2026-04-17T08:00:55.053Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
特约分析：
布雷特·H·麦古克
发布时间：2026年4月17日，美国东部时间凌晨4:00
路透社
布雷特·麦古克是CNN全球事务分析师，曾在乔治·W·布什、巴拉克·奥巴马、唐纳德·特朗普和乔·拜登任期内担任高级国家安全职位。
上周，人类历史上首次出现了由无人机和机器人发动的攻击并占领敌方地面阵地的事件。乌克兰总统弗拉基米尔·泽连斯基在描述本国军队对俄军前哨的机械化突袭后表示：“未来已经到来。”
这一历史性突破令莫斯科感到意外，因为他们曾与伊朗联手，以为自己正在乌克兰掌握无人机战争的主动权。然而，如今乌克兰在无人机技术创新上已经超越俄罗斯，与此同时美国也在削弱伊朗的无人机和导弹项目——自2023年以来，这些武器一直帮助俄罗斯对乌克兰城镇发动残酷袭击。
将乌克兰和伊朗这两个战场视为相互关联的整体，有助于美国更好地为未来战争做准备，并始终领先于对手。
这或许也能帮助结束乌克兰战争。
伊朗的导弹与无人机——针对美国的威胁
2023年10月7日哈马斯袭击以色列后，中东地区陷入危机，我当时担任白宫中东事务负责人。这是我二十年来见过的最复杂、最令人震惊的局势——部分原因是伊朗早早便卷入混乱，并用导弹和无人机袭击美军。
2023年圣诞节当天，伊朗沙赫德无人机发动联合袭击，打击了伊拉克北部的美军阵地，造成一名美军士兵重伤。一个月后的2024年1月20日，伊朗无人机在约旦炸死三名美军士兵。
同月在红海，美国海军击退了18架攻击无人机、2枚反舰巡航导弹和1枚时速达4马赫的反舰弹道导弹。多亏了防御系统和船员的精湛技艺，此次袭击没有造成美军伤亡。
伊朗与俄罗斯使用相同技术与战术
哈马德·I·穆罕默德/路透社
在俄罗斯入侵乌克兰的最初几个月里，伊朗向俄罗斯转移了沙赫德无人机，用于袭击乌克兰的城市、城镇和基础设施。随后，伊朗又转移了无人机制造技术，并在俄罗斯境内建立了联合生产线。这些组装线很快就能每天生产近400架沙赫德无人机。
伊朗无人机的大规模生产催生了俄罗斯针对乌克兰目标的常态化蜂群攻击，这是世界前所未见的战术。伊朗很快便照搬了这一战术——2024年4月13日，伊朗向以色列城市发射了180架沙赫德无人机、120枚弹道导弹和30枚巡航导弹。其作战思路是先用无人机蜂群压制、耗尽敌方防空系统，随后再出动载荷更大、速度更快的弹道导弹实施打击。
乌克兰的应对之策——创新
在被迫自卫的四年战争中，乌克兰建立了自己的世界级无人机制造和防御工业体系。分布式国防工业体系——车库里的母亲们、初创企业的程序员们、前线的士兵们，所有人都在实时进行试验——从无到有构建起了攻防一体的无人机经济体系，而俄罗斯显然无法与之匹敌。
如今，尽管俄罗斯每日生产的无人机数量多于乌克兰，但乌克兰在无人机的适应性和作战效能上遥遥领先。其无人机如今主导了前线战场，每周造成数千名俄军伤亡。正如一名乌克兰士兵告诉路透社的那样：“没有俄军士兵能在开阔地带行动而不被乌克兰无人机击中。”
根据哈德逊研究所最近的一份分析报告，乌克兰在战争中每天使用约10,000架无人机。这些无人机能够深入俄罗斯境内，灵活规避俄罗斯老旧的防御系统。它们打击前线目标，目前已承担了近80%的俄军杀伤任务。它们还能保护乌克兰士兵的生命：防御无人机系统使用成本低廉的拦截弹击落沙赫德无人机。
在过去一周的一次袭击中，乌克兰据称成功拦截了俄军发射的324架无人机中的309架。
俄罗斯仍有能力对乌克兰发动致命的蜂群攻击，包括本周造成18人死亡的一次袭击。但即便在规模和数量上，乌克兰也正在迎头赶上。乌克兰国防部宣布，计划仅在今年就生产超过700万架无人机，这一规模大多数西方防务公司都无法企及。
乌克兰的无人机还具备成本效益优势：根据乌克兰独立安全机构蛇岛研究所最近的一份报告，一枚拦截弹的成本仅为沙赫德无人机的十分之一（3000至5000美元，对比2万至5万美元）。
特朗普对伊朗的应对——武力威慑
温·麦克纳米/盖蒂图片社
在针对当前伊朗局势的各种解释中，美国国务卿马可·鲁比奥的表态最为明确。伊朗在过去十年中发展了如此先进的导弹和无人机项目，很快将拥有一道“坚不可摧的盾牌”，为其核野心和在全球范围内的恐怖主义扩张保驾护航。
他的意思是，伊朗的项目在规模和先进程度上都将达到足以压倒现有防空系统的水平，从而威慑任何旨在削弱该项目的打击行动。这就是防务规划者所说的“免疫区”：伊朗将建立起一套威慑架构，使其导弹和无人机项目在军事上无法被触及。
在过去十年里，伊朗所谓的“航天项目”呈指数级增长。其导弹的载荷、射程和精度都翻了一番——从打击误差在数英里之内，提升到了数英尺之内。2015年还只是类似飞毛腿的传统导弹项目，到2025年已进化为具有战略变革意义的系统，能够精准打击目标，使美国在该地区的所有阵地都易受攻击。
我们在当前的战争中已经看到了这种威胁的冰山一角。如果任由该项目按线性轨迹发展，几年后局势可能会糟糕得多。
美国最近的空中行动瞄准了这些航天设施——地下储存场、生产节点和零部件工厂——目的是将该项目的发展倒退数年，为防御系统的升级争取时间。
泽连斯基伸出援手
伊朗战争中一个经久不衰的画面，或许是乌克兰总统泽连斯基在战争最激烈的阶段访问中东。他访问了沙特阿拉伯、阿联酋和卡塔尔，这些国家和乌克兰一样，都在面临数百架无人机的袭击。
泽连斯基提供的并非道义支持。他带来的是人员、专业技术和专为防御伊朗无人机蜂群设计的一体化防御系统。这三个海湾国家现已与乌克兰签署了防御协议，为乌克兰世界级的无人机项目提供巨额资源和投资——这是伊朗和俄罗斯无法匹敌的。
战略趋同
达里亚·纳扎罗娃/法新社/盖蒂图片社
泽连斯基展示了伊朗战争与乌克兰战争之间的联系。美国正在系统性地摧毁伊朗近期设计、制造和改进无人机与导弹项目的能力。乌克兰则在系统性地研发和部署能够对抗并击败这些武器的系统。
同样，白宫也不应再将这两场战役视为独立事件。
现在是西方盟友团结起来，支持遭受俄罗斯和伊朗威胁的伙伴的时刻。削弱伊朗的导弹和无人机项目，结合乌克兰的创新技术——并有可能扭转对俄战争的局势——为西方联盟带来了独一无二的机遇，能够扭转战局，使我们的阵营优于俄罗斯和伊朗组成的敌对联盟（即CRINK框架中的中国、俄罗斯、伊朗、朝鲜）。
不幸的是，华盛顿似乎正在浪费这一机遇。它再次威胁要退出北约，并指责乌克兰导致与俄罗斯的和平谈判失败。
如果特朗普希望他的伊朗政策能够留下持久的遗产，他或许可以向泽连斯基学习——这位领导人在战争最激烈的阶段挺身而出提供帮助。在摧毁了伊朗大部分防御能力之后，现在是时候加强乌克兰的防御力量了。通过这样做，这位总统或许最终能够找到彻底结束乌克兰战争所需的杠杆。
