Sticker Shock And Awe: The Pentagon’s New Missile Budget Plans
Key takeaways
- Aerospace & Defense Sticker Shock And Awe: The Pentagon’s New Missile Budget Plans By David Hambling,
- But the conflict in Ukraine, where low-cost drones have dominated over legacy systems has raised awareness that exquisite, state-of-the-art hardware may not be enough.
- In response the Pentagon has launched initiatives including the LUCAS budget attack drone and the Drone Dominance Gauntlet to acquire affordable FPVs.
Aerospace & Defense Sticker Shock And Awe: The Pentagon’s New Missile Budget Plans By David Hambling,
Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I'm a South London-based technology journalist, consultant and author Follow Author Jun 05, 2026, 09:16am EDTJun 05, 2026, 09:21am EDTThe Patriot missile, capable of shooting down ballistic missiles as well as aircraft and drones is a major feature in the Army's missile budget.Corbis via Getty Images Defense budgets tend to be a mystery to outsiders. People know what reasonable price is for a car, a laptop or a fridge, but military hardware is another world. Figures with a lot of zeroes are tossed around, billions are spent, and so long as U.S. military continues to be the most powerful in the world, nobody questions it.
But the conflict in Ukraine, where low-cost drones have dominated over legacy systems has raised awareness that exquisite, state-of-the-art hardware may not be enough. This sense was sharpened when round half of the entire US stockpile of multimillion-dollar Patriot missiles was expended against barrages of cheap Iranian Shahed drones from Iran.