Wings Over Water

Iran’s first drone-carrier warship signals a bold shift in naval power projection, challenging Israel and the West while redrawing the balance in the Middle East’s waterways.

Iran’s unveiling of the Shahid Bagheri - its first-ever drone carrier - arrives at a critical moment of escalating tensions in the Middle East with Israel intensifying its shadow war against Iranian proxies and military assets, from Damascus to the Red Sea.

In this context, the Shahid Bagheri is a strong signal to Iran’s adversaries that the Islamic Republic intends to project power across the region and beyond.

At 180 meters long and boasting a runway for unmanned combat aircraft, the Shahid Bagheri can traverse 22,000 nautical miles without refuelling, a capability that extends Iran’s military reach well beyond its littoral waters. That such an achievement comes from a nation still labouring under crushing Western sanctions makes the development all the more significant. Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which operates the vessel, is marketing it as a tool of deterrence.

For years, Iran’s drone program has been one of its most potent assets. The country has supplied unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to Russia for its war in Ukraine, while also equipping proxies with attack drones that have harassed U.S. bases, Saudi oil facilities and Israeli positions. Now, by marrying this drone expertise with naval operations, Iran is creating a new dimension of maritime warfare.

The Shahid Bagheri’s ability to launch and retrieve drones at sea gives Iran a floating launchpad for surveillance, reconnaissance and potentially, long-range precision strikes. This mirrors U.S. and British concepts of drone-centric naval warfare, but with an Iranian twist: it is designed to operate under a doctrine of asymmetric warfare where Iran offsets its naval inferiority to Western fleets by leveraging cheap, expendable and hard-to-intercept drones.

Unlike conventional aircraft carriers, which require deep logistical support and significant escorts, a drone carrier built from a commercial hull is far less costly and more flexible. Such conversions are also harder to track under international regulations. In recent months, Iran has ramped up its naval modernization, despite Western economic sanctions. Alongside the drone carrier, Tehran has commissioned the Zagros, a domestically-built signals intelligence (SIGINT) ship capable of intercepting and decoding enemy communications. Combined, these assets indicate that Iran is shifting from a purely coastal defence force to a more sophisticated maritime player.

For Israel, the United States and Gulf Arab states, the implications are clear. Iran’s naval doctrine is evolving beyond swarming small boats and missile-laden speedboats. A floating drone base extends its reach to choke points like the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Strait of Hormuz through which a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes. If Iran chooses to flex its maritime muscles, these trade arteries could become battlegrounds.

The Shahid Bagheri is also a message to Washington. The U.S. Navy has been reinforcing its presence in the Gulf in response to Iranian harassment of commercial vessels. A drone carrier gives Iran an unpredictable and mobile asset to counterbalance American firepower. And with Russia and China deepening military ties with Tehran, it is not hard to imagine Iranian drones finding their way into joint naval exercises with these powers, further complicating the West’s strategic calculus.

The broader question is whether the Shahid Bagheri is a prelude to a more aggressive Iranian posture at sea. Iran insists its naval expansion is defensive. But Iran’s ability to disrupt regional security, whether through drone attacks, proxy warfare, or cyber operations, has only grown in recent years.

With Israel openly targeting Iranian weapons shipments in Syria, and with the Houthis escalating attacks on Red Sea shipping, the Middle East’s maritime domain is growing more volatile.

Iran’s history of maritime provocations, be it seizing tankers, sabotaging vessels, or harassing U.S. warships, suggests that the Shahid Bagheri could become a flashpoint in the near future. If Iran deploys the ship aggressively, it risks escalating the very conflicts it claims to deter. But if it uses the vessel strategically, it may succeed in reshaping the region’s naval balance without firing a shot.