Drone wars: The strategic convergence between Ukraine and Iran
2026-04-17T08:00:55.053Z / CNN
Analysis by
Brett H. McGurk
PUBLISHED Apr 17, 2026, 4:00 AM ET
A service member of the 422nd Unmanned Systems Regiment walks next to a heavy strike drone at a training ground in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, on March 23.
Reuters
Brett McGurk is a CNN global affairs analyst who served in senior national security positions under Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
Last week, for the first time in human history, an attack by unmanned drones and robots captured an enemy position on the ground. “The future is here,” said Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, after describing the mechanical assault by his forces against a Russian outpost.
This historical first would be a surprise to Moscow, which believed — together with support from Iran — that it was mastering the art of drone warfare in Ukraine. Instead, Ukraine is now out-innovating Russia just as the US is degrading Iran’s drone and missile programs, which since 2023 have helped Russia sustain its brutal assaults against Ukrainian cities and towns.
Seeing these two theaters — Ukraine and Iran — as interconnected can help the United States better prepare for wars of the future and remain steps ahead of its adversaries.
It might also help bring the Ukraine war to a close.
Iran’s missiles and drones — targeting Americans
I was the White House’s point person on the Middle East throughout the crisis that engulfed the region after Hamas’ attack in Israel on October 7, 2023. In every dimension, it was the most complex and horrifying situation that I had seen in two decades — in part because Iran chose early on to join the mayhem and attack Americans with missiles and drones.
On Christmas Day 2023, a complex attack with Iranian Shahed drones on American positions in northern Iraq grievously wounded an American soldier. One month later, on January 20, 2024, an Iranian drone killed three American soldiers in Jordan.
That same month in the Red Sea, the US Navy fended off 18 attack drones, two anti-ship cruise missiles, and one antiship ballistic missile traveling at Mach-4. Thanks only to defenses and the skills of our sailors, no Americans were killed or wounded in the attack.
Iran and Russia use the same technology — and tactics
A building in Manama, Bahrain, that was damaged by an Iranian drone attack, on March 1.
Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters
In the early months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Iran transferred its Shahed drones to Russia for use against Ukrainian cities, towns and infrastructure. Later, it transferred the technology to manufacture the drones and established co-production lines inside Russia. These assembly lines were soon producing nearly 400 Shahed drones every day.
