The United States has successfully reverse-engineered Iran’s drone technology and is now deploying it against the Islamic Republic on the battlefield, flipping the script on a regime that has used long-range, low-cost unmanned systems to wreak havoc across Israel and the wider Middle East.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on February 28 that the United States was using one-way attack drones modeled on Iranian Shaheds. CENTCOM head Adm. Brad Cooper stated during a March 5 briefing that the U.S. military had employed “an original Iranian drone design” in combat operations, describing how they captured the technology, disassembled it, and added American modifications before deploying it.
The Shahed drone, a large unmanned aircraft that operates similarly to a cruise missile, has been a common sight in cities across Ukraine during Russia’s invasion. Iran provided Russia with drones early in the conflict, and Moscow has scaled up production domestically while also upgrading the drone’s “navigation, communications, warhead, flight algorithms, [and] deception measures,” according to the Snake Island Institute, a Kyiv-based military think tank.
A recent report indicated that the United States began working on reverse-engineering Shaheds in 2024 after researchers determined that employing a U.S.-made version on the battlefield would provide a low-cost, effective tool. The U.S. military has not detailed specific modifications but Russia’s own work on the Shahed offers insight into potential advancements.
Between 2024 and 2025, Russia began equipping its Shaheds with antennas that resist electronic countermeasures like signal jamming. Moscow also upgraded the drone’s physical capabilities to fly at speeds over 300 miles per hour, giving air defenses less time to respond before a strike. The Russian-modified Shaheds also feature significantly heavier warheads capable of destroying bunkers and targets inside buildings.
Eugene Lesin, deputy company commander of a Ukrainian drone interceptor battalion, stated that the United States’ use of Shaheds in Iran involves “rejecting that terroristic approach” the Iranian regime uses. He described the difference as “using the weapon as they’re meant to be used, precisely, and not using it massively to just make terror and overload the air defenses.”
Steve Feldstein of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace noted that the reverse-engineering project demonstrates how “new innovations come from a variety of sources.” He added that Iran’s designs have clearly shown benefits, including in Ukraine, to the point where Russia invested $2 billion in setting up a dedicated factory to produce these drones.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth reported at a press conference that drone strikes from Iran have decreased by 95 percent since the beginning of Operation Epic Fury, likely due to joint U.S.-Israeli operations targeting production facilities and storage sites.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine detailed that U.S. targets include “several one-way drone factories” as well as “production facilities, research and development sites, and infrastructure” linked to Iran’s terror forces. He emphasized that destroying Iran’s drone capabilities is a key objective of the ongoing war effort, stating that U.S. operations continue to annihilate “launch sites, command and control nodes, [and] stockpiles before they can threaten our personnel, our facilities, and our partners.”