Protecting US installations against aerial drones could cost billions, CBO says

The cost to protect Defense Department personnel and bases from drone attacks such as those faced by service members in the Middle East could run into the billions, a government watchdog agency says.

The Pentagon would need to spend as much as $7.4 billion to purchase and install defense systems to protect 100 U.S. military installations worldwide against small aerial drones, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in a report released last week.

Those systems would use a multilayered defense — including radar, radio frequency and kinetic systems — to detect and defeat small unmanned aircraft, the CBO said.

It would take an additional $500 million annually to repair and maintain those systems over their service life. Purchase costs might have to be repeated every four to five years to remain effective, depending on how rapidly the threat evolves, the report stated.

There are currently 824 military installations tracked in the Bureau of Transportation Statistics database, the CBO said.

Drones “have been used to collect intelligence and attack people, vehicles, and critical fixed locations in the Middle East and Ukraine,” the office said in the July 9 report.

The result is “heightened interest” in obtaining countermeasures to be put in place, it said.

Soldiers employ a drone detection and integration system during exercise Valiant Shield on June 6, 2026. The Congressional Budget Office estimates it would cost as much as $7.4 billion to install its recommended method of protecting U.S. military installations from drone attacks. (Brandon Rickert/U.S. Army)

Militaries worldwide have long used drones for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, but recent technological advancements have expanded their use, as demonstrated by the war in Ukraine.

For example, innovative use of surface drones allowed Ukraine, which has few ships and no blue water presence, to disable at least 40% of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and deny the Kremlin’s vessels access to a sizable portion of the sea as of June 2025.

More recently, an Iranian drone attack killed six American service members in March at an operations center in Kuwait during the early hours of the U.S.-Israel attack on Iran.

All told, Iranian missile and drone attacks since the war began have injured hundreds of U.S. military personnel, leaving many with traumatic brain injuries, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.

They’ve also caused millions of dollars in damages to U.S. military facilities in the Middle East, including Naval Support Activity Bahrain, which has seen extensive destruction.

The Defense Department is working to address the evolving threat, allocating more than $300 million each year for research, testing and development, according to the report.

In its study, the CBO assessed five options to detect and defend against aerial drones, settling on a multilayered defense.

That defensive web is made up of radars, radio frequency signal detection and defeat systems, kinetic interceptors and handheld systems. The latter would take out drones that aren’t destroyed by the kinetic interceptor or radio signal defeat systems.

The option, which would include a command-and-control system, would offer the most comprehensive defense and “allow for more hostile small drones to be engaged at once,” the CBO said.

Individually, the scalable system would cost as much as $74 million per installation to purchase and install, and as much as $5 million annually to repair and maintain, according to the report.

System purchase costs would range from $75,000 to $10 million each, while installation costs would range from zero to $8 million, the CBO said.

Options with fewer systems to install and integrate would cost less, while installations with site-specific requirements or irregular shapes could be more expensive, the report stated.

The agency’s estimates are based on a benchmark scenario that protects the most important areas of a representative base, such as where command staff, family housing, barracks and important equipment and infrastructure are located.

That scenario establishes a 5-by-5-mile coverage area that likely would include the entirety of many bases, according to the report.

It also said the existing industrial base is sufficient to supply the military’s needs as indicated by 135 responses generated by a recent DOD request for information regarding participation in a counterdrone demonstration.

“That many vendors offer comparable systems also suggests that there is enough competition to keep prices from rising appreciably as DoD buys more systems,” the CBO said.