The mass production of Iranian drones resulted in Russia’s regular swarm attacks against Ukrainian targets, something the world had never seen before. Iran soon borrowed the same tactic — on April 13, 2024, it fired 180 Shahed drones, 120 ballistic missiles, and 30 cruise missiles at Israeli cities. The aim is to use drone swarms to overwhelm and deplete air defenses as heavier payload and faster-moving ballistic missiles then move to strike.
Ukraine’s answer to Russia —innovation
Over four years of war — forced by necessity to defend itself — Ukraine has established a world-class drone manufacturing and defense industry of its own. A distributed defense industry — mothers in garages, coders in startups, and soldiers on the front lines, all experimenting in real time — rose from the ground up to establish an offensive and defensive drone economy that Russia is proving unable to match.
Today, while Russia produces more drones per day, Ukraine is far ahead in terms of adaptation and effectiveness. Its drones now dominate the front lines, inflicting thousands of Russian casualties per week. As one Ukrainian soldier told Reuters, no Russian soldiers can enter an open field without being struck by a Ukrainian drone.
Ukraine is using some 10,000 drones every day in the war, according to a recent analysis from the Hudson Institute. They strike deep into Russia and outmaneuver Russia’s aging defensive systems. They take out targets on the front lines, now accounting for nearly 80 percent of Russian casualties. They protect Ukrainian lives, with defense drone systems taking down Shaheds through replenishable interceptors.
In one attack this past week, Ukraine reportedly defeated 309 out of 324 Russian-launched drones.
Russia is still capable of launching deadly swarm attacks against Ukraine, including one this week that killed 18 people. But even on mass and scale, Ukraine is catching up. Its ministry of defense announced plans to manufacture over 7 million drones this year alone, a scale most western defense firms are unable to match.
Ukraine’s drones are also cost effective: an interceptor costs up to ten times less than a Shahed ($3-5,000 versus $20-50,000), according to a recent report by the Snake Island Institute, an independent Ukrainian security center.
Trump’s answer to Iran— force
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on April 10.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Between the shifting explanations for the current war in Iran, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has made the clearest case. Iran over the last decade has developed such an advanced missile and drone program that it would soon have an “impenetrable shield” that protects its nuclear ambitions and spread of terrorism around the world.
What he meant was a program advancing in such mass and sophistication that it could overwhelm existing air defenses and deter any attack to degrade the program. This is what defense planners would call a “zone of immunity,” in which Iran would have established a deterrent architecture that made its missile and program unreachable militarily.
Over the last decade, what Iran calls its “aerospace program” advanced exponentially. Its missiles roughly doubled in payloads, distances, and accuracy — from striking within miles of a target to within a few feet. What was a traditional Scud-like program in 2015 by 2025 had advanced into a strategic game-changing system that was able to pinpoint targets and render any US positions across the region vulnerable to attack.
We have seen a glimpse of this in the current war. It likely would have been far worse years from now had the program been allowed to advance on its linear trajectory.
The recent US air campaign has focused on these aerospace facilities — underground storage sites, production nodes, and component part factories — with an aim to knock the program back years and buy the time needed for defensive systems to catch up.
Zelensky to the rescue
One enduring image from the Iran war may be the visit by Ukraine’s President Zelensky to the Middle East even during the war’s most intense phase. He visited Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar as each country — like his own — was confronting hundreds drones.
Zelensky was not offering moral support. He was offering personnel, expertise and an integrated defensive system designed specifically to defend against the Iranian drone swarms. These three Gulf countries have now signed defense agreements with Ukraine, lending their vast resources and investments for Ukraine’s world-class drone program — something Iran and Russia will not be able to match.
Strategic convergence
Ukrainian servicemen cover the road with a net to protect vehicles from Russian drone attacks, at an undisclosed location in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, on April 10.
Darya Nazarova/AFP/Getty Images
Zelensky demonstrated how the war in Iran and the war in Ukraine interconnect. The United States is systematically uprooting Iran’s near-term ability to design, manufacture, and improve its drone and missile programs. Ukraine is systematically developing and deploying the systems needed to counter and defeat those systems.
The White House, similarly, should no longer view the two campaigns as separate.
This is a moment for Western partners to converge in support of partners under threat by Russia and Iran. Degradation of Iran’s missile and drone program, together with Ukraine’s innovations — and potentially turning the tide against Russia — carries a unique opportunity to shift advantage in favor of the Western alliance and against the adversarial alliance of Russia and Iran (the R and the I in CRINK, i.e., China, Russia, Iran, North Korea).
Unfortunately, Washington appears to be squandering this opportunity. It’s threatening once again to leave NATO and blaming Ukraine for failed peace efforts with Russia.
If Trump wants his Iran campaign to carry an enduring legacy, he might look to Zelensky — the one leader who showed up to help during the hottest phase of the war. After destroying much of Iran’s defense capacity, now is the time to strengthen Ukraine’s. In doing so, the president might finally find the leverage he needs to end the Ukraine war altogether.