The US and Iran are trading blows in the Gulf with a simple drone that costs as little as $50,000 to make. But why is a slow, cheap and relatively primitive drone seeing use in 2026 alongside hypersonic missiles and stealth jets?

When Operation Epic Fury began on February 28, 2026, the sky over Iran was filled with a familiar, buzzing silhouette: a delta-winged kamikaze drone. But for the first time in history, the serial numbers on those drones didn't point back to Tehran—they pointed to Arizona.

For a few years now, and particularly since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, conventional wisdom has said that the future of warfare is swarms of cheap drones with explosives strapped to them. But now, over on War on the Rocks, a veteran ...

This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated. Ryan Knutson: Our colleague Heather Somerville covers national security. And after the war between Israel and Hamas broke out, she ...

Russia’s escalating use of cheap one-way attack drones against Ukraine has created a cost crisis for Western air defense systems, forcing the United States to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into interceptor production that still cannot keep pace.