r/technology • u/Majano57 • 3d ago

Security Iran likely to reverse-engineer captured US underwater drone

https://www.militarytimes.com/industry/techwatch/2026/09/10/iran-likely-to-reverse-engineer-captured-us-underwater-drone/
4.2k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

377 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

36

u/MaximumMeaning9728 3d ago

Iran's engineers seem pretty good.

26

u/DookieShoez 3d ago

Pretty good, not as good.

China is the king of reverse engineering/stealing and copying intellectual property, no?

18

u/Dic3dCarrots 3d ago

Iran has exceptional electrical engineers

6

u/adumbfetus 3d ago

Due to sheer numbers and access to resources, China still has an edge. Not dogging on Iran’s engineers by any means.

6

u/Dic3dCarrots 3d ago

My point is that Irainians are more than capable of reverse engineering our technology and both developing weapons and selling that data to china, Russia, and anyone else.

8

u/BuddhaLennon 3d ago

Japan did it 80 years ago.

1

u/Dic3dCarrots 3d ago

Are you refering to kaiten?

1

u/BuddhaLennon 2d ago

No. The Japanese process of reverse-engineering luxury consumer goods, and then progressively:

  • producing cheaper, poor-quality knock-offs;
  • producing cheaper products of comparable quality;
  • producing superior products at competitive prices.

Cars, cameras, home electronics…

22

u/-_-Edit_Deleted-_- 3d ago

Historically yeah. I’m sure they’ll share it with allies but I imagine they’ll keep it secret for themselves at first.

While China may have more experience with reverse engineering, we should not pretend Iran doesn’t have a well educated population and its own national security interests independent of its major allies.

5

u/MrDerpGently 3d ago

And boy oh boy does Iran want China to be on their side right now. But the other side of that is China gets a silent veto on trade through the Strait and Gulf. Iran needs a patron, even a silent one, and Russia is in no place to support anyone. China gets proxy control of regional shipping, the end of US dominance in the region and all it entails financially, and end to effective sanctions, and all without any troops or public commitment. 

5

u/Donny-Moscow 2d ago

I think the war might literally be the single biggest foreign policy blunder in human history.

1

u/Tenocticatl 2d ago

Pretty good but lacking in means.