From the article:

In a call for industry pitches, the Defense Innovation Unit’s notice described the US military’s current reliance on drones and crewed aircraft, each costing more than $30 million, as being “unsustainable against adversaries utilizing layered defenses enabled by increasingly low-cost antiaircraft capabilities.” It envisions deploying more “cost-effective” drones to “overwhelm enemy air defenses even while experiencing numerous [drone] losses.”

That is, in practice, what Ukraine’s military has been demonstrating with its long- and mid-range strike campaign against Russian supply lines, oil refineries, and various energy or industrial targets within Russia or occupied Ukraine. The Ukrainian campaign has been overwhelming Russia’s overstretched air defense capabilities by launching hundreds of relatively inexpensive drones and missiles on a daily basis to attack targets far behind the frontlines, while continuing to damage or destroy Russia’s most sophisticated air defense systems.

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A heavy reliance on Reapers avoids putting more US pilots at risk, but it has also led to Iranian air defenses shooting down dozens of the hunter-killer drones. The US military had lost nearly 30 Reaper drones as of May 2026, including some destroyed on the ground by Iranian counterstrikes, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine. The Air Force acknowledged such combat losses as reducing its Reaper fleet to about 135 drones.

The total US taxpayer bill for the destroyed Reapers comes to about $1 billion, according to Bloomberg. A typical Reaper may cost $30 million per aircraft, but the Air Force has said a Reaper equipped with a full sensor package can cost up to $50 million.

That number of Reapers lost in combat has almost certainly increased since May, as the United States and Iran have continued to trade airstrikes and drones despite so-called ceasefire periods and attempted negotiations. On July 8, as hostilities ramped up again recently with new Iranian strikes on commercial shipping triggering more US military airstrikes, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed to have shot down yet another Reaper drone.

The defense company General Atomics stopped manufacturing Reaper drones for the US military in 2025. But a General Atomics executive told Breaking Defense that the company is interested in pursuing the newest drone contract offering from the US military, and seemed to suggest it would provide a cheaper successor to the Reaper.