Item — HN Reader

> Romania is spending a lot of cash on defense measures for drones and other armament

Some of this is going to be stalled - Romania was planning on deploying the Iron Dome [0] and Spyder [1] for AD which was going to be co-produced by Volkswagen in their German factories that were on the chopping block, but Qatar (Volkswagen's largest minority shareholder with 17% voting share) blocked that deal [2].

[0] - https://www.jpost.com/international/article-861770

[1] - https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/sy1n3pcfzx

[2] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-10/qatar-blo...

1 comments

Iron Dome is designed for protecting from home made rockets made with dung from the Gaza Strip. And according to research the main reason for the low casualty rate is actually the early warning. How exactly is it supposed to help with real missiles and drones?

How do these scams keep happening? Why doesn't anyone care how their taxpayer money is spent?

Exactly. Iron dome was designed for Iranian designed drones and missiles (designed with Chinese help). There is nothing "home made" about palestinian actions, or "the cause", not even the propaganda that it's all homemade. Built by Iran too mostly (again with Chinese help). These are the exact missiles raining down on European cities.

China even built in insurance (check what the fuel is for the more advanced rockets, then check if Iran can actually synthesize that fuel ... heh. Weird)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-57092245

Oh and to add insult to injury, the big problem with both European and US air defense, being overwhelmed by numbers of drones and rockets, is something Israel has demonstrated how to deal with a dozen times. In fact this system was designed for that.

Therefore Iron dome, Israeli experience and Israeli tactics are exactly what's needed here.

But of course politics are more important than direct demonstrations and weapons fire showing exactly who Europe's enemies are. Sorry that I ever suggested anything remotely different. Apologies. Please continue.

> home made rockets made with dung from the Gaza Strip

Homemade bottle rockets are a 2000s era Israel thing. Now it's Ababeel, Mohajer, Shahed, Arash and other Iranian drones deployed in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran. The same kinds of drones being used in Ukraine and operated by Iranian personnel [0][1][2] that are also the same make as the drones shot down in Romania as well as Poland.

Ukraine also gave us intel linking Iranian strike capacity with Russia [3] and Russia has previously offered to stop giving Iran geoint and strike intel in return for the US stopping geoint and strike intel sharing with Ukraine, which the US rejected [4].

[0] - https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/03/10/8024839/

[1] - https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/11/07/7375314/

[2] - https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/10/23/7373119/

[3] - https://xcancel.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/2081074329115078813#m

[4] - https://www.politico.eu/article/putin-offers-stop-intel-iran...