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Signing ten-year defense partnership agreements with three leading Gulf states is a significant outcome for Ukraine. However, the positive optics that surrounded Zelenskyy’s recent regional tour may have been even more important for the country.

Since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion more than four years ago, Ukraine has been widely seen as a recipient of military aid and a drain on international resources. Zelenskyy’s visit directly challenged this unflattering and outdated view. For the first time, Ukraine was presented as a potentially attractive security partner with much to offer in terms of unique military experience and innovative defense technologies.

For anyone who has been closely following the Russia-Ukraine War, this is hardly news. Over past four years, Ukraine has built Europe’s largest army and has emerged as a world leader in drone warfare. The country’s formerly stagnant defense industry has expanded exponentially and now produces millions of drones every year as well as a growing arsenal of domestically developed cruise missiles.

This has made it possible for the Ukrainian military to blunt Russia’s offensives along the front lines of the war. At sea, Ukraine has used domestically designed marine drones to chase Putin’s Black Sea Fleet away from Crimea. Meanwhile, Kyiv has brought the war back to Russian territory with a long-range bombing campaign that recently knocked out around 40 percent of Russia’s oil export capacity.

Ukraine’s emergence as a major military force is already transforming the balance of power in Europe and will define Kyiv’s relationships with the wider world for decades to come. Zelenskyy’s tour of the Gulf states has helped to highlight this new geopolitical reality.

The Ukrainian leader’s trip was in many ways a masterclass in wartime diplomacy. By moving so nimbly, Zelenskyy secured vital support for the Ukrainian war effort and laid the foundations for potentially game-changing strategic partnerships with the Gulf states. Crucially, he also debunked negative perceptions of his country and enhanced Ukraine’s global standing as a drone warfare superpower.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Military artificial intelligence (AI) is moving from the margins of experimentation into the core of how NATO will fight, make critical decisions, and deter competitors over the next decade. The 2022 NATO Strategic Concept identifies the technological edge to be critical for the Alliance to fulfil its core tasks. Both contemporary warfare and renewed strategic competition suggest that data-driven AI decision-support systems and autonomous battlefield capabilities augmented with AI will define the character of future conflicts. There is a justified focus on evaluating strategic risks associated with such systems.

This report argues that integrating AI into military systems does not generate vulnerabilities that are fundamentally new in kind compared to existing cyber risks. But the difference lies in consequences. Once AI-enabled decision-support systems and autonomous platforms become critical to Alliance operations, interference with data, models, and computing infrastructure may have implications for NATO’s ability to see, decide, and act under pressure. Similarly, the offensive use of AI-enabled capabilities does not, on its own, raise or lower the nuclear threshold. Escalation thresholds in algorithmic warfare will continue to be driven by effects on the ground rather than by whether a system is AI-enabled. Yet the characteristics of AI—the speed, system opacity, and physical infrastructure—create more room for human error, misperception, and miscalculation.

To explore such possibilities, the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative, in partnership with the NATO Office of the Chief Scientist, conducted a foresight study to clarify how adversaries might counter AI-enabled capabilities and to examine what this means for NATO doctrine, strategy, and deterrence. The research combined horizon scanning and expert interviews, an off-the-record workshop held in Washington, under Chatham House rules, and scenario modeling. The project mapped AI technology trends across decision-support systems and autonomous platforms, identified likely AI vulnerabilities and vectors of attack, and explored escalation dynamics through structured discussion and scenario-based exercises.

This project brought a new perspective into the debate on the impacts of transformative military AI on future warfare for two reasons. First, it is innovative in its comprehensive scope that encompasses both physical and cyber dimensions of algorithmic warfare. Indeed, it foregrounds the AI triad of data, algorithms, and computing power and shows how each can be attacked through cyber, kinetic, and electromagnetic (EM) means. And second, it examines the intersection of AI and nuclear weapons from a different angle: Tailored nuclear weapons are treated as a potential countermeasure against military AI for their electromagnetic pulse (EMP) effects.

There are two key findings.

While military AI does not generate “shock and awe” in and of itself, AI can exacerbate existing risk conditions for accidents and inadvertent escalations.

The report finds that the employment of military AI does not make the use of tailored nuclear weapons more likely. Instead, the choice of target, physical damage, and casualties are what matter. Workshop participants ranked responses to a notional AI-enabled drone saturation attack in the Baltic region by their perceived escalatory potential. Diplomatic action and electronic warfare were the most preferred responses, followed by kinetic strikes, cyber operations, and directed-energy weapons (DEW). Tailored nuclear EMP attacks were viewed as highly escalatory and politically unacceptable for NATO to use to repel an attack over NATO territory, even when framed as a tool of “information warfare.”

At the same time, military AI is expected to make the difference in terms of increasing speed, autonomy, scale, and uncertainty. This research, however, revealed that in comparison with all three components of the AI triad, the human remains the most vulnerable element of AI. Humans are routinely exposed to phishing, social engineering, cognitive bias, and already run the risk of deskilling as more tasks are delegated to machines.

Integrating AI into military operations therefore creates dangers along two pathways. First, speed and data are working against their user. Such compressed timelines can create cognitive problems in decision-making. Without safety and quality protocols in place, flooding decision-support systems with noisy or nonpatternable data can further thicken the fog of war for commanders. Second, AI-enabled military systems become increasingly complex and can lead to normal accidents, making foreign interference detection and exposure difficult to distinguish from system failures.

Algorithmic warfare highlights the importance of electromagnetic spectrum dominance.

Digital modernization of defense—the data-centric approach and software-defined capabilities—will make electromagnetic threats more salient. Russia’s war in Ukraine already highlights how GPS jamming, communications blackouts, and electronic warfare shape combat operations. This trend will intensify as NATO begins to lean on AI-enabled and multidomain command and control.

Advances in military applications of AI further strengthen the convergence between the cyber domain of operations (digital code) and the electromagnetic environment (electrons). In a crowded and contested spectrum, where software-defined radios, commercial satellites, and cloud-linked data centers underpin military networks, the distinction between “cyber” and “conventional” attack begins to blur. Further fielding of directed-energy weapons also indicates shifting the center of gravity to energy supplies.

Attacks on AI systems can use several vectors. The adversary can target model weights through espionage and hacking; poison training datasets; blind or spoof sensors on intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms; disable data relays; or physically damage hardware in data centers, cables, satellites, or uncrewed systems. Cyber operators, electronic warfare units, special forces, and conventional reconnaissance-strike systems may all participate in degrading AI-enabled capabilities. In contrast, the ongoing trend of lowering the cost of warfare will make any requirements for new protection measures, such as shielding or hardening, difficult to implement due to the trade-offs in terms of cost, weight, and endurance.

