By admin 
WASHINGTON (AZFamily) — Companies like Raytheon build some of the most sophisticated missiles and weaponry in the world, but those munitions cost billions of dollars. In Iran, low-tech weaponry has had some success against that technology.
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The United States has launched high-tech missiles. Iran has responded with low-cost drones.
Industry and academic voices
Mike Canada runs the drone program at Embry-Riddle. “You know I don’t think people could have predicted what is happening now,” Canada said.
Daniel Rothenberg, with Arizona State University’s Future Security Initiative, said Iran can use relatively low-cost military weaponry to combat a war that has been prosecuted on the U.S. side at $1 billion to $2 billion a day.
Both Canada and Rothenberg said the U.S. needs to adapt.
Pentagon response
Mike Duffey is the undersecretary of war for acquisition and sustainment. “The reality of the battlefield today is that you need a high low mix,” Duffey said.
Duffey spoke from Washington, D.C., where he touted a new $20 billion contract with Raytheon for air-to-air missiles. That follows another contract with Raytheon in August worth nearly $23 billion.
Congressional reaction
“I’m certainly worried as a policymaker that we’re sending essentially million-dollar missiles to take down $20,000 Shahed drones,” Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego said.
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Gallego said smaller drone companies, some based in Arizona, are producing less expensive options. Gallego said he does not think the military is evolving fast enough.
“We need to move faster but that doesn’t necessarily mean we need to get rid of our relationships with some of these big Arizona employers, but it does mean they have to evolve if they want to keep selling to the U.S. government,” Gallego said.
Pentagon says adaptation underway
“We started this effort long before the Iran conflict started,” Duffey said.
“While the timing is on the heels of the Iran conflict, this is an effort that’s been underway for a long time and I think will produce real value for the warfighter and the taxpayer and protecting the nation,” Duffey said.
An estimated 62,000 people in Arizona are employed in the defense and aerospace industry.
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