Iran's drone war is exposing deep cracks in US and allied air defenses

There is a sound — a low, persistent buzzing — that links Iran's asymmetric warfare against US and Israeli targets in the Middle East to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

It is the sound of a terrifying weapon that symbolizes a new economy of war — cheap, expendable, and mass-produced — and makes its presence known long before it strikes.

In Ukraine, they call them "flying mopeds."

The engines on the Iranian-designed Shahed drones — cheap weapons which cost as little as $20,000 to $50,000, have a wingspan of nearly 10 feet, have a range of up to 1,000 miles, and carry up to 90 kilograms of explosives — whine as they blast and incinerate their targets, from apartment blocks to industrial plants.

That same buzzing now rumbles across the Middle East.

In the opening weeks of the war, Iran launched more than 3,600 of these exploding drones across the region — a campaign that not only reshaped the battlefield but exposed its vulnerabilities.

A Shahed slammed into a radar dome near the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain.

A blast ripped through a luxury district in Dubai.

A Saudi refinery burned; Kuwait reported similar strikes on its energy infrastructure.

What is unfolding goes far beyond regional escalation. Iran's ability to sustain near-daily drone barrages — often combined with missiles — has prolonged the conflict while increasing pressure on critical infrastructure and global energy markets. Leading military analysts and Ukrainian operators say it exposed a structural vulnerability: advanced Western militaries accustomed to defeating enemy fighter jets and missiles are struggling against a threat that outnumbers their defenses. Even as the United States, according to US Central Command, targets Iran's "one-way attack drone capabilities," it has so far failed to decisively shut down its Shahed attacks.

"I don't think that any military in the world has learned sufficiently from Ukraine about what is required to deal with the kind of drone threat posed by Russia — or, frankly, the drone threat posed by Ukraine to Russia, which is also extraordinary," said David Petraeus, a retired general and former CIA director, in an interview with Business Insider.

Only weeks ago, Petraeus returned from a trip to Ukraine, where he accompanied an air defense unit outside Kyiv defending against Shahed drones. What he saw, he argued, points to the beginning of a broader military transformation that will require fundamental changes to how armed forces are organized, trained, and equipped.

The United States, despite its technological edge, has not adapted fast enough. What is now playing out in the Middle East is not a surprise — it is a warning.

The economics of air defense reveal the imbalance. Even the high-end systems face hard limits: an IRIS-T launcher carries eight missiles, a Patriot launcher up to sixteen — meaning a single drone wave can quickly exhaust ready interceptors. Iran's drones are cheap and easy to produce at scale, allowing Tehran — and Russia — to sustain high volumes of attacks. Countering low-cost Shaheds with $3-4 million Patriot (PAC-3) interceptor missiles is economically unsustainable — a reality that defies easy solutions.

Recent operations have exposed how quickly stockpiles can be depleted. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the US-led campaign against Iran is consuming large numbers of scarce interceptor missiles, forcing Washington to shift air defense assets across regions to keep pace. The implications extend beyond the Middle East: Europe, too, remains heavily reliant on US interceptors to counter ballistic missiles. Lockheed Martin is on track this year to produce more than 600 PAC-3 missiles for the first time and plans to increase annual capacity to 2,000 in the coming years, according to a January announcement.

As governments across the Middle East scramble for solutions, Kyiv has become a hub of expertise. More than 200 Ukrainian drone specialists have been deployed abroad in recent weeks, advising partners across the Middle East, including on the protection of US installations. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine has sent drone experts to help protect US military bases in Jordan.

Even as President Donald Trump has suggested the United States does not need Ukraine's help in drone defense, the battlefield is telling a different story.

"Ukraine has built what is arguably the world's most combat-tested, multi-layered drone defense architecture," said the influential military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady, who regularly visits Ukrainian front-line units and advises European governments. "Its uniqueness lies in the acceptance that no single system — no silver bullet — can defeat a mass drone threat, and that the answer must be a diverse, layered and economically sustainable ecosystem of capabilities."

The war with Iran is making that impossible to ignore— and pressing.

How Ukraine Takes on Shaheds

To understand how Ukraine counters Iran-designed Shahed drones, it helps to travel to eastern Ukraine — the main theater of Russia's war.