The report develops three future scenarios, including a fourth baseline case, to identify likely implications of future algorithmic warfare for NATO’s doctrine and strategy: guarded opportunism, brave new world, and minority report.

Guarded opportunism outlines a future in which military AI, despite its transformative impacts, does not require the military to dramatically alter the rules of engagement. Instead of introducing qualitatively new risks or vulnerabilities, the challenges related to military AI remain manageable with disciplined cyber hygiene and resilient power supply. On the risk side, this scenario points to heightened dangers of AI-fueled hybrid warfare below the threshold of armed conflict.
Brave new world is a less likely but more dangerous scenario detailing the conditions for escalation spirals. Transformative effects of AI lead to conventionalizing nuclear weapons. Fielding of AI-enabled military capabilities provokes the adversary to use new nuclear-powered EM weapons. Nuclear EMP attacks are viewed as a legitimate use of nuclear weapons that belong to the specter of algorithmic warfare.
Minority report presents a different take on the possible algorithmic future in which AI technology hype drives strategy. This scenario focuses on cognitive challenges for political and military decision-makers, who tend to overestimate near‑term benefits and discount the long-term risks and compound challenges of AI integration. Instead of improving AI operational implementation processes, countries race to achieve phantom AI advantages that destabilize the international security environment.

For NATO to leverage and maintain the advantage from transformative AI technologies, this report makes seven recommendations for NATO leaders that can contribute to NATO’s future strategy and doctrine adaptation.

Master AI literacy. NATO needs to develop standards for continuous AI skill development for commanders, operators, and policymakers. AI literacy is not just a strategic competency but also an instrument of restraint.
Engineer redundancy. Instead of creating a digital copy of all existing procedures, NATO should prioritize maintaining the ability to transmit information on rehearsed secondary systems.
Coordinate approach to AI tech industry. NATO should develop a code of conduct for AI tech company engagements that addresses the formation of an exclusive suppliers’ group, the knowledge gap in the private sector, and the rules for civilian software engineers in war zones.
Maintain information dominance. NATO should develop a functional framework for operationalizing AI in support of algorithmic warfare that prioritizes military objectives over abstract benchmarks and diversify its early warning systems.
Clarify escalation thresholds. NATO should develop a shared understanding of escalation thresholds for algorithmic warfare, decide on response triggers, and predelegate command authority in time-compressed scenarios to avoid escalation risks and decision paralysis.
Assess the electromagnetic layer with accuracy. Future algorithmic warfare will require NATO to treat electromagnetic spectrum operations as a distinct layer of multidomain operations to protect its strategic initiative and command-and-control superiority. NATO should also update its standards to reflect the changing scope of critical infrastructure as AI becomes a strategic asset to avoid underestimating the EM layer.
Deter by ambiguity. NATO should project resilience while cloaking its sensitive AI assets in a black box unexplainable by adversaries. However, such deterrence by ambiguity should not erode internal accountability of NATO-run AI systems.

Introduction

The 2022 NATO Strategic Concept emphasizes the importance of the Alliance maintaining its technological edge to achieve mission success.¹ But NATO’s ability to ensure military effectiveness and uphold a credible deterrence and defense posture faces challenges in the era of emerging and disruptive technologies. In the context of rapidly evolving warfare tactics and renewed strategic competition, AI-powered decision-support systems (DSS) and autonomous battlefield capabilities are expected to shape future conflicts. NATO’s 2022 Digital Transformation Vision therefore intended to accelerate the adoption of data and AI analytics to unlock new advantages for the Alliance.²

Accordingly, NATO’s AI Strategy encourages strategic foresight activities to help allies achieve a reasonable level of AI readiness.³ It also focuses on anticipating new challenges and risks related to algorithmic warfare from adversarial use of AI. While the military potential of AI is versatile and uncertain, it has nonetheless become difficult to overlook its importance to strategic competition. Countries are racing to develop and deploy AI across their civilian economies and militaries. Russia, the most significant and direct threat to NATO allies, and the People’s Republic of China, a strategic competitor seeking to control key technologies, have widely communicated their intentions to field AI for military purposes.⁴

Research objective

The Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative, in partnership with the NATO Office of the Chief Scientist, has conducted a foresight study addressing this crucial topic. This effort seeks to gain more clarity on AI’s transformative military effects over the next decade. This report assesses the vulnerabilities entailed in AI integration into NATO military capabilities in the context of the digital transformation of defense and the growing importance of electromagnetic spectrum operations. Importantly, it identifies ways in which adversaries might counter future AI-enabled capabilities on and off the battlefield. The objective is thus to understand how these developments may affect NATO’s doctrine and strategy moving forward.

This report’s focus on the transformative effects of military AI is highly relevant given NATO’s ambition to conduct multidomain operations.⁵ As outlined in the Digital Transformation Implementation Strategy, NATO political and military leaders intend to use advanced analytics in combination with multimodal data from sensor networks for a consolidated multidomain situational awareness in real time.⁶ While the “digital backbone” is intended to enable command and control across all domains, a broader digital interoperability framework with a secured data-sharing ecosystem will enhance political consultation and decision-making processes.

This report therefore seeks to address the complex question of the likely implications of future military AI countermeasures on NATO’s doctrine and strategy. This means identifying the risks from integrating transformative AI into military systems, examining the vulnerabilities the adoption of AI will create, assessing the severity and probability of corresponding adversarial attacks, and formulating recommendations. Importantly, to limit the dangers of technological determinism, this project examined how political and military leaders and policy planners (at the state level of decision-making) perceive new technologies appearing on the battlefield and craft their responses to escalate or not.⁷

Methodology

In terms of methodology, this report used several data collection and analysis tools. The first phase of the project consisted of horizon scanning and road mapping. Through a structured evidence-gathering process based on desk research of relevant open-source documents and background expert interviews, this report identified the most important drivers of change, as well as the likely future developments at the intersection of AI and the defense sector that are at the margins of current thinking and planning.

In the second phase, the Atlantic Council hosted an off-the-record closed workshop held on an unclassified level in Washington. Through two prescripted discussions, conducted under Chatham House rules, policy and scholarly experts were asked to stress test the assumptions from the first phase. This informed the project on the likelihood of AI countermeasures and conditions for escalation in future algorithmic warfare, as well as to validate recommendations.

