Military Claims to Have Robots

February 21, 2025

The Iranian military, which seems to claim some new capability almost every month, has now claimed that it is using “military robots,” sparking visions of the Islamic Republic building Hollywood-style robots that run man-like across open ground to attack human beings.

While the military showed no photos and did not give any details about its robots, Gen. Nozar Nemati, the deputy commander of the Army Ground Forces, spoke only of technological advancements that included unmanned ground vehicles and unmanned aerial vehicles, neither of which is new. The United States introduced unmanned aerial vehicles or drones into warfare in its 1991 war to drive Iraq out of Kuwait.

That was a third of a century ago. Nemati said Iran’s new robots were used in a military exercise carried out in January that was given an unusually huge volume of media attention, seemingly in an effort to counter the view that Iran’s two missile barrages against Israel last year were both flops that showed up Iran’s armed forces as weak and insignificant.

Nemati said, “We are … designing and implementing connections between special forces and robots for future warfare while employing various attacking drones and an integrated system to counter enemy drones,” jargon that conveyed very little.