Huge seven-figure cost of NATO defensive systems used to fight Putin's £30,000 drones

As NATO nations bolster their defences following multiple incursions by Russian drones and aircraft in recent weeks, the staggering expenses of missile defence systems and interceptors are raising alarm about NATO's readiness to handle large-scale assaults.

Just weeks ago, Poland and its NATO partners intercepted up to 19 Shahed-style drones that breached Polish - and consequently, NATO - airspace through the nation's borders with Russia and Belarus.

Poland and its NATO partners "responded quickly and effectively to the incursion," Frank Rose, the former assistant secretary of state for arms control, verification and compliance under President Barack Obama, told Daily Express US. It comes after Putin claimed Russia is 'at war' with NATO and made veiled threats of a nuclear battle.

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However, the defensive action came at a steep price - totaling millions of pounds in deployed missile interceptors. Each Russian drone carries a manufacturing cost of approximately £48,000 to £52,000, he calculated, or potentially up to £75,000 in certain instances.

The Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan, nonprofit policy research organisation and think tank, projects an even more modest production expense of merely £30,000 - referencing multiple studies that identified production costs spanning from £15,000 to £60,000. The £30,000 calculation was determined by averaging the lowest cost projection and the most frequently referenced estimate of £30,000.

The drones are far from inexpensive, but the Sidewinder AMRAAMs (Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles) that Poland and its NATO allies used to shoot down the drones cost over 10 times as much, according to the Mirror US.

A Sidewinder AMRAAM costs between £225,000 and £300,000, says Rose, who led negotiations for a missile defence base in Poland during his time at the State Department and also worked on missile defence bases in Romania and Turkey. The 2021 fiscal year defence budget for the U.S. government lists a slightly higher cost of around £320,000 to £350,000, depending on which branch of the military uses the interceptors.

Patriot missile defence systems were also on standby during the mid-September Russian drone incursion into Poland, but they weren't ultimately used. If they had been, the cost difference between them and the drones would have been significantly more dramatic.

Each Patriot missile interceptor costs approximately £775,000, according to Rose. A report from CSIS suggests that they may actually be even pricier, with each missile costing around £3 million.

That's over 40 times the cost of the most expensive estimates for the production of Shahed drones.

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"This is a big problem right now with missile defence: the cost-curve challenge. We're extending million-pound interceptors to go after £48,000 to £52,000 drones," Rose told Daily Express US. "[We're] going to have to find a way that allows you to get around that cost curve."

The exchange ratio, he said, is "not in favour of the defence."

The replenishment issue in the US industrial base

The U.S. is also confronting a weakened capacity to rebuild its industrial base of missile interceptors, Rose said.

That's attributed to two primary factors: The U.S. is dispatching interceptors to its allies, including Israel; and the U.S. industrial base has been "neglected for so long" that manufacturing has become a difficult, prolonged and sometimes complicated process.

Expensive US Patriot SM-3 interceptor inventory protects Israel

Rose said the U.S. deployed a massive quantity of the U.S.'s Standard Missile 3 stockpile to shield Israel against recent assaults in the Middle East.

Data from U.S. Navy sources and CSIS suggest the U.S. launched at least a dozen of them as it responded to Iran's attacks against Israel throughout early 2024.

Nevertheless, the U.S. is down a substantial number of Patriot SM-3 interceptors, which are expensive to manufacture. A Patriot SM-3 "takes time to build," Rose said.

"These things don't happen overnight," he added - and the cost curve isn't helping, either. "Even if you are able to produce larger numbers, you still have that cost curve, defence versus offence, and the offence is just so much superior."

Patriot SM-3 interceptors carry a price tag ranging from £7.5 million to £21 million, depending on the variant, according to estimates from the Missile Defence Advocacy Alliance - making them at least 300 times more costly than a Russian Shahed-style drone.

The U.S. manufactured 71 of these missiles in 2023, according to CSIS data. However, in 2024, responding to Iranian attacks, America burned through an entire year's production of the weapons, based on the fiscal year 2025 budget.