On a remote field outside Dnipro, less than a 50-minute drive from the front line, Ukrainian pilots are testing what has become the most cost-effective weapon in Ukraine's arsenal: interceptor drones. A unit of the elite drone brigade "Magyar's Birds" operates here, using aircraft that cost as little as $5,000 to hunt down Russian systems worth many times more. These rapidly evolving systems are reshaping air defense. They now down roughly one in three Russian aerial targets — and, over Kyiv, more than 70% of Shahed drones.

"It has 200 grams of explosives," said a soldier with the call sign "Kusto" in an interview with Business Insider, holding up the interceptor. He and his comrades wore balaclavas to avoid identification by Russian forces. "This warhead is capable of destroying the enemy's main reconnaissance drones, as well as Shahed-type drones. If the strike is carried out correctly, it can take them down."

Operators adjust the payload depending on the target. One option is a heavier charge — the equivalent of 500 grams of TNT. Another combines a smaller explosive load with fragmentation, designed to burst metal fragments outward to maximize damage against reconnaissance or strike drones such as Zala, Lancet, Molniya, Orlan or Supercam.

In some cases, a single interceptor armed with a fragmenting warhead can take out multiple targets. "If we launch a drone to destroy an Orlan or a Supercam and a Shahed is flying nearby, we can destroy the Shahed as well," Kusto says. "That's enough — there are fuel tanks inside. The fragments pierce them, it starts to burn, and the drone is destroyed."

The principle is simple: intercept the threat midair — and destroy it before it reaches its target. The process is more complex, requiring radar operators to locate incoming drones early and relay them to dispersed interceptor crews.

Every movement is drilled. At the training site, the soldiers rehearsed each step up to launch — typically using a catapult system with a tensioned elastic cord, though the drones can also be launched by hand. At the front, seconds can mean survival. Their rule is strict: the drone must be airborne within three to five minutes.

"They fly at speeds of 150 to 200, even 220 kilometers per hour," said Kusto. "That means they can catch up with standard Shaheds."

The sheer scale of Russia's campaign is unprecedented, with attacks reaching up to 900 drones a day across Ukraine — far exceeding anything seen in the Middle East. Flight paths show swarms approaching from multiple directions, designed to stretch and overwhelm air defenses. According to assessments by Ukrainian and European intelligence agencies, Russia is capable of producing between 3,000 and 5,000 Shahed-style long-range attack drones per month. The Russian-made systems are called Geran drones.

In response, Ukraine has been forced to build a multi-layered system, combining interceptor drones, helicopters, fighter jets with guns and missiles, ground-based air defenses, heavy machine guns, and electronic warfare. In March, President Zelenskyy said Ukraine can produce at least 2,000 combat-proven interceptor drones per day — roughly double the military's needs, leaving up to 1,000 daily units available for allies.

"What is required is a comprehensive concept — a comprehensive plan — that uses all types of systems," said Petraeus, co-author of the book, "Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine" and someone regarded as one of America's foremost military strategists. He pointed to Ukraine's extensive network of radars, acoustic sensors, and other tools feeding into a shared sensory map of aerial threats.

This means the decisive factor is not any single weapon, argues military analyst Gady. "Without an integrated architecture — one that fuses radar feeds, early warning systems, and command-and-control into a single real-time platform — effective employment of interceptors at scale is nearly impossible," he said.

This is why exporting Ukrainian interceptor drones alone is not enough. What's decisive is the combat experience and operational know-how behind them — the expertise of elite Ukrainian units like Magyar's Birds — and the ability to translate it into a fully integrated drone defense system night after night.

When Petraeus was out one night recently with a drone unit near Kyiv, he saw how that works in practice. On Ukraine's integrated air picture, every incoming threat was visible. "We could even see glide bombs — that were launched over Russian airspace — and then track the bombs themselves coming in, in that case toward somewhere around Kharkiv," he said.

The rapid evolution has exposed a gap Western militaries have yet to close. In Ukraine, electronic warfare systems designed to scramble frequencies used to control Shahed drones often have to be updated every few weeks — sometimes even days — or risk becoming obsolete.

Russia has adapted. Many Shaheds now cruise at higher altitudes, sometimes reaching up to 13,000 feet, to evade interceptors and penetrate deeper into Ukrainian territory.

But Ukraine has adapted, too.

"These interceptor drones can climb to four or even five kilometers," said Kusto, the latter the equivalent of 16,000 feet. "And destroy them there."

Operators monitor the sky through screens, scanning for incoming threats while guiding their interceptors in real time; higher altitudes put a premium on more advanced notice of an incoming threat. Increasingly, they rely on artificial intelligence to support targeting.

