Military drones cost $20M+ each but are shot down by $50K missiles — the cost ratio is inverted

A US MQ-9 Reaper drone costs $32M. It is shot down by a $50K surface-to-air missile. The defender spent 0.15% of what the attacker spent. This cost asymmetry is catastrophic at scale: in a conflict with a peer adversary, the US could lose its entire drone fleet in weeks while the adversary spends a fraction of the fleet's value on missiles. In Ukraine, Russia loses $5-10M drones to $200 FPV kamikaze drones — the Ukrainians are on the right side of the cost ratio. So what? The cost-per-kill ratio determines who wins wars of attrition. The US military's drone strategy was built for asymmetric conflicts (Iraq, Afghanistan) where the enemy had no air defense. Against a peer adversary with modern SAMs (S-400, Patriot equivalents), expensive drones are flying targets. The military needs either: (a) drones cheap enough that losing them is acceptable ($10K-50K each, not $32M), or (b) drones survivable enough to justify the cost (stealth, electronic warfare, autonomous evasion). Neither exists at scale today. Why does this persist? Defense procurement is optimized for capability, not cost. Each Reaper is loaded with sensors, communications, and weapons because the acquisition process adds requirements. A $10K surveillance drone could do 80% of what a Reaper does for 0.03% of the cost, but the Pentagon acquisition process cannot produce a $10K drone — the minimum viable procurement program costs $500M+ in overhead before a single unit is built.