The United States will soon deploy an anti-drone system proven against Russian drones in Ukraine to the Middle East to bolster defenses against Iranian drones, two American officials told the Associated Press on Friday. The system, called Merops, launches drones to intercept and destroy incoming unmanned aircraft, using artificial intelligence to navigate when satellite and electronic communications are jammed. Pentagon officials have privately acknowledged in closed-door briefings with lawmakers that they are struggling to stop waves of drones launched by Iran, leaving some U.S. targets in the Gulf region vulnerable.
The deployment reflects a gap in U.S. defenses against low-cost drones — a threat that existing Patriot and THAAD missile systems address at prohibitive expense — with one anonymous U.S. defense official describing the American response to Iran’s Shahed drones as “disappointing.”
How Merops works
Merops is designed to spot drones and close in on them. Small enough to fit in the back of a midsize pickup truck, it can identify incoming unmanned aircraft and navigate toward them using AI guidance even when communications are disrupted, according to one of two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters.
The system fills a gap that conventional air defenses struggle to cover. Drones are hard to pinpoint on radar systems calibrated for spotting high-speed missiles and can be mistaken for birds or planes, the defense official said. Crucially, Merops addresses a cost mismatch that has troubled defense planners: a missile interceptor can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, while an Iranian drone costs less than $50,000, according to the official.
Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, described the challenge this week in direct terms.
“We’re pretty good at taking missiles down. What is much more problematic for us is the huge inventory of Iranian drones, which are hard to detect and hard to take down,” Himes said.
Himes said drone attacks present a “math problem” in that the U.S. cannot keep relying on expensive military interceptors, like Patriot systems, to take down quickly and cheaply made Iranian drones.
“It’s really, really expensive to take down a cheap drone,” he said. “A giant missile going after a tiny little crappy drone.”
Lessons drawn from Ukraine
Merops was deployed in NATO nations Poland and Romania in November after Russian attack drones repeatedly entered NATO airspace, according to the defense official. The U.S. has drawn lessons from those deployments and from the system’s broader use in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that the U.S. had asked Ukraine for its country’s help in combating Iran’s Shahed drones, which Russia has used in large numbers in its war against Ukraine. Zelenskyy did not specify what form the assistance would take, but the U.S. defense official said Merops is part of it.
Asked about Zelenskyy’s comments, President Donald Trump told Reuters on Thursday: “Certainly, I’ll take, you know, any assistance from any country.”
Deployment details
In the Middle East, Merops will be sent to various locations, including sites where U.S. forces are not present, the defense official said. Most systems will be dispatched directly by Perennial Autonomy — the manufacturer backed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt — and the transfers will not affect anti-drone defenses in Europe, the official said. Perennial Autonomy did not respond to questions about the Middle East deployment.
Persian Gulf countries have complained that they were not given adequate time to prepare for the waves of Iranian drones and missiles bombarding their territory, according to officials. The broader effort to strengthen U.S. anti-drone capabilities underscores concerns about planning for an Iranian retaliatory response to American and Israeli strikes across the region.
Pentagon acknowledgment
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addressed the limitations publicly when speaking to reporters this week.
“This does not mean we can stop everything, but we ensured that the maximum possible defense and maximum possible force protection was set up before we went on offense,” Hegseth said.
Michael Robbins, president and CEO of AUVSI, a drone industry group, said lessons from the Middle East and Ukraine show the U.S. must accelerate deployment of sophisticated counter-drone technologies so “our forces can defend bases and populations without spending a million dollars to stop a $50,000 threat.”