“The U.S. Air Force agreed to deals with two companies for a new fleet of autonomous drone jet fighters designed to help manned warplanes strike targets deep in enemy territory.
The contracts with Anduril and General Atomics for larger, faster, more expensive combat drones come as small, cheap, quick-to-build aircraft have reshaped modern warfare in both Ukraine and Iran.
The Air Force says its new drones are needed in battles where manned jets would be at a high risk of getting shot down. They will "change how we project power and generate mass in highly contested environments," said Gen. Ken Wilsbach, the Air Force chief of staff.
Highly contested environments is a phrase often used by the military for airspace defended by advanced interceptors made by China and Russia.
The Air Force had been evaluating the Anduril and General Atomics drones since 2024. The General Atomics drone, called the FQ-42, is larger than Anduril's drone, called FQ-44. One of the differences between the two is that the FQ-42 carries missiles in an internal weapons bay while the FQ-44 carries munitions externally on its wings.
Officials didn't disclose the financial terms of the deal or how many aircraft were being bought. An Air Force spokeswoman said the cost was classified.
The service's latest budget request includes more than $1 billion for these specific drones in fiscal 2027, and in excess of $9.5 billion over the next five years.
The contracts "represent the next critical evolution of air power," the Air Force said. The drones are designed to fly alongside warplanes flown by human pilots. But unlike today's Reaper drones, which must be flown remotely, the new drones are being built to fly autonomously with limited human command.
Air Force officials say they want the drones to cost roughly one-third of a manned fighter. An Air Force F-35 costs roughly $82.5 million. By comparison, the newest version of the General Atomics-made Reaper, the MQ-9B SkyGuardian, costs about $30 million.
The military says it plans to buy about 150 of the new drones, which it calls collaborative combat aircraft or CCAs, by the end of the decade and about 1,000 total.
Buying the drones from two companies will promote "continuous competition" and "drives the best outcomes in schedule, cost, and performance," said Col. Timothy Helfrich, portfolio acquisition executive for fighters and advanced aircraft.
The Air Force also awarded contracts to Anduril, fellow startup Shield AI and RTX's Collins Aerospace to develop the software that will control the autonomous drones. The terms weren't disclosed.
Cheap, low-flying drones have had a devastating effect on the battlefield in Ukraine, Russia and the Middle East. Iranian-made Shaheds, one-way attack drones that crash directly into targets, have damaged or destroyed military facilities across the Mideast. The U.S. has used reverse-engineered Shaheds against Iran.
But the types of drones being purchased by the Air Force are much different. The armed drones could fly ahead of human pilots, scanning the skies for enemy aircraft in areas heavily defended by surface to air missiles.
While Ukraine conflict has demonstrated the need to field large numbers of cheap, expendable drones, the U.S. military also must have devices that can fly much longer distances in different regions of the world, said Caitlin Lee, a drone expert who is director of acquisition and technology policy at Rand, a think tank.
"China's diverse missile inventory and formidable electronic warfare capabilities can destroy or render ineffective U.S. aircraft on the ground or in the air," Lee said.
Iran and the Houthis in Yemen have collectively shot down dozens of the propeller-driven Reaper drones in recent months using missiles that can loiter in the sky before homing in on heat from the drones.” [1]
The beauty of inexpensive drones is in the ability to make massive, saturating any defense, swarm-like hits. To do this, you must have great industrial capacity and a lot of rare earths for magnets. Since America doesn’t have these things, turning to rare, expensive, toys is a logical move.
The U.S. currently lacks the raw materials (rare earth magnets) and mass manufacturing capacity to match China’s cheap, high-volume drone production that is the basis of Iran’s capabilities.
Consequently, the American defense strategy is shifting toward "attritable" but highly capable, high-tech drones, augmented by AI, that can survive longer without needing massive, millions-deep arsenals.
The strategic pivot to specialized, premium capabilities over mass swarms is driven by a few key realities:
• The Supply Chain Squeeze: China effectively controls nearly 90% of global rare earth magnet production and has implemented strict export controls. This creates a severe bottleneck for building large fleets of inexpensive micro-drones domestically.
• The "Attritable" Shift: The Pentagon's Replicator Initiative initially aimed to field thousands of low-cost, expendable autonomous systems, but it struggled with deployment timelines, component reliability, and supply-chain dependencies.
No rare earths, no cheap drones. This why America is “bombing” Iran with money today and hoping for Venezuela-like effect: making Iran’s elite corrupt.
The United States is leveraging targeted sanctions relief and the release of frozen funds to integrate Iran’s economy globally, a strategy designed to cultivate a corrupt, wealth-dependent elite. Washington is attempting to weaken ideological resolve and drive internal regime fracturing from the top down.
This approach—echoing recent U.S. interventions in Venezuela where authorities have moved to seize state assets and manage crude sales—prioritizes economic entanglements over isolation. The underlying U.S. rationale involves:
• Creating vested economic interests: By re-opening avenues for massive oil revenues, the U.S. aims to make powerful Iranian officials and state-aligned oligarchs reliant on global wealth rather than revolutionary ideology.
• Fracturing leadership: The goal is to encourage infighting among Iranian factions as elites fiercely compete for control over the newly accessible financial networks.
• Shifting leverage: U.S. policymakers believe that once hardliners and the security apparatus grow accustomed to the influx of funds and international business ties, they will be less willing to engage in extreme escalations—such as blockades of the Strait of Hormuz—that threaten their own portfolios.
This strategy marks a shift in American foreign policy aimed at shifting regime behavior from within rather than relying strictly on embargoes, though it has drawn criticism from lawmakers concerned about the long-term flow of funds.
1. U.S. News: Air Force Buys New Fleet of Drones --- Military says the expensive aircraft are necessary for wars of the future. Weisgerber, Marcus. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 23 June 2026: A3.
