Remember, these are designed for consumer and not military use. We're going to test everything before we stick it in a system. We might just substitute our own control chips.
The point of this program is to flood the battle space with dirt cheap drones. They can't kill enough of them to avoid their navy being crippled. All we have to get is one frigate or destroyer and the whole program is paid for.
Another benefit is that this throws a God awful big wrench into their correlation of forces calculation.
Still another is to tweak their noses to get them thinking that they may be selling us the weapon we will use to defeat them.
Anything that pushes a war farther into the future is a win for us. They are only going to get weaker with time as their demographic and economic bubbles pop. They may be thinking that they can't go to war as they may need their troops to quell civil unrest at home.
WWG1WGA
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)