A military report by “NEW LINES MAGAZINE” revealed the US Army’s measures to search for an inexpensive alternative that would help it reduce hundreds of millions of dollars spent on combating low-cost attacks from Yemen.
Follow-ups – Al-Khabar Al-Yemeni:
The newspaper, in an article by researcher Nicholas Slaiton, an expert in the military field, stated that the cheap drones of the Yemeni forces are draining the Pentagon’s coffers and costing millions of dollars, revealing their penetration of advanced and expensive defense systems.
The analytical report noted that since October 2023, the US Army has been engaged in a long and costly war in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden against a military force that faces it with minimal costs – referring to the Yemeni armed forces.
The report stressed that since October 2023 and since the Yemeni armed forces confirmed their decision to support the Palestinian resistance, the US forces and others (including the United Kingdom and France, which have also deployed ships in the region for interception missions) have suffered the downing of dozens of missiles and drones, on which American aircraft carriers, their support ships, their air wings, and other assets have spent millions of dollars in ammunition on a daily basis.
The report indicated that the losses have now cost over a billion dollars, according to Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro. Despite Pentagon claims that efforts will “disrupt and degrade” Sana’a’s capabilities, low intensity fighting shows no signs of ending while its cost continues to rise.
In May, the US Deputy Defense Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment, William LaPlante, stated during his testimony before a Senate subcommittee, “If we shoot down a $50,000 drone with a $3 million missile in one direction, that’s not a good cost equation.”
Considering that, due to its size and global scope, US military forces have never been limited to a single form of strategy and ammunition procurement, ongoing conflicts determine priorities.
“The wars fought after the Cold War were largely against those who did not possess threatening offensive airpower capabilities, and so it became less important to invest in this area,” James Patton Rogers, executive director of the Cornell Brooks Tech Policy Institute, told New Lines by email. “Instead, primitive improvised explosive devices were the weapon to beat.”
LaPlante pointed out that the US needs widespread anti-drone systems. They need lots of them, whatever they are — kinetic or non-kinetic,” adding that “cost per unit matters.” For the kinetic option, that means new weapons — missiles or even a directed-energy weapon — that can intercept an enemy drone.
The other option includes tools that indirectly disrupt or shut down an enemy drone, such as jammers. The recommendation is something he’s echoed since, but now in the summer of 2024, the military is still relying on the same, expensive air defense tools. Those include surface-to-air missiles and weapons mounted on fighter jets that can cost several million dollars per strike.
The report stated that despite the US Department of Defense having the highest military budget in the world, many weapon systems and new technologies have ultimately ended up in a state of uncertainty referred to by the Pentagon as the “Valley of Death.”
It was pointed out that the Pentagon uses this term to describe a development phase where new systems get stuck in the testing and refining stage seemingly indefinitely. Eventually they are replaced by something new as threats or tactics evolve, leaving these systems in testing phase, never widely fielded.
Thane Clare, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and a former Navy officer who served as commander for the guided-missile destroyer the USS Mustin, said that in many cases, ultimate authority is in the hands of the secretary of defense.
Clare pointed to defense production in the 1950s and 1960s — but it depends on urgency from those at the top. It’s partly a mix of bureaucracy, appropriations and the reality of developing, testing and then fielding any new weapon or military system. With the scope of the different fields needed to move a system or munition from concept to adoption, it comes down to isolating a specific issue to solve and having one person fully responsible for the work.
The report revealed that recently, the US military has largely dealt with an essentially outdated playbook, according to comments by LaPlante. He noted that the Pentagon’s budget for counterdrone efforts was for the most part created before the invasion of Ukraine. The Pentagon needs “more flexibility handling appropriations” in regard to changing threats.
The report disclosed that U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) is secretive about the specific ammunition used in the almost daily intercept missions against drones and missiles. However, the Navy has admitted that it has fired SM (Standard Missile)-2s, SM-6s and SM-3s to take down drones. Those missiles can range in cost from $2 million to as much as $27.9 million per piece, depending on what model and version carried.
In October 2023, the Navy destroyer USS Carney shot down several missiles and drones launched by Yemeni armed forces over the Red Sea in an hours-long engagement.
The report considered this the first time the U.S. intercepted a weapon fired by Yemen since the outbreak of the Gaza war, following Sana’a’s pledge to target and halt commercial shipping to and from the occupied entity in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden until the end of the aggression on Gaza.
The Navy confirmed in July that the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, which had taken the lead in intercept roles for much of the Red Sea conflict, fired 155 Standard-series missiles as well as 135 Tomahawk cruise missiles (which cost approximately $2 million per unit). That’s more than half a billion dollars from when the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group deployed to the region in October 2023 and left in June this year.
Additionally, aircraft assigned to the strike group fired 420 air-to-surface missiles and 60 air-to-air missiles. The Navy did not break down what specifically were used, but the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower’s commander has previously pointed to an arsenal that includes AGM-114 air-to-surface (roughly $150,000 per unit), AIM-9X Sidewinder and AIM-120 air-to-air missiles.
The report continued that the fighting in the Yemeni waters is one of several battles the United States has been involved in throughout the region since the start of the war in Gaza, stating that Yemeni forces and the resistance axis have been launching drones and cheap missiles at American facilities and bases in Iraq and Syria for several months.
Dozens of attacks have left U.S. troops wounded and suffering from traumatic brain injuries. In January, three U.S. Army reservists were killed in a drone attack at a remote outpost in Jordan.
Gregory Sanders, Deputy Director at the Defense Industrial Initiatives Group at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, stated, “This does not make things easy by any means, but this is the kind of problem where the Pentagon and the military excel.”
Sanders claims that the military establishment is generally able to identify these threats and problems, but the “Valley of Death” persists because there hasn’t been a pressing need to push industrial military mechanisms into action.
While the Pentagon rushes to get more cost-effective tools to fight swarms of cheap, expendable munitions, there is the risk that newer tactics or weapons that the U.S. and its allies aren’t prepared for could suddenly emerge. The conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East show how these technologies can evolve quickly, along with the tactics to fight them.
Rogers noted that it’s likely that more autonomous characteristics will appear in antagonistic drones, larger swarms could be used to try to overwhelm air defenses and cheap weapons could become more precise. The U.S. and its allies can develop newer counters, but the tactics will keep evolving.
“Put simply, it is an age-old cat-and-mouse game of offense and defense, one that is constantly evolving and will not be solved overnight,” Rogers added.
Earlier this month, the Yemeni armed forces targeted by a low-cost unmanned aerial vehicle across the Red Sea into the airspace above Tel Aviv, causing an explosion at an extremely low altitude.
The report considered this type of attack not new – as Hamas has been using cheap missiles and drones for some time – but the damage caused by the Houthi attack on Tel Aviv highlights the weak side of asymmetric warfare. Specifically, it shows how cheap and improvised drones can sometimes penetrate advanced and expensive defense systems.
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