Shipping Containers-21st Century Aircraft Carriers

The Dogs of War Roam the Highways

Perfecting Equilibrium Volume Four, Issue 7

There was 36 ton of a detonated steel
over 18 tires that smoked and squealed
I had to ride her down and I couldn′t jump free
or there'd be a big hole where that little town used to be
Well that old trailer leaned each time that I took another curve
my hands started sweatin′ and I knew I was losin' my nerve
And I was cussin' each rock and every inch of the Devil′s Crest
a fightin′ with the wheel of a rig called the Nitro Express

The Sunday Reader, June 22, 2025

How many 18-wheelers are within 100 miles of you right now?

There are approximately 35 million of those standard trailers – called intermodal containers because they are standard units that can be loaded on ships or trains, or pulled by trucks – in the United States, and perhaps 100 million worldwide.

What if 5 are carrying attack drones?

This is no science fiction tale. It’s what the Ukrainians just did in Russia. It’s what the Israelis just did in Iran.

There are 5 shipping containers loaded with deadly attack drones. How do you find them?

The Iranian government is trying to solve the problem with paranoid instructions to the populace: Watch out for strangers doing suspicious things. Report suspicious activities.

On the one hand, it’s not paranoid when Israeli drones are wiping out your high command and air defenses. On the other, it’s unlikely to help even a little bit.

Under conventional war doctrine the Iranians had plenty of time to bring air defenses online during an attack as Israeli jets trekked the 2,000 kilometers from Israel to Iran. When the air assault actually happened this month, however, Israeli drones attacked from secret bases inside Iran; by the time the planes entered the fight the Iranian military had been decapitated, communication equipment crippled, and large swaths of air defenses destroyed.

The Iranians have been unable to recover; the Israeli Air Force now flies Iranian airspace with impunity.

The Israeli secret drone base attack came only a few weeks after the Ukraine’s Operation Spider Web used shipping containers to launch drone attacks against Russia’s strategic bomber fleet. These attacks were launched from such close proximity to Russian airfields that defenses were unable to respond. About a third of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet was destroyed in a single attack.

The Russian response is as problematic as that of the Iranian government; apparently the surviving bombers are being moved to a roadless, trackless section of the Siberian steppe.

Where the planes will probably be safe, since there are no roads for trucks to sneak drones close in for another such account.

On the other hand, pretty much anyone with military experience will tell you that hiding your big weapons as far away from the war as possible has never been a winning strategy.

All war is deception, the great Sun Tzu said two and half millennia ago. This was true for the marching armies of ancient China, and today’s motorized legions of land, sea, air and space.

And it is true as I edit this tonight. While all eyes tracked a flight of B-2 bombers flying very publicly west with support tankers to stage on Guam, a separate B-2 flight flew quietly east.

No one noticed them until they rained down MOP bunker-buster bombs on Iranian nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan.

This is why defense is so much harder than offense strategically. Tactically, once the battlefield is set defenders in a defensible position have the advantage, which is why so much attention is paid to Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and his 20th Maine Regiment’s desperate fight to take and hold Little Round Top during the battle of Gettysburg.

But by the time those Mainers took their positions on Little Round Top the battlefield was set. Tactics were all that were left.

Gettysburg is interesting in that neither side really chose that battlefield. The two armies sort of blundered into each other and the most decisive day of the Civil War, as within 24 hours the Army of Northern Virginia and Robert E. Lee were defeated at Gettysburg, and Vicksburg surrendered to Ulyses S. Grant, splitting the Confederacy in two along the Mississippi River.

But strategically the attacking force has the advantage because it has the initiative. The attackers can strike anywhere, meaning the defenders have to defend...well, everywhere.

The constraint that limited attackers has always been logistics. Remember that old soldier saying: amateurs discuss strategy and tactics. Military professionals discuss logistics. And while there have been changes since Sun Tzu, they are smaller than one would think.

Sure, modern ships are faster than sailing ships, and airplanes are faster still.

And yet even the mighty C-5 Galaxy heavy lifters were not enough to keep the Rapid Deployment Force’s 24^th Infantry Division (Mechanized) alive and fighting for more than 72 hours.

This is why SpaceX Troopers will be such a revolution in logistics. Once you can deliver 300,000 pounds – almost double the load of a C-5 – anywhere in the world in an hour, every point on the map is threatened.

The future is here, but it’s not evenly distributed. SpaceX is landing rockets, but it will be years yet before it projects military power across the globe.

Trucker warfare is already here.

Ukrainian drones launched from shipping containers in a coordinated attack that devastated the Russian air force. Israeli forces built and supplied secret drone bases inside Iran.

No military transport needed.

Drones change logistical calculations two ways. First, they are much smaller-you cannot get many F35 fighter planes or M1 Main Battle Tanks into a shipping container.

Second, drones are both the vehicle and the munition. That is, the drones maneuver like aircraft, then attack like missiles.

When you send in conventional forces, you need a way to either keep them alive or get them out. There are exceptions, unfortunately and of course – when I was in the Rapid Deployment Force there was no plan past 72 hours because we would “lose unit cohesion.”

Which is military jargon for “So many of you will be killed there’s no way to come up with a plan.”

All of these considerations are gone with drones. When drones attack, they aren’t coming back whether they succeed or fail in their mission. So a truck can park somewhere, the trucker leave, and the payload attack a day, a week, a month, a year later.

How would you find it?

And it is only going to get worse. Walmart now has drone deliveries in 5 states; Amazon drones on in two.

Can you tell a drone carrying a delivery from one carrying a weaponized payload?

Oh, and the US Army is now 3D printing drones, and deploying 3D printers on the front lines. They are even using drones to deliver newly printed drones to other units!

Heck, you can print your own drones. Here’s how:

One more question for you before you go:

How many 3D printers are within 100 miles of you right now?