"Artificial intelligence helps identify and highlight the target," said Vitaliy, another soldier in the unit. Once the system locks on, he explained, the operator initiates the attack — and the rest is automated.

The technology is developed in close cooperation with Western partners and constantly refined using combat data. Ukrainian teams run test flights, collecting footage from every possible angle, which is then used to train neural networks abroad. "We send the data to Germany," Vitaliy said. "There, they teach the system what is a Shahed and what is not — building a model of the target from all perspectives."

Beyond Shaheds

How deeply Ukraine has embedded drone defense across every level of its military was clear at a secret training ground in northeastern Ukraine.

New recruits from an infantry unit of the 47th Brigade spread out across an open field, rifles raised — waiting for the sound. Suddenly, a drone rushed toward them, a yellow balloon attached in place of an explosive charge. "Fire, fire!" a Ukrainian instructor shouted as the drone zigzagged.

Shooting down these small aircraft — often costing only a few hundred dollars — can mean the difference between life and death. Online, countless videos show Ukrainian and Russian soldiers staring at incoming one-way attack drones, pleading for mercy in their final moments.

"To reach a position today, you need the ability to take down enemy drones," said a Ukrainian unit commander, call sign "Musician." "You have to stay concealed, remain undetected, move quickly — and ideally make it to your position alive."

For soldiers on both sides, survival increasingly depends on those skills. Thousands of First-Person-View (FPV) drones laden with warheads have turned the battlefield into a place where there is almost nowhere left to hide. The immediate kill zone — the area under constant high drone threat — now extends roughly 15 to 20 kilometers, or about 12 miles, from the front line on both sides.

Even electronic warfare is no longer a guarantee of safety. Traditional jamming systems are bypassed by a new generation of fiber-optic drones — tethered systems guided via cables that can stretch for miles across the battlefield. Immune to electronic interference, they can only be stopped by being shot down.

The threat is no longer confined to Ukraine. Videos posted by Iranian-backed militias in March appear to show FPV drones striking hangars and a helicopter near a base in Iraq. It is another reminder that distance and high-end defenses no longer guarantee protection — as creative tactics and mass-production bypass even well-defended positions.

Militaries that want to compete at the cutting edge will need deep reforms. In summer 2024, Ukraine became the first country worldwide to establish an Unmanned Systems Forces (USF) as an independent branch of its armed forces. The USF is tasked with the development, integration, and deployment of unmanned platforms in the air, on land, and at sea, while also serving as a direct bridge to domestic manufacturers.

The United States — and especially Europe — are lagging behind, according to experts.

"You have to adapt your organizational structures to modern drone warfare and to the way you train and operate," said Petraeus, the former CIA director. "You also need to revise all of your leader development courses — for commissioned, warrant and non-commissioned officers. You obviously have to dramatically change your material requirements and what you buy. Yet none of these changes are happening remotely fast enough in countries outside Ukraine."

For now, the skill of drone pilots still shapes the outcome of combat. But that advantage is fading as the battlefield shifts toward increasingly autonomous systems.

"The next major development in the war in Ukraine will feature far more autonomous systems — not just individual autonomous drones, but systems of autonomous systems that can think for themselves and carry out the orders they've been programmed to follow," said Petraeus. Such systems, he warns, will pose a fundamental challenge to existing defenses.

"You cannot defeat a drone swarm with current counter-drone capabilities."

Militaries are racing to respond. Directed-energy weapons — especially lasers — are often seen as a potential breakthrough: fast, precise, and far cheaper per shot than interceptor missiles. Even more promising are high-powered microwave systems capable of disabling multiple drones at once.

"The only element that is just now emerging is high-powered microwave systems," Petraeus said. "If you look at one of the leading new systems, it's called Epirus. It's relatively short-range, and thus point-defense rather than area defense, but it is incredibly effective, and it can deal with what is coming next — autonomous systems, drones that can operate in swarms."

For the United States, the lesson is clear: the drone defense playbook exists — but it is being written by Ukraine.

Ibrahim Naber is a foreign correspondent who has reported from Ukraine since 2022. In October 2025, he and his team were injured in a Russian Lancet drone strike in Dnipro. In 2025, he received the George Weidenfeld Prize for his coverage of global conflicts and crisis zones. He wrote his dissertation at King's College London on the psychology of modern drone warfare.

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