Terrorists’ Technological Innovation In Missiles And UAVs: Hamas, Hizballah And The Houthis

Terrorist groups innovate technologically in their warfare when enabling strategic, operational, and tactical conditions are present. This has been the case with the Lebanese Hizballah, the Palestinian Hamas, and the Yemeni Houthis who have been among the first hybrid terrorist groups to massively employ sophisticated and lethal missiles and autonomous aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the warfare against their targeted countries, in this case, Israel. As a result, these technologically sophisticated military warfare capabilities have transformed the magnitude of their threats from a manageable ‘border menace’ to strategic threats against Israel.
Hamas’s surprise cross border attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, represented a transformative game-changer that in the event of a future conflict will require Israel to massively and preemptively retaliate against such missile firings. At least nine conditions are required for hybrid terrorist groups to innovate technologically to achieve such warfare capability against their targeted country adversary:

First, a realization that previous tactics and weapons, such as attacks involving conventional weapons (e.g., firearms, IEDs, and vehicular rammings) are inadequate to cause the targeted adversary catastrophic harm and damage to coerce it to change course.
Second, an ambition to change a previous strategy, such as shootings and suicide bombings by individual operatives, by adopting more lethal weapons in their repertoire in order to i...