Blood from a drone: Iran’s deadly arsenal
Economist Podcasts
The Economist
4.3 • 5K Ratings
🗓️ 12 March 2026
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Iran continues to retaliate against attacks with ferocity. Though many of its ballistic missile facilities have been razed, its vast drone armoury is powerful and destructive. Who will benefit from India’s boom in data centres? And why giant board games are not child’s play.
Guests and host:
- Shashank Joshi, defence editor
- Gavin Jackson, South Asia business and finance correspondent
- Rosie Blau, co-host of “The Intelligence”
- Jason Palmer, co-host of “The intelligence”
Topics covered:
- Iran, America, Shahed drones, Geran, Ukraine, Zelenksy
- India, data centres, Amazon, Meta, Google, Nvidia
- Monopoly, board games, toys, kidults
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Economist. |
| 0:10.2 | Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. |
| 0:13.5 | I'm Jason Palmer. |
| 0:14.7 | And I'm Rosie Bloor. |
| 0:16.2 | Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. |
| 0:24.9 | Thank you. weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. On the fringes of India's biggest cities are some of its buildings with the biggest footprints. |
| 0:30.7 | A data center boom is going on, and we ask who stands to benefit. |
| 0:36.7 | And if playing interminable games of Monopoly |
| 0:39.2 | is also one of your childhood traumas, |
| 0:41.8 | imagine a life-sized version. |
| 0:44.2 | Last week, I took a crack team of intelligence producers |
| 0:46.9 | to try it and discover why adults are embracing live-action games. |
| 0:51.9 | Spoiler alert, Mayfair alluded us. |
| 1:10.6 | Thank you. live-action games. Spoiler alert, Mayfair alluded us. But first... Nearly two weeks into the war and the display of American and Israeli firepower has been fast-paced and overwhelming. |
| 1:17.6 | Iran's response too has been fiercer than some expected. |
| 1:23.6 | Overnight Iran attacked two foreign tankers in the Persian Gulf. |
| 1:28.5 | It continued to strike energy infrastructure across the region |
| 1:31.5 | and its Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened Western financial institutions |
| 1:35.9 | after a bank in Tehran was hit. |
| 1:39.1 | As well as deploying ballistic missiles, Iran's retaliation relies on another weapon too, a vast arsenal of cheap, |
| 1:46.8 | precise and deadly drones. Iran has fired more than 2,000 Shaheed-type drones at Israel, |
| 1:54.9 | at Arab countries, indeed as far afield as Cyprus throughout this conflict. And they've been incredibly important. |
... |
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