The third and last phase of the project centered on future scenario development. This is a useful policy analysis tool that visualizes a set of possible future conditions to help NATO decision-makers to anticipate challenges as they define capability requirements for NATO’s success in future algorithmic warfare.

Structure

This report proceeds as follows. Part One maps AI technology trends and their military applications over the next decade, from the battleﬁeld to the war room. Part Two then proceeds to anticipate the vulnerabilities of AI-enabled systems and to assess the possible vectors of attack to explore escalation pathways in algorithmic warfare; it covers both digital and physical dimensions across the so-called “AI triad” of algorithms, data, and computing power—and adds a human factor.

Part Three outlines three algorithmic futures—guarded opportunism, brave new world, and minority report—based on the likely transformative effects of military AI and their impact on international security. This line of scientific inquiry is highly relevant given ongoing research concerned with the impact of roboticized autonomous systems operating with minimal human supervision on future conflicts.⁸

Part Four discusses recommendations for NATO leaders. Based on the project’s findings, this report raises seven main action points that are categorized into three areas: AI readiness and resilience; military AI doctrine; and deterrence.

Part one: Military AI tech trends

AI is becoming a general-purpose military technology that will sit inside almost every digital system that NATO uses.⁹ Its transformative effects will likely concentrate in two areas. First, decision-support systems will expand the scale of information analytics military commanders can process to make better decisions fast. Second, autonomous and semiautonomous platforms will shift how militaries sense, move, and strike on the battlefield. Together, these developments are driving an AI era of algorithmic warfare.¹⁰

AI can, in principle, be implemented in everything that uses a computer. As defense establishments digitize, AI has never been a single-purpose capability in itself. Rather, AI architecture underpins modern command, control, communications, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, logistics, and weapons systems. NATO’s own definitions reflect this evolution. In 1995, NATO described AI as the capability of a functional unit to perform tasks generally associated with human intelligence, such as reasoning and learning. By 2005, it was also seen as “the branch of computer science” focused on building systems that reason, learn, and improve themselves.¹¹ These definitions now apply across a much broader digital ecosystem. Software has become a defining component of many weapon systems and AI is increasingly embedded in sensors, networks, and command-and-control tools.

The overall expectations about AI’s impact on future warfare can be captured in three concepts: speed, scale, and autonomy. Speed refers to faster sensing, processing, and engagement cycles. Scale refers to the ability to handle vast volumes of data and to coordinate large numbers of distributed assets, including swarms of UASs. Autonomy refers to the degree to which AI systems can operate with minimal human supervision. NATO’s challenge will be to harness these three dimensions without sacrificing control, accountability, or interoperability.

From general-purpose enabler to algorithmic warfare

The military applications of AI span relatively low-stakes use cases such as administrative automation and training, operational functions like logistics and cybersecurity, and high-stakes roles in targeting, electronic warfare, and human-machine teaming in combat.¹² From a functional standpoint, experts in defense and military affairs expect AI to matter depending on the AI model type, broadly divided in four categories: generative AI, classification, prediction, and autonomy.¹³ This includes tasks in which large volumes of data must be processed quickly, where patterns are too complex for human perception, where actions need to follow real-time operational intelligence fast, and where simulated environments can meet high training requirements.

Generative AI: Content, coaching, and cognitive effects

Generative AI models create novel content that mimics the statistical properties of the data on which they are trained in response to human prompts. In the military context, these systems are likely to be used as “agents” or virtual advisers that support commanders and staff in alleviating their daily administrative burdens and automating less critical processes, such as drafting routine reports, summarizing long documents, and translating technical information.¹⁴ In training and simulation, generative AI models can serve as simulation tools in war games and exercises. They populate synthetic environments with plausible adversarial actors and behaviors. This role improves scenario realism and generates alternative courses of action.

At the same time, these features can also be weaponized for offensive information operations. Adversaries can use generative AI to run large-scale, low-cost disinformation campaigns. This may involve producing tailored propaganda or impersonating Alliance leaders, journalists, and civil society voices. Generative AI will therefore be a powerful tool in the hands of adversaries seeking to manipulate perceptions and erode NATO’s cohesion.¹⁵

Classification: Noise and signal in a sensor-saturated battlespace

Classification models excel at recognizing patterns in labeled data and assigning new inputs to categories they have learned. Militaries already use such models for computer vision, facial and object recognition, and behavior detection. Computer vision models can identify vehicles, aircraft, ships, and infrastructure in imagery from satellites, aircraft, and UASs against their regularly updated data libraries. Classification tools can become crucial for early warning systems, from detecting stealthy cyber intrusions to flagging irregular troop movements. In sum, over the next decade, these systems are well-suited to sit at the core of intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting architectures.

Much is expected from AI-enabled electronic warfare too. In a battlespace saturated with sensors, classification tools can automate filtering of the electromagnetic spectrum, such as distinguishing signal from noise and highlighting anomalous signals that warrant human attention. Furthermore, signal processing algorithms can suggest waveforms to counter hostile signals and thus help overcome adversarial jamming in real time.¹⁶ As the electromagnetic spectrum becomes more contested, the ability to recognize and respond to subtle patterns faster than an adversary will be a critical advantage.

Prediction and data fusion: Scaling decision support

Prediction models analyze historical and real-time data to identify trends and forecast likely future events. In military settings, they underpin decision-support systems (DSS) designed to help commanders cope with complexity and information overload. The transition to multidomain operations underscores the importance of such multimodal data fusion and analytics.¹⁷

This type of AI model is therefore suitable to support battle management, as they fuse information from multiple sources and data streams from land, air, maritime, cyber, and space assets, and integrate them into a single operating picture that is updatable in real time.¹⁸ However, this also means that such data-centric decision-making processes can narrow commanders’ perceptions and constrain their choices.¹⁹

They can also highlight early warning indicators, propose likely adversary courses of action, and flag emerging risks in logistics and supply chains. In logistics, in particular, AI can support predictive maintenance of critical stockpiles; forecast demand for ammunition, fuel, and spare parts; and anticipate bottlenecks in transportation networks.²⁰ Predictive systems can also assist with medical support by estimating casualties and optimizing the positioning of medical resources.²¹

Autonomy: From perception to action

Autonomy involves AI systems that perceive their environment, process real-time data from sensors, and make decisions in pursuit of a mission objective without constant human intervention. In this case, AI models can cause kinetic effects, as they can direct hardware and/or software to react within the physical realm based on the input from the immediate environment.

