An American littoral combat ship in the Persian Gulf flicked a switch just before dawn on December 16 and hurled a stub-nosed delta-wing into the sky. The drone —LUCAS, for Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System—arced off the USS Santa Barbara ’s flight deck and sped toward a test range. The twist is what LUCAS is, and where it comes from. The U.S. has taken the ubiquitous Shahed Iranian kamikaze drone, reverse-engineered it, and now fields a $35,000 American version that can launch from ships,