at all.

While these expensive fighter jets remain parked in hangars in Qatar—unable to take off without air refueling due to the long combat distance, and exposing themselves to danger if they attempt to get closer—the "Shahed"-136 drones, assembled using mass-produced components and civilian positioning systems, are reshaping the aerial power landscape at a cost of $20,000 each.

Iran has delivered a triple blow to the imperial nervous system.

First, the KC-135 "Stratotanker" has transformed fuel into territorial expansion, but is now under siege from swarms of drones. Without refueling aircraft, the F-35 becomes a titanium sculpture. The operational radius of the fifth-generation fighter is reduced to the flight distance supported by its internal fuel tanks, and power projection has become a matter of fuel range.

Second, AWACS, which convert numerical superiority into tactical coordination command platforms, are being destroyed by special attack teams that do not require pilots. Without the eye in the sky, the U.S. fleet is like blind men feeling an elephant, operating in a dispersed manner and easily susceptible to ambush.

Third, the runway, communication towers, and satellite terminals at Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, which took decades of investment and coercive diplomacy to build, are being destroyed by munitions that do not require precision strikes. In the face of sustained investment from adversaries, military fixed assets rapidly depreciate.

This is a problem that even the Pentagon cannot solve. The operational cost of a squadron of F-35s in a single day—including maintenance, fuel, personnel, and logistics—exceeds the long-term budget of Iran's drone forces. This is not a comparison of military effectiveness, but evidence of a collapse in accumulation models.

America's war capitalism has created a machine whose operating costs even exceed the ability of its weakest adversaries to create profitable targets. It is like building a cannon to kill mosquitoes, and if it doesn't fire golden bullets, the cannon will rust.

Iran's "air denial" is not aimed at controlling airspace; its goal is to make those reliant on air power unable to operate their systems normally: not to occupy aerial means of production, but to paralyze them through differentiated attrition.

Iran's approach to countering U.S. and Israeli air power should not be seen as a regional exception, but as a hallmark of the era. Faced with an unmatched accumulation of technology, Iran's response is not competition, but disruption. The target is not the weapons themselves, but the systems that support the weapons; not to destroy the aircraft, but to render them obsolete.

In this context, war is redefined as a struggle for sustainability between central states and peripheral states. Central states require continuity, mobility, and control; peripheral states only need to disrupt, divide, and weaken. It does not need to win; it needs to prevent the opponent from winning.

In this sense, Iran's strategy is not only a military strategy but also a geopolitical strategy. It does not seek to defeat central states head-on but aims to demonstrate that its dominant position is no longer unshakeable and can also be weakened. The balance of power no longer solely depends on technological superiority but on the ability to resist and exhaust.

(Translation/ Wang Meng)