Onboard AI enables uncrewed aircraft, ground vehicles, and maritime platforms to filter and fuse sensor inputs, navigate in contested environments, and pass the most relevant information back to human controllers. Advances in machine vision, for example, allow drones to compare real-time imagery from downward-facing cameras with stored satellite images and inertial data to determine their position without reliance on global navigation satellite systems. This is particularly important in GPS-denied or heavily jammed environments.²²

Autonomy is also extending to terminal guidance and target recognition. Today, many drones operate on autopilot for parts of their mission, with humans in- or on-the-loop for final engagement decisions. Over time, fully autonomous solutions that combine visual navigation, target recognition, and terminal guidance are likely to proliferate. Seamless data flows, however, are crucial. The Ukrainian forces use a practice that resembles “Uber targeting,” where one unit identifies a target, shares the observation on an encrypted network, and the targeting assignment goes to whichever unit is available, even facilitating joint-strike capability from multiple vectors.²³ AI-enabled systems that can collect, process, and act on information in real time will make such dynamic targeting more common, especially when communications with higher headquarters are degraded.

From incremental adoption to algorithmic warfare

Together, developments in these functional areas point toward the algorithmic future of warfare. Broadly speaking, algorithmic warfare refers to integrating automated, autonomous, and AI technologies into the conduct of war, while decreasing the role of human elements.²⁴ In algorithmic warfare, the military conducts operations through AI-enabled capabilities that collect, analyze, and act on data at speeds and scales beyond human capacity. Artificially intelligent means operate when human warfighters cannot and reduce their exposure to danger. Such AI-enabled autonomous capabilities will especially be assigned tasks at the edge of the battlespace to handle time-critical sensing and response functions without human supervision and with minimum guidance.²⁵

Yet the most transformative effects of military AI are likely to appear in two use cases. First, AI in DSS will expand the scale and speed of information processing, giving commanders a richer but more mediated view of the operating environment. Decision-support tools will not only help humans make better-informed choices but also shape the decision space by highlighting some options and obscuring others. Second, AI embedded in weapons platforms will use speed and autonomy to compress the kill chain, shrinking the time between detection, identification, decision, and engagement.²⁶ This has implications for escalation control, the rules of engagement (ROE), and the role of commanders in supervising rapid, machine-driven engagements.

Drivers of change

Several structural drivers are signaling greater reliance on AI and algorithmic approaches to warfare. These drivers are particularly important for NATO as it implements its Digital Transformation Vision and prepares for multidomain operations.

Digital modernization of defense

First, the broader digital modernization of defense is creating the conditions in which AI can thrive. Modern militaries are upgrading their IT infrastructure and moving to software-defined capabilities that deliver new functionality to existing platforms.²⁷ This also means adopting data-centric approaches to capability development through collaborative digital spaces.

As militaries continue implementing digital modernization of their forces, their dominance in the electromagnetic spectrum is crucial for their new dependencies on sensors, satellites, and networked systems. Russia’s war in Ukraine has underscored the importance of EM warfare, including GPS jamming and communications blackouts.²⁸ These developments push militaries to design more resilient, autonomous, and decentralized command-and-control structures with better cybersecurity measures. At the same time, electromagnetic warfare in the West has not gotten the attention it needs and is still seen as largely subservient to or stovepiped from cyber.²⁹

Interconnected domains

Second, the move toward multidomain operations (MDO) requires integrating effects across land, air, maritime, space, and cyberspace, as well as in the virtual and cognitive dimensions. MDO aims to “[orchestrate] military activities, synchronize non-military instruments of power, and deliver converging effects at the speed of relevance.”³⁰ To make this possible, allies are building a digital backbone that can enable command and control across all domains. However, the effectiveness of this backbone depends on interoperable data sharing, secure and reliable communications, and advanced analytics capable of fusing data into a real-time consolidated multidomain picture. Turning well-integrated AI models into C4ISR systems that enhance situational awareness and support decision-making becomes part of the key conditions for conducting multidomain operations.

Autonomy pursuits

Third, recent and ongoing conflicts are accelerating experimentation with AI-enabled autonomous and decision-support systems. In Ukraine, AI-driven platforms already analyze extensive sensor and signal data to generate real-time targeting suggestions and logistical predictions.³¹ In Gaza, reports indicate that machine-learning systems such as “Gospel” and “Lavender” have been used to support dynamic targeting and terminal navigation by combining multi-source imagery with other intelligence inputs.³² These cases illustrate a shift from isolated, weapon-centric AI applications toward more comprehensive systems that inform planning, targeting, and force deployment at all command levels.

Drones are no longer only agents of remote warfare but are fast becoming agents of algorithmic warfare as well. Demand has surged for battlefield drone footage. Thousands of drone-camera videos depicting successful strikes are used to train computer-vision models, while engineers race to design uncrewed systems that can navigate and coordinate in GPS- and communications-denied environments using on-board processing and limited power.

Two motivations stand out: building “mass for precision” and supplementing shrinking human force structures. Swarm tactics and swarm command seek to saturate defenses and compress reaction times through the coordinated use of large numbers of low-cost platforms. At the same time, demographic trends and recruitment challenges will incentivize greater robotic integration and human-machine teaming. Forward-deployed, uninhabited platforms on standby will increasingly redefine how militaries think about force projection and readiness.³³ For instance, large drone formations can provide the aggressor with an edge in the invasion of foreign territory, highlighting the challenge to the capacity of air defenses.³⁴ Across these trends, AI is fast becoming more than just a technological tool; it is a vital strategic competency,³⁵ and will likely determine which militaries can exploit AI—at scale and under stress. For NATO, understanding where AI is most likely to transform operations, and how adversaries might target the vulnerabilities of AI-enabled systems, is a prerequisite for credible deterrence and effective defense in the emerging era of algorithmic warfare.

Part two: The specter of algorithmic warfare

Militaries have not yet realized the full potential of AI technologies, but it is not difficult to see how AI will shape the strategic environment and wartime paradigms. As the AI race intensifies, potent AI-enabled capabilities will be deployed as part of NATO’s digital transformation and decision-support ambitions.³⁶ This section translates interview insights and workshop discussions into a structured analysis of AI’s core components and their vulnerabilities and the likely vectors of adversarial attack. Two case studies used in the workshop—AI applications in autonomous weapons platforms and in a decision-support system—further informed the analysis of the limits of main AI countermeasures and the conditions under which escalation in algorithmic warfare may occur. This is because the likelihood of an adversary attacking NATO for using AI models for predictive maintenance is comparatively low.

