LESSONS FOR INDIA FROM FOREIGN WARS

The escalating conflicts involving Iran and the US intervention in Venezuela have provided India with a critical, real-time dataset on the evolution of modern warfare,

- JYOTI SINGH

The first two months of 2026 have witnessed moments in history never seen since the end of the Second World War. On January 3, 2026, the United States launched a military offensive in Venezuela, capturing its de facto leader, President Nicolas Maduro, from the presidential compound in Caracas. This was followed by a joint US-Israeli military campaign in Iran, which kicked off with a decapitation strike in Tehran on the morning of February 28, which took out Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during the opening minutes of the war. Both these strikes, which set a benchmark of precision warfare all across the globe, saw very sophisticated weapons being used, which literally stunned America's adversaries. To add fuel to the fire, US President Donald Trump has stated that Cuba will be next in line to witness a regime-change military intervention, following the ongoing Iran operation.

Deployment of classified tech

The military offensive in Venezuela, which saw the kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro, was defined by the use of game-changing secret weapons that incapacitated the defenders and disabled advanced Russian-made defence systems in minutes. The most controversial element of the strike involved reports of a secret sonic weapon. Witnesses and Venezuelan guards reported that security forces were suddenly overwhelmed by intense physical distress, which included many physical symptoms. The Venezuelan soldiers reported severe vertigo, vomiting blood and nosebleeds.

Venezuelan defenders described a sensation of their heads being torn apart from the inside out, rendering them unable to move or resist. While officially unconfirmed, analysts suggest the device may be a high-power microwave weapon that uses the "Frey effect” to create pressure waves inside the skull, bypassing eardrums to cause internal trauma.