Iran Burns Through US Reapers; Losses Force Trump Into Drone Hunt

Right, so Iran has just done something no enemy of the United States was supposed to manage. It has run the most expensive air force on earth out of drones. The US has reportedly lost nearly 30 MQ-9 Reapers in its war with Iran, and now the Air Force is going cap in hand to General Atomics, the company that builds them, only to be told there are fewer than 10 "new" MQ-9As left for any customer anywhere in the world. So the superpower that outspends the entire planet on its military is not topping up losses like it is changing batteries in a remote control. It is rummaging for spare drones from a model that is no longer in proper production, while Donald Trump keeps selling American power as if the machine were limitless. It isn't. Iran has shoved the US into the stockroom, and the stockroom is nearly bare. And that same fallout is already turning into a possible $2bn counter-drone sale to Kuwait, because the moment Gulf bases start carrying the risk, Washington's answer isn't restraint. It is another invoice.The MQ-9 Reaper is not some side gadget in this story. It is a large remotely piloted aircraft used by the US Air Force for surveillance, intelligence-gathering and strikes, carrying sensors, cameras, data links and weapons while pilots operate it from somewhere else. No wonder Washington loves it. It can sit over a target area for hours, watch, track, hit, guide other aircraft and do it all without a pilot sitting inside the thing being shot at. General Kenneth Wilsbach, a senior US Air Force commander, has described the MQ-9 as perhaps the most valuable player of the Iran war, which is not exactly a throwaway line when the same platform is taking serious losses. The US military has used Reapers heavily in Operation Epic Fury, the American campaign against Iran, including in missions involving mobile targets and higher-risk areas. That makes the loss rate politically very awkward, because the aircraft Washington relies on for reach without pilot risk is also the aircraft being consumed at a rate the Air Force now has to explain.