What Hunting Bombmakers in Iraq Can Teach Us About Countering Drones

Fortem Technologies CEO Jon Gruen draws on his experience as a Navy SEAL officer targeting IED networks in Iraq to make the case for a new approach to the drone threat. Writing in National Defense Magazine, Gruen argues that intercept systems alone — no matter how capable — cannot solve a problem defined by massive cost asymmetry and near-unlimited scale. The answer, he writes, is to move “left of launch”: disrupting the supply chains, assembly operations, and logistics networks behind drone attacks before they ever reach the launch point.

“A Shahed-136 sitting on a truck in Iran is the visible endpoint of a supply chain, command structure, targeting process, logistics network and communications architecture,” he writes. “The drone is the last mile. Everything upstream is where additional leverage exists. And right now, most counter-UAS investment is focused on that last mile — which remains exactly where it needs to be — while the upstream problem receives comparatively little attention.”

Read the full op-ed in National Defense Magazine: https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2026/8/21/industry-perspective-iraq-wars-roadside-bombs-hold-lessons-for-countering-drones