AI triad

Military AI rests on three interlocking components often described as the AI triad: data, algorithms, and computing power.³⁷ Each component has a specific implication for offense-defense parameters. For instance, algorithms imply attacks on model architecture, computing power involves disrupting semiconductors and supply chains, while data concern cyberattacks to poison datasets.

Data refers to information about the focus area of the machine-learning system, collected from sensors and other sources, organized, stored, and made accessible. Algorithms are the series of instructions used to process information; machine-learning algorithms derive insights from datasets and the learnable parameters that encode the core capabilities of an AI model in model weights. Computing power provides the speed and capacity to execute algorithms at scale, train models to determine weights, and run inference offline on deployed systems.³⁸ In practice, computing power includes processors and graphics cards, advanced semiconductors, content delivery networks, power supplies, and cooling. Defense applications often need to run offline on edge devices under strict size, weight, and power constraints, or on government cloud resources with limited GPU availability. Data, sometimes dubbed the new “munition” due to their importance for modern warfare, encompasses issues such as volume, quality, salience, and labeling. The amount of training data strongly influences effectiveness, though collecting the right operational data and labeling it correctly are important for accuracy and alignment. Algorithms feed data into model weights through training, and their resulting internal architecture determines future data analysis in real-time operations.

AI vulnerabilities and vectors of attack

Integrating AI introduces several challenges along the entire triad. Core datasets are massive, models can be opaque, and natural-language prompting expands input surfaces. These characteristics create multiple entry points for adversaries and raise the importance of disciplined processes and safeguards. Adversaries will attempt to degrade NATO’s AI-enabled capabilities by targeting the triad across cyber, electromagnetic, and conventional kinetic dimensions. This section outlines how such attacks would prevent the Alliance from enjoying advantages from AI.

Computing power

Vulnerabilities associated with computing power reflect the physicality of AI infrastructure. This is because advanced semiconductors and specialized chips must be sourced, supplied, and integrated into systems that also require stable energy and cooling. The performance of inference-heavy applications may depend on AI-optimized hardware. These dependencies create risks during material shortages, expose weak points in data centers, and constrain performance at the tactical edge.

Adversaries can exploit material attributes of semiconductors. They can disrupt the supply of specialized AI chips, seed vendor-supplied Trojan backdoors, or manipulate cloud architectures built with commercial technology. They can target the electricity supply of data centers and sabotage their water-cooling systems to cause outages, or damage undersea cables and content-delivery networks to disrupt data flows.

Data

Data is vulnerable across the lifecycle of AI models. Adversaries can poison training datasets through cyber operations that mislabel data or introduce hidden triggers that cause the model to misbehave. Poorly labeled or biased datasets degrade performance, making certain classes of objects invisible to the system or misclassifying them at critical ranges. If the wrong data is collected, or if the right data is corrupted, the entire decision-support chain can lead a model to malfunction and reduce its reliability in the long term.

Adversaries can also interfere with real-life data collection. Because drones and other autonomous systems rely on environmental input, adversaries can tamper with surroundings to impact sensory input and cause abnormal behavior. For instance, blinding sensors on ISR platforms with optical illusions, or adjusting the sensors themselves, and generating spoofing signals can mislead the model into inappropriate responses.³⁹ In addition to onboard perception and planning modules, adversaries can target control interfaces, power management, data relays, and user interfaces used to coordinate connected autonomous systems. Alternatively, disabling low-orbit satellites can also stop real-time input and data sharing.

Algorithms

Incorporating AI into the digital architecture makes the existing systems susceptible to attacks that target the AI model itself. Because model parameters encode internal configuration variables crucial for its operation, compromising weights and biases gives an attacker significant leverage. Adversaries can also try to steal model weights through espionage or proxy hackers, gaining access to the core capabilities of the model for manipulation.⁴⁰
Adversaries can thicken the fog of war for algorithms by flooding AI-enabled DSS with inputs that are inaccurate, uncategorizable, or nonpatternable. They can exploit the rare and unpredictable features of the battlefield, since AI models are mostly trained on either synthetic data or on datasets from previous conflicts that may not quite fit the type and circumstances of the current war zone.

Interviewed experts and workshop participants indicated that the most likely adversarial action against military AI architecture would include:

Blinding sensors on ISR platforms to stop the real-time input of new data.
Spreading misinformation to confuse the algorithms with nonpatternable data.
Physically damaging undersea cables to disrupt data sharing.
Conducting espionage in the suppliers’ private lab facilities.

Surprisingly, however, the most vulnerable component of AI seems to be the human; data and algorithms follow, with the computing power being the least vulnerable of AI components. Such human-related vulnerabilities include personalized phishing, social engineering, cognitive bias, and deskilling.

Countering military AI

Having discussed the vectors of adversarial attacks on AI-enabled military systems and capabilities, this section now briefly comments on the means of such attacks. These AI countermeasures include cyber operations, conventional kinetic attack, electronic warfare, directed energy weapons (DEW), and tailored nuclear weapons with enhanced electromagnetic pulse (EMP). Each has distinct advantages and limitations.

Cyber operations

Cyber operations can interfere with how AI models learn and operate by manipulating ones and zeros. Cyberattacks can degrade the model’s performance or integrity, limit its availability by delaying responses or rendering command-and-control systems inoperative at crucial moments.⁴¹ Integrating AI into military systems increases their vulnerability simply by creating more targets for computer hacking.⁴² These AI vulnerabilities include compromising software libraries, poisoning training data, hijacking AI infrastructure, or stealing sensitive AI properties. Such cyberattacks, however, require prior intelligence to target the right datasets and processing centers. Their effects can be difficult to assess and attribute in real time, which increases the potential for miscalculation.

Conventional kinetic action

Conventional kinetic attacks can target ISR assets including space-based systems, airborne warning and control system aircraft, and other hardware components integral in critical AI infrastructure. Traditional air defenses can target offensive AI onboard small autonomous vehicles with low-cost interceptors, nets, and guns. Kinetic action is tangible but can be escalatory depending on target and context, and it may be expensive or resource-intensive if used at scale against saturation attacks.

Electronic warfare

Electronic warfare uses electromagnetic energy to degrade hostile systems by jamming or spoofing. EW can produce reversible, nonlethal effects, but it is constrained by range, power, antennas, and by the need for detailed knowledge of enemy waveforms and code. Focused jamming and signal spoofing in case of multisensor platforms can confuse AI into analytical errors and lead to wrong reactions. Jamming, however, is possible only in the case of collaborative autonomous platforms that communicate among themselves the adaptive course of their action.

