By Dr Robert Brüll, founder and CEO of FibreCoat
Published on
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent in any way the editorial position of Euronews.
There’s something poetic about the way that birds in Ukraine are now building nests from drone cable. Out of the machinery of death, these birds are nurturing new life. But there is also something telling about that story: that drones – so synonymous with the war – are becoming part of the natural landscape.
Ukrainian drone innovation is one of the great stories of this conflict. Against a much larger, more experienced, highly industrialised Russian military, one with more active personnel, aircraft, ships, tanks, artillery, and armored fighting units, the Ukrainians had little to draw on but their ingenuity, fuelled financially by the West.
Thanks in large part to drones, they put a stop to an invasion that was supposed to take days, and continue to fight tooth and nail for the defence of their homeland and Europe. Four years on, they are the unquestioned world leaders in the creation and development of UAVs, and the rest of Europe should be learning from their example.
Last month, when I visited Ukraine, I watched a process of drone innovation, deployment, data-collection, and iteration raised to the level of a fine art. Designs are revised almost as soon as they are used. Engineers and operators exchange feedback directly. Adjustments are made within days, sometimes faster; and production lines adapt without ceremony.
Speed matters
The Rheinmetall CEO recently derided the apparently slapdash character of Ukrainian drone production, much of it done by 3D printing. But he is missing the point. If there is one word that matters, it’s speed.
And yet, across the rest of Europe, which is increasingly waking up to the real dangers it faces, a very different approach still prevails. The current culture of procurement skews towards the familiar and the tried; planning cycles are interminably long; and big, bloated contractors structurally unable to build and innovate at speed are still preferred.
These companies still have a role to play, but they stand in breathtaking contrast to the small, fast-moving, highly innovative companies that dominate the battlefield in Ukraine. The tension there is between long-term survival and rapid adaptation.
In Europe, platforms are built to last, not to evolve in the face of changing conditions. In Ukraine, drones are designed in the expectation that they will be lost. The hope is that they can carry out their function beforehand. It’s true that there are some in the Ukrainian camp who think drone development should focus on quality and not quantity; but the approach that dominates involves building quickly, deploying quickly, and then developing future models as the operators require.
Adapt or lose
One reason for this is that countermeasures appear almost as quickly as the drones do. Cheetahs evolved extreme acceleration to catch gazelles, and gazelle evolved endurance and a zig-zagging style of movement to escape. Over huge stretches of time – millions of years – they, or animals very similar to them, have pushed each other to their physiological limits. On the frontline in Ukraine, this kind of dynamic happens rapidly, with each version getting better either at countering drones or in avoiding the countermeasures.
The side that has the upper hand is the side that adaptest quickest. What makes this all the more confusing is that drone-based defence is relatively cheap, while the existing model is expensive. Worse, many large European platforms lack effective protection against drones, which means that high-value assets are exposed to low-cost threats.
At a time of political and economic volatility, not many Western European populations are likely to find the idea of their governments misspending their money forgivable.
To defend itself, Europe must learn from Ukraine
Europe might not have the sense of urgency that exists in Ukraine. But it has vast reservoirs of human talent, world-class research institutions, some of the largest economies in the world, and – more and more – the recognition that it must stand on its own two feet and cease to rely so heavily on its friends in the United States. And yet we are not putting all of these advantages to use by learning humbly from the experience of the Ukrainians and developing a defence infrastructure capable of withstanding or deterring anyone who might do us harm.
That’s not to say that Europe should do exactly what Ukraine has done. Drones will, sooner or later, be replaced by something else; this is the story of defence technology. But the Ukrainian model of innovation is one that Europe must replicate. Moreover, Europe should treat the Ukrainian battlefield as a live innovation engine. It is a place where systems are tested, broken, and improved at speed.
Structured exchange and direct support would let Europe absorb this learning in real time. More broadly, government, industry and frontline units should work together; feedback loops must be short; and innovation should be shaped by need. In simple terms: Europe must build an ecosystem that rewards what works now, not what worked in the past.
Dr Robert Brüll is the founder and CEO of FibreCoat, a leading developer of advanced materials enabling the next generation of space and defence systems.