SEN WICKER: Ending China’s drone dominance with a made-in-America revival
Battlefields in Ukraine and the Middle East have made one fact unmistakably clear: small drones are no longer a niche capability. They are reshaping modern warfare. Now, the militaries of the world can get persistent surveillance and precision strike options from small systems that are at once inexpensive, adaptable and producible at scale. Traditional defenses were not made to combat these drones, which can overwhelm old-school fortifications through sheer numbers.
Defense planners know this. Real-world warfare has validated war games and live-fire exercises, showing us in real time that drones will shape future conflicts. Small drones have also become a core commercial product for both individual users and key civilian sectors, such as agriculture, energy and law enforcement.
And yet, America’s small drone industrial base is falling behind. We have not managed to make nearly enough drones. Our small drone production rate lags relative to our competitors, particularly China, who has cornered the commercial and military market. Fortunately, concerted action from Congress and President Donald Trump is poised to rebuild America’s drone industrial base in a few short years.
Over a decade ago, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) recognized that small drones would become a pillar of modern warfare and commercial industry. The CCP proceeded to take over the small drone market. It dumped tens of billions of dollars into the industry and adopted predatory pricing practices. American drone companies simply could not compete. We watched as our supply chains further withered. That dynamic created a negative feedback loop that reduced U.S. drone supply and made them prohibitively expensive for both military and commercial customers.
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We have seen the facts, and we have acted. Today, America is ready to rebuild its small drone industry, with a one-two punch of investment and tailored industrial policy.
First, Republicans in Congress, working with the Trump administration, appropriated $2.5 billion in the defense reconciliation bill for the Pentagon to buy small drones. Before that, the military had rarely spent more than $100 million per year on the technology. This $2.5 billion demand signal will allow American industry, along with key allies and partners, to begin rebuilding non-Chinese supply chains for small drones and components.
More than $1 billion of that investment will flow into the new Drone Dominance program. This initiative has brought together 25 American vendors who make small “Group 1” first-person view (FPV) drones. The companies gathered in February at Fort Benning for the first phrase of a four-round competition.
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The top 11 performers were announced in early March. Based on future Gauntlet iterations, the victorious companies will win a portion of the funding and use it to scale production of affordable FPV drones. They must do so quickly — completing 300,000 drones by 2027.
For the first time, the American small drone industry has received a clear sign of significant demand. But it must be persistent, and it will need to scale. By comparison, our Pentagon witnesses at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week told us that Ukraine built 4.5 million Group 1 drones last year and is on track to build 6 million this year alone.
Second, Congress and the Trump administration are working together to help protect this fledgling American industry, which is vulnerable to predatory Chinese business practices. Over the years, the Pentagon has taken steps to vet trusted drone platforms. But Chinese drones are still the product of choice in the commercial sector, from agriculture and energy to law enforcement and search and rescue.
Last year, Congress ordered a national security review of key Chinese drone makers. The law, which was led by Senator Rick Scott and supported by the Senate Armed Services Committee, puts us on the path to banning the sale of these adversary-made components in the United States.
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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is moving quickly to implement this law. Just before Christmas, the FCC announced a ban on the future sale of foreign-made drones and drone components in America. The FCC and the Pentagon are working together to process waivers for key Asian and European allies, as these partners remain an essential part of our drone supply chain.
First, Republicans in Congress, working with the Trump administration, appropriated $2.5 billion in the defense reconciliation bill for the Pentagon to buy small drones.
These investments and policies are a good start, but they are only that. We must continue these efforts in the years to come at similar levels of budgetary effort and continued partnership among the Trump administration, the Pentagon and Congress. Funding levels should remain steady for a few years as American industry rebuilds itself. We should explore new grant and loan programs to accelerate the adoption of American-made drones alongside our law enforcement and agricultural industries.
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When it comes to components, the drone industry largely relies on a similar supplier base — whether it is building for commercial or defense purposes. The faster we create a sustainable U.S. and allied supplier base, the faster we get commercially viable drones that our military can also purchase for reasonable prices. There is no path for American military drone dominance without an American drone industry that can compete commercially.
The early results are encouraging. Competition is driving innovation, protected technologies are advancing, and the industrial base is beginning to scale. These steps are the foundation for a thriving American-based small drone industry that can equip our military affordably and deliver competitive commercial drones.
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Iranian drone attacks strain US air defenses as Ukraine pitches low-cost interceptors
As Iranian-designed Shahed drones proliferate across battlefields from Ukraine to the Middle East, relatively cheap unmanned aircraft are forcing the use of some of the world’s most expensive air defense systems, raising questions about the long-term sustainability of that approach.