Directed-energy weapons

High-power microwaves and high-energy lasers widen the range of electromagnetic spectrum operations (EMSO). They can disable or destroy electronics on autonomous platforms using concentrated electromagnetic energy.⁴³ While microwaves are suitable for area defenses and perimeter denial against swarms of drones, lasers with their energy beams perform point defense similar to short-range air defense and counter-rocket, artillery, and mortar missions. They have low logistics tails and low cost per shot, but they are power hungry and range-limited. Atmospheric conditions, such as rain and fog, can reduce beam quality and effectiveness, as well as increase fratricide risks. Their applications for space missions look promising given their reusability and the potential to degrade or destroy a satellite.⁴⁴

Tailored nuclear weapons with enhanced electromagnetic pulse

Nuclear explosions of all types—from underground to high altitudes—are accompanied by an electromagnetic pulse. The strength and area coverage of this intense time varying electromagnetic radiation depends on the warhead type and yield, and the altitude of the detonation.⁴⁵ This means that while high-altitude airbursts can have a continent-wide deposition region, for explosions in the atmosphere at altitudes below 30 kilometers, the radius ranges from 5 to 16 kilometers.⁴⁶

Since the 1960s, EMPs, either man-made or natural, have been known to have a potential to disrupt, damage, or destroy a wide array of electrical and electronic systems.⁴⁷ Degradation of electrical and electronic system performance as a result of exposure to the EMP may cause either permanent functional damage or a temporary operational impairment, lasting from seconds to hours.⁴⁸ Computers used in data processing systems, communications systems, and semiconductors belong to the category of devices most susceptible to failure.⁴⁹

While airbursts have little or no fallout and no residual radiation, it is difficult to predict their effects and impact on today’s sensitive electronics, as well as avoid collateral damage and civilian casualties. Together with the difficulty to signal limited nuclear use, since the adversary cannot distinguish low-yield from high-yield weapons, such employment of nuclear EMP weapons remains highly problematic and inherently escalatory.⁵⁰ Experimental exercises over the past decades have identified no assurance that a nuclear strike would remain limited.⁵¹

Escalation and algorithmic warfare

The workshop assessed the salience of AI-enabled lethal operations along an escalatory pathway from minor cyber operations to DEW and nuclear EMP. The following paragraphs summarize the expert participants’ discussion on the conditions under which the use of military AI could increase the risk of escalation.

Escalation is defined as “an increase in the intensity or scope of conflict that crosses threshold(s) considered significant by one or more of the participants.”⁵² Escalation thresholds then depend on retaliation in response to some form of attack. The workshop discussion highlighted the distinction between effects-based and means-based escalation logics. While effects-based logic identifies thresholds depending on the impact that is irrespective of the weapons type, means-based logic emphasizes the qualitative difference between nuclear, conventional, and cyber domains. Some means are regarded as less escalatory than others. For instance, cyberattacks have proven capable of restraining the escalation dynamic and even de-escalating geopolitical crises.⁵³ Similarly, attacks on large drones are less likely to lead to escalation than attacks on inhabited aircraft.⁵⁴

Most researchers studying the AI-nuclear intersection focus on AI amplifying existing risks in nuclear command, control, and communications that can spark accidental nuclear confrontation,⁵⁵ undermining deterrence with AI-enabled conventional systems,⁵⁶ incentivizing first strike,⁵⁷ or exacerbating the proliferation/verification dilemma.⁵⁸ This workshop addressed the concern of a possible deliberate use of nuclear weapons as a warfighting tool designed to produce electromagnetic pulse effects to counter military AI. Previous experimental war-gaming showed that although low-yield nuclear weapons do indeed destabilize international security since they are seen as a substitute for high-yield nuclear use, they do not seem to increase the likelihood of crossing the nuclear threshold.⁵⁹

The workshop scenario described an AI-enabled fast and lethal drone saturation attack into the Baltic region. The scenario listed a number of possible responses:

Diplomatic action.
Economic sanctions.
Cyberattack.
Conventional kinetic response.
Electronic warfare measures.
Directed energy weapons.
Tailored nuclear weapons with enhanced electromagnetic pulse.

The workshop participants ranked responses by their perceived escalatory potential. Diplomatic action and electronic warfare tended to come first and often in parallel. Kinetic action, cyber operations, and DEW followed as second-ring responses. Economic sanctions were seen as medium-term tools, not immediate response levers. Tailored nuclear EMP was considered least probable but most escalatory, with a consensus that its use over NATO territory would be unacceptable. Among the most prevalent concerns against the nuclear EMP use, the participants noted: lowering the threshold for strategic nuclear weapon use; observing the nuclear “taboo,” the response’s proportionality, proliferation of nuclear weapons following nuclear use, and setting a negative precedent.

The follow-on discussion highlighted that adversaries may exploit AI structural risks. Complex AI systems can make attribution and intent assessment harder as AI and autonomy create conditions for plausible deniability. In addition, increased speed and data volumes can work against the user, since time-pressured scenarios increase the risk that decision-makers may rely more heavily on potentially compromised AI outputs, without even understanding the source of unanticipated inputs or system failures.⁶⁰

The workshop confirmed that military AI is not escalatory because offensive AI-enabled capabilities do not meaningfully increase the nature or intensity of a conflict. What matters is the choice of target, the physical damage, and the presence of casualties. At the same time, the properties of AI—speed, autonomy, and opacity—can increase the risk of inadvertent escalation. Despite the fight for EM spectrum dominance, the AI status of an attack does not lower nuclear thresholds—effects on the ground determine response. Ultimately, the vicinity of the adversary’s troops continues to be perceived as more escalatory than an AI-powered swarm attack.

Part three: Future scenarios

Juxtaposing the possible transformative effects of military AI against the threat perception (table A), this foresight study outlines three military AI future scenarios: Guarded opportunism, brave new world, and minority report. The goal is to anticipate long‑haul innovation in countering adversarial attacks on NATO’s AI systems and to inform military research and development decisions.⁶¹

The scenarios are modeled after two variables with a graduated level of likelihood. The first variable concerns the transformative impact of AI: whether countries achieve any strategic advantage from integrating AI into their militaries. And the second variable addresses an adversary’s threat perception: whether integrating AI provokes the development of new countermeasures and/or changes on the escalation ladder.

The fourth quadrant—AI fatigue—represents the most unlikely scenario with no decisive AI advantage and no heightened threat perception. It is less policy‑salient but remains useful as a control for future policy planning.

