The two public drone primes respond to the same price squeeze in opposite ways. Kratos integrates upstream — engines, solid rocket motors via JV — betting input ownership defends margin; its CEO calls it the "only company in the world that builds the plane and the engine." AeroVironment scales breadth and climbs to counter-drone, a higher-value layer. Both sit inside the same government-engineered price floor. Neither strategy has proven margin protection yet; the unresolved fork is where margin actually migrates.