The issue has taken on new urgency in the wake of Operation Epic Fury, as Iranian drones — widely estimated to cost $20,000 to $50,000 to manufacture — target U.S. forces and allied Gulf states across the region.
U.S. and partner forces have relied on a mix of Patriot missiles, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense batteries, naval interceptors and other systems to blunt the attacks.
While many of the incoming drones have been intercepted, the strikes have still exacted a cost, killing six U.S. service members in Kuwait and damaging civilian infrastructure, including airports and hotels in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
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The mounting toll has intensified concerns over how to counter drone swarms without depleting interceptor stockpiles that cost millions of dollars each to replace.
Ukraine has been at the forefront of modern drone warfare since Russia’s 2022 invasion, rapidly adapting its tactics and emerging as a leader in battlefield drone technology.
Alex Roslin, a spokesman for the Ukrainian nonprofit miltech company Wild Hornets, told Fox News Digital in an interview that interceptor drones developed in Ukraine offer a dramatically cheaper alternative to traditional air defense systems.
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While a U.S. Patriot missile can cost roughly $4 million, Roslin said his organization’s interceptor drones can be produced for as little as $1,400 apiece.
Wild Hornets’ so-called “Sting” interceptors have downed thousands of Russian-made Shahed-type drones and now achieve a 90% effectiveness rate, according to the group, up from roughly 70% last fall as pilots and radar teams gained experience and adopted improved ground control systems.
“Ukraine had to fight smart and didn’t have rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles, stuff like that, so they turned to these kinds of drones to sort of equalize the battlefield,” Roslin told Fox News Digital.
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The Financial Times reported the Pentagon and at least one Gulf government are in talks to buy Ukrainian-made interceptors amid Iran’s retaliatory attacks.
President Donald Trump told Reuters in a phone interview in early March that he would be open to assistance from any country, when asked about an offer from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to help defend against Iranian drones.
Zelenskyy said Friday in a post on X that Kyiv was sending a team of experts and military personnel to three countries in the Gulf region to help counter Tehran’s drones.
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“We know that in Middle Eastern countries, in the U.S., and in European states, there is a certain number of interceptor drones. But without our pilots, without our military personnel, without specialized software, none of this works,” he wrote.
Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the focus on air defense price tags can obscure the more pressing constraint.
“Capacity is even more important than cheap,” he told Fox News Digital.
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Karako cited lower-cost counter-drone systems, including the Coyote interceptor and the Army’s Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aircraft Integrated Defeat System, or LIDS, as examples of capabilities already fielded to address many drone threats without relying exclusively on high-end air defense systems such as the Patriot.
As Iran’s drone campaign widens, the debate is no longer just about the cost gap between missiles and drones, but about whether traditional air defenses can sustain a new era of mass, low-cost aerial warfare.
Iran’s drone swarms challenge US air defenses as troops in Middle East face rising threats
Cheap Iranian drone attacks are forcing the Pentagon to rapidly expand layered air defenses in the Middle East, as thousands of U.S. troops stationed across the region face an escalating aerial threat that is testing the limits of traditional missile defenses.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) said Tuesday its air defenses detected nine ballistic missiles and 35 drones launched by Iran. Eight missiles were intercepted while one fell into the sea.
Of the 35 drones, 26 were shot down and nine crashed on UAE soil, the country said.
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The engagement highlights how the battlefield is shifting.
Ballistic missiles travel high and fast, allowing long-range interceptors such as the Patriot air defense system and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) to engage them predictably. Drone swarms, which Iran increasingly has relied on in recent exchanges, present a different challenge to U.S. forces.
They fly lower, move slower and often arrive in clusters, making them harder to detect and more likely to strain defenses built for high-speed threats.
U.S. troops already have been directly affected by one-way attack drones in the region. In a March 1 strike near Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, six American service members were killed and dozens wounded when an Iranian drone hit a tactical operations center.
Each interception also carries a cost.
High-end missile interceptors can run into the millions of dollars per shot.
Many of the drones they are designed to defeat are far cheaper and produced in large numbers — creating what defense officials have described as a growing “math problem” in modern warfare. The U.S. can end up firing expensive missiles at relatively inexpensive drones, a dynamic that becomes harder to sustain if attacks come in waves.
That imbalance is accelerating a push inside the Pentagon to expand a layered counter-drone strategy — combining short-range interceptors, electronic warfare tools and emerging technologies such as high-energy lasers.
For U.S. forces in the region, larger drone waves increase the odds that defenses are stretched, and that even one drone could reach a base or ship.
This marks the first sustained confrontation in which U.S. forces are facing large-scale, state-backed drone waves as a central feature of the battlefield — forcing commanders to adapt in real time and draw on lessons learned from Ukraine, where mass-produced Shahed drones reshaped air defense strategy.
