Paul Mozur and Adam Satariano
Long before Iranian drones rained down on airports, skyscrapers and embassies across the Persian Gulf this past week, the United States military was busy trying to find cheap ways to shoot them down. In 2024, the military’s research and development effort reverse-engineered the Shahed drone to use for target practice, aiming to develop new defenses against a weapon that Iran had been sharing with allies including Russia, Venezuela and Hezbollah.
Then came an idea. If the Iranian drone was so cheap and effective, why not just copy it?
Thus was born the United States low-cost unmanned combat system, or LUCAS. Over the past week, American forces used the drone for the first time in combat to hit infrastructure and overwhelm Iranian air defense systems. “These low-cost drones, modeled after Iran’s Shahed drones, are now delivering American-made retribution,” the U.S. Central Command said in a social media post.
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