The true ‘cost-exchange ratio’ of U.S. air defense
by Robert Greenway · The Washington TimesOPINION:
Rep. Ted Lieu, California Democrat, recently quipped that U.S. air defense strategy in the Iran war was akin to “throwing Ferraris at Frisbees.”
Mr. Lieu said he would not support giving more funds to the Defense Department until it “came up with a new strategy.”
His comments are part of a broader conversation about the “cost-exchange ratio” of air defense in the Iran war. The premise: that it is a failure when the U.S. uses multimillion-dollar interceptors to destroy much cheaper drones or missiles from Iran.
This is a misguided way to think about the issue. When people argue about the “cost-exchange ratio” of air defense, I think about Tower 22 in Jordan.
On Jan. 28, 2024, three American soldiers were killed at Tower 22 when a single one-way attack drone got through. Three families. Three folded flags.
Air defense is not judged by the price of what it shoots down. It is judged by who came home.
By all accounts, the U.S. military excelled in protecting our men and women overseas during the conflict with Iran. Hundreds of Iranian air attacks resulted in three casualties.
Thirty-five years ago, in the Persian Gulf War, Iraq managed to kill 28 Americans in a single Scud missile attack on barracks in Saudi Arabia.
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The cost of an interceptor is not measured against the threat it destroys. It is measured against the target it protects. A PAC-3 that stops a ballistic missile short of a Gulf port, forward operating base or allied capital is not trading $4 million for a $50,000 drone. It is trading $4 million for the lives, ship, barracks, refinery or city it defended and against the strategic consequences of losing them.
Ask what PAC-3 prevented at Al-Udeid in June 2025. Ask what it prevented over Israel in April and October 2024. Ask what an enemy “Frisbee” costs at Tower 22. Those are the real exchange ratios.
This is just as true in an Indo-Pacific conflict. A carrier strike group includes more than 7,000 Americans, and the platforms themselves cost roughly $25 billion. For that same cost, we could more than double the historical inventory of SM-6 interceptors, safeguarding those 7,000 Americans on board.
That said, the critics are right about one thing: The threat has changed, and the low-end air defense portfolio must scale. We need cheaper interceptors for lower-end threats, and that work is real and accelerating.
One-way attack drones, cheap cruise missiles and loitering munitions are being produced by the thousands, and our defenses must match that reality.
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That is why the defense industry is investing in lower-cost effectors, such as Lockheed Martin launching JAGMs vertically, providing the same lethality as a purpose-built, counter-UAS system at a fraction of the cost per shot.
Likewise, the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II, modifying the ubiquitous Hydra-70 rocket, can shoot down drones and cheap cruise missiles for less than $35,000, bending the cost curve in favor of the defender.
There is momentum in advancing high-tech, alternative approaches — such as using high-power microwave interceptors to take out drone swarms — alongside directed energy capabilities that can deliver lower-cost, high-volume defensive effects.
The industry is even advancing high-tech approaches that use artificial intelligence to decide in real time whether a drone should be neutralized with a laser or a missile.
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To reach this potential, the whole industrial base — primes and new entrants alike — must continue to innovate and scale production and autonomy while reducing unit cost to address the cost-per-shot dilemma.
The answer must be both, not either.
High-end interceptors are a sovereign capability. The U.S. and some allies can build them; our adversaries cannot buy their way to that performance. Giving up the high end to fund the low end would hand China and Russia a capability gap they have spent two decades trying to close.
Failing to field the low end at scale leaves our forces exposed to the threat they actually face most days. Those are two different problems, and pretending they compete is how we end up solving neither.
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The serious question is not Ferrari versus Frisbee. It is whether we are building enough of both quickly enough to defend what matters. That is a production question, an industrial base question and an urgency question, and it deserves a more serious answer than a sound bite.
• Robert Greenway is a former deputy assistant to President Trump and senior director of the Middle East and North Africa on the National Security Council.