Scenario I. Guarded opportunism

This is the most plausible future scenario. AI meaningfully transforms military affairs and confers comparative advantage on states that integrate it well, yet it does not worsen adversary threat perceptions. Business continues largely as usual. AI‑enabled decision support and autonomy systems transform the character of warfare through expanded scale and increased operational speed yet without changing the nature of war.

NATO’s digital transformation and integrated AI-enabled military capabilities do not introduce qualitatively new risks or vulnerabilities. These remain familiar to cyberspace and can be managed with disciplined cyber hygiene and resilient power-supply architectures. However, AI may heighten some of the existing threat pathways and security risks. As AI becomes integral to the ability to operate and respond, degraded situational awareness and power outages, for instance, could become more consequential—and a new center of gravity—in digitalized, software-defined defense. Decision‑support systems help commanders filter the noise and frame choices faster, but they do not demand new categories of resilience beyond what Part Two already identified for the AI triad.

Hybrid pressure intensifies below the threshold of armed conflict. Cable cuts, data center intrusions, and information operations become routine. Russia continues sabotaging critical AI infrastructure to disrupt supply chains and cyber and drone intimidation campaigns across Europe.⁶² Yet technology knowledge and investments into resilient computer systems limit these escalation attempts. Better engineering and AI literacy shorten detection and attribution loops and make recovery faster.

Two challenges stand out. The first is the intergovernmental character of the Alliance. NATO relies on its member countries for certain types of cyber operations. This dependence on capitals to act creates latency in time‑sensitive crises and may result in inefficient responses that may not prevent further escalation of hybrid warfare. The second is information warfare targeting the Alliance’s reputation. NATO publics in left‑leaning governments are targeted with disinformation campaigns that frame AI‑enabled capabilities as unethical “killer robots,” arguing that NATO violates its own principles of responsible use of AI. Adversaries are further fueling domestic opposition to reduce tech-sector cooperation.

Still, guarded opportunism is defined by low escalation risks. Algorithmic warfare remains bounded by existing ROE and proportional responses. The only time AI and nuclear fields cross their paths with real-world consequences is in the widespread adoption of small nuclear reactors across the military to power demanding computations of AI models.

Scenario II. Brave new world

In the second scenario, AI is transformative and threat perception worsens. The AI triad delivers a real strategic and operational edge. However, AI-related risks grow with it over time due to insufficient literacy, lack of regular training, lagging skill development, and sloppy implementation of zero‑trust policy across armed forces. Furthermore, rapid and widespread integration of AI models creates new vulnerabilities, stemming from limited human agency, which complicate the cognitive aspects of decision-making.⁶³ The result is an increased probability of flash wars among autonomous robotic systems, in which algorithms interact at such a fast pace that humans would not be involved.⁶⁴

Such a degraded security environment sees multiple escalation spirals. Compressed decision-making times and fully autonomous systems contribute to perceptions of asymmetric disadvantage between Russia and NATO. Russia’s doctrine and force structure amplify the problem. Russia’s revision of its nuclear doctrine in 2024—with its greater emphasis on “aerospace attacks,” explicitly including drones, as one of the conditions under which nuclear weapons may be used—seems to lower the threshold for nuclear use.⁶⁵ This demonstrates that Russia became more reliant on its nonstrategic nuclear weapons after its conventional forces degraded in the war on Ukraine.⁶⁶ This seems to strengthen the Russian leadership’s belief that nonstrategic nuclear weapons are Russia’s “competitive advantage” over NATO.⁶⁷ Furthermore, Russia’s vision of new generation warfare builds upon weapons based on new physical principles, including radio frequency, laser, infrasonic, and electromagnetic. Russia has indeed been developing a precision-strike system built on integration of EW, uncrewed strike and reconnaissance systems, hypersonic weapons, and low-yield nuclear warheads.

In contrast, as NATO’s deterrent power derives from advanced conventional capabilities, this scenario portrays a deeper blurring of conventional and nuclear domains.⁶⁸ Yet NATO struggles to attain superiority in strategic command and control, while avoiding dependencies on commercial clouds and satellites. Large‑scale outages and cascading failures are more frequent. Allies hold regular war-gaming exercises to make sure that the Alliance’s responses remain proportionate even when attacks are AI‑generated. Yet Russia’s asymmetric countermeasures to the multidomain concept keep causing electronic damage to NATO command posts and communications centers.⁶⁹

In high tension, states embrace capabilities that manipulate the spectrum—microwaves, lasers, tailored EMP—seeking to blunt swarms and blind sensors. While EW once seemed unbeatable, jamming lost its teeth against uncrewed vehicles that do not use communication and navigation links. And if autonomy was an antidote to EW, then degrading the electromagnetic environment has become the antidote to AI-enabled military capabilities.

Some governments resume nuclear explosive testing of airburst effects, which contributes to further entangling AI with the nuclear domain. The line between conventional and nuclear war will get more fragile with the proliferation of new classes of EMP weapons. Nuclear proliferation gets out of control as more countries strive to develop their own low-yield nuclear EMP deterrent to counter AI-enabled adversaries. Worse, numerous experts inside and outside Russia believe that a nuclear EMP attack does not need to be governed by the same set of considerations as strategic nuclear weapons and nuclear doctrine.⁷⁰ Nuclear EMP weapons are understood within the category of electronic warfare or information warfare, not nuclear warfare. In this increasingly popular interpretation, an EMP attack is regarded as a legitimate use of nuclear weapons within the specter of algorithmic warfare. Even if nuclear EMP is conceptualized as a form of information warfare in some circles, its use would be profoundly escalatory.

Scenario III. Minority report

In the third scenario, technology hype drives strategy. AI does not deliver decisive comparative advantage for the military, yet threat perceptions grow worse. Exaggerated expectations about the game-changing, transformative, and inevitable impact of AI fuel anxiety about falling behind. The fear of missing out, rather than tangible advantages from AI models, pushes countries deep into the AI race. Such alarmism about phantom AI advantages has a destabilizing effect on strategic balance.

Information asymmetries deepen the problem. NATO militaries and Russian officials tout milestones and “breakthroughs,” while major AI firms speak of revolutionary models. The strategic conversation fixates on what might be developed tomorrow rather than what is fielded today. Decision‑makers overestimate near‑term effects and discount the risks and challenges of AI integration work highlighted in Parts One and Two. As a result, nuclear-armed great powers interpret routine military exercises as cover for preemptive strikes at machine‑speeds and tend to see AI-enabled ISR improvements as a direct threat to their second-strike capabilities.

