The Age of Asymmetric Warfare Is Here, and the West Is Not Ready

Neutralizing this threat has proven breathtakingly expensive. Sophisticated air defense systems, such as the Patriot, deploy interceptors that cost between $3 million and $4 million per missile, depending on the variant. Using fighter jets to chase down slow-moving drones can be even more expensive when flight hours, fuel, and maintenance are factored in.

In contrast, the Shahed-136 loitering munition, widely used by both Iran and Russia, is estimated to cost between $20,000 and $50,000 per drone. In the first week of the campaign alone, Iran fired more than 500 ballistic missiles and nearly 2,000 drones at Israeli cities and U.S. bases, requiring the use of some 800 Patriot interceptors—more than Ukraine has received in four years of war.

The Trump administration has been roundly criticized for a lack of clarity in its war aims and strategy. What is perhaps even more striking is the lack of imagination, by both the civilian and the military leadership, in grappling with the prospect of countering asymmetric drone warfare.

The economics of the drone war are currently lopsided by several orders of magnitude. Shooting down $20,000 drones with a limited stock of multimillion-dollar interceptors is unsustainable when the United States faces a comparatively puny adversary, such as Iran; it becomes completely unthinkable in a situation in which the U.S. military would have to fight off a larger adversary with a massive drone supply, such as China or Russia.

Ukraine, the most battle-hardened nation in Europe if not the world, has dealt with the threat of asymmetric drone warfare effectively and especially since late 2022, when Russian began deploying Shahed-136 drones to strike Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.

Although President Donald Trump had a point when he told Fox News last week that the United States had “the best drones in the world”—U.S. systems such as the Reaper are among the most advanced and capable in the world—he was flatly wrong in asserting that Washington has nothing to gain from Kyiv’s assistance with drone defense.

Given the scale and the ongoing nature of the threat, and the limited supply of advanced Western air defenses, some 20 Ukrainian companies have been churning out a variety of small interceptor drones, with price tags between $1,000 and $2,500. Models such as Wild Hornets’ Sting and the Octopus have proved effective in mitigating the Shahed threat. In fact, 70 percent of incoming Shaheds over Kyiv last month were neutralized using such interceptor drones, as opposed to more expensive anti-air systems.

Their payloads vary, but interceptor drones are designed to be fast enough to chase the Shaheds. Some are built on 3D-printed frames. They are typically guided by thermal sensors and artificial intelligence to avoid jamming but also allow for a human operator. As with other drones, the innovation cycle has been relentless, driven by an immediate feedback loop between military units and the industry.

Those who have followed the Ukrainian advances on the battlefield since 2022 knew that eventually it would be Ukraine that would be providing military assistance to the West—though few expected it so soon, while Kyiv still deals with the Russian threat. Yet Ukraine is now supplying the United States with its interceptor drones and has dispatched its operators and instructors to help bring the U.S. military up to speed regarding battlefield tactics developed through years of Ukrainian defense against Shahed attacks.

For Ukraine—periodically asked to “thank” the West and the United States for their help—its technological edge is a new source of leverage. According to Ukrainian officials and reports in the press, Kyiv may be discussing drone interceptor cooperation with more than 10 countries, including partners in the Gulf. Ukrainian drone technologies and expertise are already drawing interest in countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which are seeking cheaper ways to defend against drone swarms.

Yet the path ahead is a perilous one and not just for Ukraine. Early in Russia’s war, Tehran transferred Shahed technology to Moscow and helped it establish domestic production. By 2023, Russia had begun producing its own version, known as the Geran-2, with facilities reportedly capable of manufacturing tens of thousands of drones per year. Russia has since steadily modified and improved the system based on combat experience in Ukraine.

The original Shahed-136 drones are simple but effective. They are propeller-driven loitering munitions powered by a small piston engine, typically flying at speeds of around 125 miles per hour and capable of striking targets over distances of roughly 600-1,200 miles depending on configuration. Their low altitude and small radar signature make them difficult to detect and intercept.

The technology is constantly evolving, including in response to more effective Ukrainian defenses. Russia has introduced a faster and more sophisticated variant of its drones—Geran-5—including jet-powered models capable of significantly higher speeds, reaching almost 300 miles per hour. That not only reduces the speed gap between loitering munition and cruise missiles, but it also makes it harder for Ukrainian drone interceptors to effectively chase and destroy the drones.

Russia has also experimented with swarm tactics in which one drone equipped with first-person-view capabilities, air-to-air interceptors, and AI-moderated software performs a coordination role while guiding others toward targets. Such approaches—often described as a “queen bee” or lead-drone model in military discussions—could eventually allow drone swarms to navigate complex terrain and overwhelm air defense systems.

The lesson here is that Western defenses against Iranian and Russian drones have to keep up continually. It is not enough, as has been usual in modern military procurement, just to buy large stocks of interceptors for future use, say from Ukrainian companies. Whatever system is being used effectively to keep Russian and Iranian drones at bay today may well become obsolete by the time it is needed in a future conflict. Ukrainians, for example, are busy at work developing lightweight, jet-powered interception technologies that sit somewhere between traditional missiles and today’s inexpensive interceptor drones.

What is needed, moreover, is production at sufficient scale. For Russia, the lesson of the war in Iran is that geopolitical disruptions drive up oil prices and bolster its state budget. As a result, it has every incentive to export such instability throughout the Middle East and beyond. Relying on China’s inexhaustible supply of dual-use technology, variations on the Shahed risk becoming a major export, soon testing—or overrunning—the defenses of many U.S. allies.

The United States and its partners must match that scale of production, and that means helping Ukrainian companies to expand beyond Ukraine’s borders by accessing U.S. and Western financing, setting up joint ventures with U.S. and European defense manufacturers, and building production capacities outside Ukraine, which would go beyond those that are currently available.

The West may not be at war yet. It is faced, however, with a dramatically new era of drone warfare, upending many assumptions of traditional defense planning. Today, the United States and its allies have no choice but to adapt, innovate, and scale up as quickly as Ukraine has learned to do in the first four years of its war against Russian aggression. Americans and Europeans should consider themselves lucky to be able to rely on Ukrainian innovation and assistance in the process.