The United States and its allies have begun developing weapons modeled after Iran's Shahed drones, which proved potent in the Russia-Ukraine war. This is seen as a response to Iran's transfer of Shahed technology to Russia and North Korea.
On the 24th (local time), the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), in an article titled "Every country wants to copy Iran's deadly Shahed drones," reported that "the United States and its allies are competing to develop low-cost, long-range replica weapons." According to WSJ, corporations in several countries, including the United States, China, France and the United Kingdom, are developing armed drones modeled after the Shahed.
The Shahed is an armed drone that Iran began developing in the early 2000s in response to Israel's long-range drones. It is known as a weapon that can disable an opponent's air defenses when deployed in large numbers. The Shahed was also reported to have been used in an incident in Jan. last year in which a pro-Iran armed group attacked a U.S. military base in Jordan, resulting in U.S. fatalities.
The Shahed, in particular, achieved notable results in the Russia-Ukraine war. As signs of a prolonged conflict emerged, Russia adopted the Shahed in 2022, modified it, and used it repeatedly to strike Ukraine. In Jul. as well, Russia deployed 550 drones centered on the Shahed to Ukraine, resulting in 27 casualties.
Shahed technology has also reached North Korea via Russia. The "Geran" drone that Russia transferred to North Korea is a model based on the Shahed-136. Earlier, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media (SNS) that "Russia is transferring Iranian Shahed-136 suicide drone technology to Pyongyang, building drone production facilities in North Korea, and even cooperating on missile development."
Western countries are rushing to develop armed drones to counter the drone linkage among Russia, Iran and North Korea, which are classified as "rogue states" by the international community. In the United States, in Jul., defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote a memo calling for strengthening the U.S. military's drone manufacturing base and supplying various U.S.-made low-cost unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to combat units.
WSJ said that among 18 types of U.S.-made drone prototypes displayed at a U.S. defense ministry event this summer, models similar to the Shahed stood out. They included "LUCAS," made by defense contractor SpectreWorks, and "Arrowhead," a long-range attack drone by Griffon Aerospace.
WSJ reported that "the Shahed and its knockoffs have become so widespread that corporations such as Griffon and Sweden's Saab are even selling target-practice UAVs resembling Iran's munitions."
The problem is that the West's development expense is far higher than that of the three "rogue states." U.S. defense firm Anduril Industries last year sold 291 units of its Altius long-range drone to Taiwan, and including training and support infrastructure, the price per UAV exceeded $1 million. By contrast, experts estimate that Russia can produce much simpler Shahed-series UAVs for about $35,000 to $60,000 each.
Western corporations argue their drones outperform the Shahed in terms of capabilities. The United Kingdom's MGI Engineering emphasized that its long-range drone "Skyshark" can fly at 280 miles per hour (about 450 kilometers), far faster than the Shahed-136, which is around 115 miles per hour (about 186 kilometers).
Experts said Russia's use of the Shahed in the Ukraine war shows that armed drones have emerged as a key technology on the battlefield. James Patton Rogers, a drone expert at Cornell University's Brooks Institute for Tech Policy, said, "Russia's deployment of mass-produced drones to neutralize Ukraine's defenses was a 'game changer,'" adding, "Low-cost, long-range precision saturation strikes have emerged as one of the greatest threats to international security."