Lasers and staying power
Among the new U.S. systems drawing renewed attention are high-energy lasers.
Directed energy is being developed and tested for counter-drone missions and has been used in limited domestic contexts.
U.S. defense officials say lasers offer a potentially significant advantage: Once powered, they can fire repeatedly without expending traditional ammunition.
Unlike missile interceptors, which must be replaced after each launch, a laser system can continue engaging targets as long as sufficient power is available. In theory, that provides sustained defensive capacity during large drone waves.
“It’s a function now of our procurement system, moving those things to the troops as fast as we can,” retired Vice Adm. Kevin Donegan, former commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the U.S. 5th Fleet, told Fox News Digital.
Donegan acknowledged the technology is real but not yet fully fielded across combat zones.
Scaling high-energy systems requires power generation, integration and infrastructure — all of which take time.
A U.S. official confirmed to Fox News Digital that directed energy systems have been tested and employed to counter drones in combat scenarios, and the Pentagon “continues to work to scale this capability as quickly as possible.”
Central Command, the U.S. military command tasked with overseeing the Middle East, declined to comment on whether lasers are part of its current drone defense system against Iran.
Building defensive depth
While lasers represent a longer-term evolution, commanders are relying on multiple defensive layers today.
The recent deployment of the Merops drone-on-drone interceptor into U.S. Central Command reflects that approach.
Developed by U.S.-backed defense firm Perennial Autonomy, Merops is a mobile counter-drone system that launches small interceptor drones from a truck-mounted platform to disable incoming threats. The system was battle-tested against Shahed drones in Ukraine and fielded in NATO countries such as Poland before being accelerated into the Middle East as drone activity intensified.
A former defense official familiar with counter-drone operations said effective counter-UAS capability depends on overlapping systems integrated around high-value targets rather than reliance on a single interceptor.
“Effective counter-UAS capability is overlapping,” the official said. “No one system solves the drone problem by itself.”
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U.S. ships in the region rely on short-range missile systems such as the Rolling Airframe Missile and Sea Sparrow, along with the Close-In Weapon System, a radar-guided rapid-fire gun that can engage threats at close range.
Ground-based defenses incorporate radar detection with specialized interceptors such as Raytheon’s Coyote family, designed to defeat small unmanned aircraft. Industry systems like Anduril’s Roadrunner add autonomous interceptor drones capable of engaging airborne threats and, in some configurations, returning for reuse.
Success begins with early detection. Radar systems track low-flying drones and give operators time to choose whether to jam, intercept or destroy incoming threats.
“We’ve built into the weapon systems of all our military platforms that are combatants counter-drone capability,” Donegan said.
Lessons from Ukraine
Iran’s Shahed drones were refined during Russia’s war in Ukraine, where cities faced nightly waves of low-cost one-way attack aircraft. There, layered defenses combining short-range interceptors, electronic warfare and evolving technologies proved essential in absorbing sustained attacks.
Ukrainian officials have said some cities faced more than a hundred drones in a single night, forcing air defense crews to remain on alert for hours at a time.
Ukraine has since offered to share its battlefield experience with the United States and Gulf partners as Iranian drone activity expands in the Middle East.
Officials say those lessons are influencing U.S. planning.
“JIATF-401 is accelerating procurement of multiple counter-UAS capabilities across several combatant commands, including sensing radars, kinetic interceptors and other available systems, not just Merops, to expand layered defenses in the U.S. Central Command area of operations,” a U.S. official said.
“Some of the capabilities being surged to support our warfighters reflect lessons we are learning and technology we are transferring from the battlefield in Ukraine.”
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The result is expanding defensive depth — designed to absorb and defeat a threat that is inexpensive, persistent and increasingly central to modern warfare.
For the troops stationed at those bases and aboard those ships, that layered defense is what stands between a drone intercepted in the sky and one that reaches its target.
As drone production scales and tactics evolve, the contest between low-cost attack drones and layered air defenses playing out in Iran the future of warfare itself.
Ukrainian Paralympian Maksym Murashkovskyi wins silver medal after training with ChatGPT for 6 months
After training with ChatGPT over the last six months, Ukrainian biathlete Maksym Murashkovskyi won a silver medal at the 2026 Milan Cortina Paralympic Games.
Murashkovskyi, 25, said he used the AI chatbot in a variety of ways throughout his training.
“For the past six months, I have been training with ChatGPT,” Murashkovskyi said, according to The Athletic.
“It was not only tactics. It was half of my training plan, motivation, etc. So it was a huge volume of all of my training.
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“I used it as a psychologist, coach and, sometimes, as a doctor.”
