The United States spent at least a month preparing its military offensive against Iran, deploying the largest fleet of aircraft carriers and fighter jets the Middle East has seen in decades. Yet the opening days of the war exposed a critical flaw in American planning: the lack of effective, affordable defenses against swarms of cheap Iranian drones.
As reported by "Hvylya", citing The Atlantic, the US and its allies have been forced to use their most advanced and expensive anti-aircraft systems - including Patriot missiles, Apache helicopters, and F-35 fighter jets - to shoot down Iranian Shahed drones that cost roughly $30,000 each. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged this gap in US counter-drone technology during a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill.
"There are not great defenses available to the U.S. military to defend against the Shahed," a congressional official said after the briefing. "We have known this for a long time. We don't have, at scale, good defenses against drones."
Iran launched more than 2,000 drones between Saturday and yesterday morning, according to Pentagon data. One attack on a US base in Kuwait killed at least six American military personnel and wounded several others. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed it had fired 230 drones at facilities hosting American troops across the region, including the US embassy in Riyadh. Iranian media also released footage of what appears to be a large stockpile of Shahed drones stored inside a tunnel.
The Pentagon's preliminary estimate puts the war's cost at $1 billion per day, which could lead to a supplemental funding request of up to $50 billion. Meanwhile, Ukraine - the country with the most experience countering Shaheds - was never consulted before the offensive began. "I have not received any direct requests," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters. "I have not discussed this with anyone."
The Atlantic describes the situation as a failure that "already looks like poor planning at best, and hubris at worst."
Also read: "You Could Have Asked Us": Ukraine's Drone Experts Watched Gulf States Struggle With Shaheds