The US State Department approved a $1.98bn counter-drone sale to Kuwait on Saturday 6 June, supplied through Anduril and built around its Anvil intercept system1. The DSCA (Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the US Defense Department body that runs Foreign Military Sales) notified Congress days after the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) drone that hit Kuwait's airport on 3 June, and after Kuwait expelled two Iranian diplomats.
State framed the sale as routine and said it "will not alter the basic military balance in the region". An administration that clears a $1.98bn arms case this quickly is not a slow one.
Set that against the war itself. On the blockade, the nuclear talks, and the fighting, Washington has signed no Iran instrument for close to 100 days. The single piece of Iran-related paper that moved this week armed a Gulf ally rather than governing the conflict that put the ally at risk. The Anvil is an autonomous counter-drone interceptor; the sale buys Kuwait a defence against exactly the weapon that struck it, on US delivery timelines that run behind the threat.