Murashkovskyi won a few medals at the Para Biathlon World Cup in January and gave credit to ChatGPT for his success.
“I also won a few medals there, and even a gold. So, I can give great credit to ChatGPT,” he said. “I believe in it, it is a revolutionary technology.”
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Murashkovskyi was asked if AI could replace coaches, psychologists and doctors, and he agreed to an extent.
“Not completely for five to 10 years. But part of it, definitely,” he said.
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Murashkovskyi competed under the NS3 classification, which applies to athletes with the lowest level of visual impairment. He ran the race alongside his guide skier, Vitaliy Trush. For the NS2 and NS3 competitors, guide skiers are optional, but they are mandatory for NS1 athletes.
Murashkovskyi finished with a time of 33:41.1 in the men’s individual vision-impaired event Sunday. He was just over two minutes behind Chinese gold medalist Dang Hesong and beat his compatriot Dmytro Suiarko for second place.
Ukraine sending drone team to help protect US bases in Jordan at Washington’s request, Zelenskyy says
Ukraine has dispatched interceptor drones and a team of drone specialists to help protect U.S. military bases in Jordan as fighting tied to the Iran war intensifies across the region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an interview with The New York Times.
Zelenskyy told the NYT that Washington made the request on Thursday, and Kyiv moved swiftly to respond, dispatching the drone team the following day.
“We reacted immediately,” Zelenskyy said. “I said, yes, of course, we will send our experts.”
The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for confirmation.
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The reported request comes as the U.S. and Gulf states work to intercept hundreds of Iranian missiles and thousands of drones launched in retaliation for U.S.-Israeli strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iranian drones have struck the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, including an attack on a tactical operations center in Kuwait that killed six U.S. service members.
The high volume of Iranian Shahed drone launches has drawn attention to the cost disparity between the relatively inexpensive unmanned aircraft and the far more sophisticated air defense systems, such as Patriot missiles, used to intercept them.
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According to the Department of the Army’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget estimates, the cost for a single Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptor is $3.8 million.
A basic Iranian-designed Shahed drone costs roughly $20,000 to $50,000, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
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“Iran knows it can’t match the U.S. or Gulf states plane for plane or missile for missile, but it can change the economics of the conflict,” said Patrycja Bazylczyk, an associate director with the Missile Defense Project at CSIS, in an interview with Military Times.
“Drones let Iran punch above its weight, keep its adversaries off balance, and project power across the region at minimal cost. We can’t just play whack-a-mole in the sky,” she added. “Shooting drones down one by one is the most expensive way to fight the cheapest threat. We have to go after the roots – the launch sites, the production lines, and the storage depots.”
Russian missile strike kills 10 in Ukraine as Trump says ‘hatred’ between countries complicating peace deal
A Russian ballistic missile strike on a residential building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, killed at least 10 people, including two children, and wounded 16 others Saturday, officials said.
The strike was part of a broader overnight assault in which Russia launched 29 missiles and 480 drones targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure, with damage reported in Kyiv and at seven other locations across the country, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy called for an international response following the attack.
“There must be a response from partners to these savage strikes against life. I thank everyone who will not remain silent. Russia has not abandoned its attempts to destroy Ukraine’s residential and critical infrastructure, and therefore support must continue,” he said in a post on X.
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“We count on active work with the European Union to guarantee greater protection for our people,” he added. “I am grateful to everyone who helps strengthen our protection.”
Preliminary Ukrainian data showed air defense systems downed 19 missiles and 453 drones, while nine missiles and 26 strike drones hit 22 locations.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the strikes targeted Ukrainian military factories, energy facilities and air bases.
TRUMP SAYS ‘HATRED’ BETWEEN PUTIN, ZELENSKYY BLOCKING UKRAINE PEACE DEAL
Speaking Saturday at the Shield of the Americas Summit in Doral, Florida, President Donald Trump said the “hatred” between Russia and Ukraine was complicating efforts to reach a peace deal.
“It’s so great that, you know, Ukraine, Russia, you’d think there would be a little bit of camaraderie, [but] there’s not. And the hatred is so great. It’s very hard for them to get there. It’s very, very hard to get there. So we’ll see what happens,” Trump said. “But we’ve been close a lot of times and one or the other would back out.”
“But we’re losing, you know, they’re losing, you know, doesn’t really affect us very much because we’ve got an ocean separating. I’m doing it as a favor to Europe, and I’m doing it as a favor to life because they’re losing 25,000 souls,” Trump added. “Think of that every month. 25,000. Last month, 31,000. Both sides, 31,000 people died, mostly soldiers.”
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Last month, Zelenskyy told Fox News that Russia is trying “to play with the president of the United States” and stalling U.S.-brokered efforts to end the war.