'Neglected' industrial base leads to delays after US scraps SHORAD production

Rose attributes America's struggle to rebuild weakened weapons stockpiles - including Patriot SM-3 interceptors - partly to transformations within the U.S. defence industrial infrastructure.

During the early 2000s Iraq conflict, Rose noted that American forces deployed SHORAD (short-range air defence) platforms. The Army subsequently chose to eliminate SHORAD entirely and redirect those system funds toward increasing ground troops in the theater.

"We basically lost a whole bunch of short-range capabilities a major missiles," lamented the former principal deputy administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) under ex-President Joe Biden.

However, Rose cautioned that simply restarting production on SHORAD systems isn't as straightforward as it seems.

"One of the things I've learned in government is once you lose a capability, it's hard to develop it and get it back," he stated, identifying this as "a shortcoming in U.S. and NATO defences."

New technology needed amid evolving warfare threats

Rose suggested that the U.S. should focus on "developing cheaper capabilities that can deal with these cheaper drones at scale.

"If we are smart, what we will be doing is developing cheaper capabilities that can deal with these cheaper drones at scale so you can save the ballistic missile defence interceptors, Patriot SM-3, to go after the more complicated ballistic cruise and hypersonic threats," he proposed.

"What that leads me to is, we need to be developing new types of technologies - microwave technology, solid-state laser, something that can defeat the shape of the threat at scale and at an affordable price."

US and NATO face harrowing new threat of drone swarms

Specifically, he pointed out that new technology will have to tackle the emerging threat of drone swarms - coordinated attacks involving up to dozens of synchronized drones.

The drone swarms seen in Ukraine as Russia advances its offensive capabilities in the ongoing war are a cause for concern, according to Rose. He warns that some of these swarms are AI-enabled, presenting new challenges that the U.S. and NATO are "not prepared" to handle.

"These drone swarms are fundamentally reshaping warfare, and we are on our back foot in the United States - we are not developing capabilities fast enough to deal with these new challenges," he cautioned. He added that many of America's adversaries, including Russia, are "moving to drone swarms."

They're also progressing towards "integrated attacks with drones, with ballistic missiles, with hypersonic missiles, with cruise missiles," he noted.

"So, they are evolving, so we have to evolve to meet this threat," he stated. "Fundamentally, I say, we need new technologies that can address drone swarms, but also coordinated attacks with swarms, cruise missiles, hypersonic missiles, and ballistic missiles."

In this regard, he argued, the U.S. is ultimately "failing."

"We are not putting enough money into this challenge, and we're not moving fast enough," he expressed. "We've always been a couple of generations behind the threat."

US and NATO can learn from rivals and allies alike

However, there is a silver lining. The U.S. can learn from both its rivals and its allies, as they've both evolved to meet new threats, Rose said.

He referenced multiple recent publications within the defence community that emphasize the necessity for boosted defence expenditures to address emerging threats from drone swarms and other cutting-edge technological combat methods.

Detractors of such expenditures throughout recent decades have argued that missile defence "doesn't work," claiming it's "a waste of money."

However, it's proving effective in Israel, throughout the broader Middle East, and in Ukraine - all areas from which the U.S. could gain insights as President Donald Trump endeavors to establish his "Golden Dome" defence system, he noted.

"What we have seen in Israel, the Middle East and Ukraine is that the missile defences have performed very well," the president of Chevalier Strategic Advisors stated. "Patriot, Aegis Ballistic Missile Defence, [Terminal] High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) - they've hit over 90% of the targets."

The U.S. and NATO can benefit from that achievement, he noted - particularly that of Ukraine.

"My hope is that the United States and NATO are learning from how the Ukrainians have evolved their capabilities to defeat, or at least defend, some of these attacks," he stated.

"I think the challenge for the United States and our NATO allies is to understand what is going on in Ukraine, apply the lessons to our own defence policy strategy, improvement strategy, and then produce capabilities fast that can respond and evolve to this changing threat."