Escalation pathways in this scenario are cognitive. On the one hand, leaders race to push fully autonomous prototypes forward before safety case evaluations are completed. Miscalculation risk rises not because AI-enabled autonomous weapons systems are unstoppable, but because the decision-makers believe they are. On the other, the adversaries deploy cognitive warfare tactics of “algorithmic amplification” to influence how decision-makers reason, degrade critical decision-making processes, and undermine their sense of security.⁷¹

The Alliance faces the challenge of lowering expectations while preserving its technological edge. However, while allies agreed to coordinate their political objectives of developing AI-enabled armed forces, the lack of national resources and ineffectiveness of their national AI strategies to achieve them weakened NATO’s cohesion.⁷² Leading AI countries are reluctant to institutionalize transparent metrics for AI readiness that separate laboratory promise from operational proof.

This scenario points to the need to move beyond the polarizing hopes-vs-fears dichotomy of AI in order to translate technological potential into military advantage through a sound implementation strategy.⁷³ This scenario reminds policymakers and defense planners to budget for the cognitive dimension of technological competition. Publics and markets react to hyped narratives faster than to scientific results. Adversaries will try to exploit this gap with rhetoric about their AI leapfrogging, announcing the winner of the AI race.

Across all three futures, NATO faces distinct challenges posed by future algorithmic warfare. NATO’s advantage from AI models rests on speed, scale, and autonomy delivered by a resilient AI triad under close human oversight. Guarded opportunism is the most likely scenario and highlights AI vulnerabilities in the light of hybrid and information warfare. Brave new world is less likely but the more dangerous of the three futures. In this algorithmic future, NATO is constantly on the cusp of spirals of escalation and de-escalation and points to the dangers from rapid and widespread integration of AI models without correspondingly fast doctrinal adaptation. Minority report, meanwhile, outlines the destabilizing effects of AI hype in the context of lacking safety and transparency standards.

Part four: Policy recommendations

NATO’s advantage in algorithmic warfare will depend on converting AI’s speed, scale, and autonomy into reliable military capabilities while avoiding inadvertent escalation. This report suggests that the Alliance should focus on three lines of effort. First, it must build AI readiness and resilience across the Alliance. Second, it must refine military AI doctrine to preserve information dominance and to clarify response triggers under compressed timelines. Third, it must develop a deterrence strategy for its strategic AI-enabled DSS. These policy recommendations address the AI vulnerabilities and attack vectors identified in the report’s earlier sections, providing practical steps for NATO leaders implementing the Digital Transformation Vision and preparing for multidomain operations. Each recommendation is intended for near‑term adoption to set conditions for long‑term advantages from AI.

I. AI readiness and resilience

NATO should anchor its AI strategy in two core principles—literacy and redundancy—and reinforce those principles through a coordinated approach to the AI tech industry. Such an approach will help NATO avoid the risks of stale knowledge and deskilling.

Recommendation 1: Master AI literacy

AI literacy should be treated as a strategic competency for commanders, operators, and policymakers rather than as a niche topic confined to chief information officers. NATO should integrate AI education into professional military education, operational exercises, and staff development programs so that leaders understand both the promise and the limits of current AI models. AI-literate armed forces are less likely to succumb to tech-centric thinking and automation bias in future strategy and doctrine development.

NATO should also educate wider publics and political elites so that strategy debates do not become hostage to hype. Clear explanations of how models are evaluated, how data shape military performance, and how human judgment remains central are key for preparing policymakers at all levels to make informed AI-related decisions.⁷⁴

Recommendation 2: Engineer redundancy

Maintaining the ability to transmit information is essential for coordinated actions. NATO should assume that outages and system failures will occur. The Alliance needs to exercise capabilities in communications‑degraded electromagnetic environments and design robust and rehearsed secondary systems. This involves mapping cyber and physical dependencies to avoid single points of failure.

The Alliance should pursue controlled geographic decentralization of data centers to improve resilience of its AI architecture. This will require lawmakers to align national legislative requirements on strict data standards and protocols for insider-outsider threat detection. Vetting the data that goes into AI-enabled DSS, together with delineating clear boundaries between training periods and operational deployment of AI models, will improve the ability to isolate “poisoned” data and contain their spread. Training a team of experts to ensure human oversight of AI workings can limit the consequences of system malfunctions, while limiting the number of people with authorized access to base model parameters, can reduce the risk of sabotage and espionage.

Investment priorities should include research programs that work on future novel materials for shielding and protection of high-speed digital computers against EM interference. Given that the adversaries are likely to invest heavily in spoofing and dazzling hardware capabilities, the Allies should consider hardened interfaces against exfiltration. Lastly, NATO should invest in resources for continuous active defenses that constantly look for evidence of deception and run malfunction diagnostics.

Recommendation 3: Coordinate approach to AI tech industry

NATO should develop a code of conduct for private-sector engagements. The code would require AI companies developing products for decision-support systems and autonomous platforms to adhere to safety and ethical standards. The Alliance should create a trusted group of commercial suppliers and establish clear rules for civilian software engineers and technicians deployed in war zones. To prevent adversaries from achieving tech superiority, the Allies should examine their technology dependencies, “friend-shore” supply chains, and tighten export controls of critical components.

The Alliance should try to address the knowledge gap that exists in the private sector on how EMPs affect computer-based systems. NATO should partner with space tech organizations that have experience with the most advanced research into electromagnetic disturbances. As part of coordinating government–industry unclassified information sharing, NATO could also facilitate partnerships between traditional military hardware providers with software developers so that commercial capabilities can be deployed on military‑grade platforms. Lastly, NATO should encourage forward thinking. Routine, joint red‑teaming and data‑poisoning drills with industry will expose weaknesses. Regular brainstorming on risks from new EMP weapons and postquantum cryptography should feed into the life-cycle design of current systems.

II. Military AI doctrine

Doctrine must convert technical possibility into operational advantage while reducing the pathways to inadvertent escalation. Three recommendations on doctrinal adaptation can contribute to preserving NATO’s advantage from AI.

Recommendation 4: Maintain information dominance

NATO should develop a functional framework for operationalizing AI in support of algorithmic warfare that prioritizes military objectives over abstract benchmarks. Commanders should measure success in terms of effects—such as optimized asset‑to‑target allocation on defense—rather than in terms of statistical thresholds.

Investments should focus on early warning systems, electromagnetic warfare capabilities, and a layered counter‑UAS architecture that combines continuous passive radars, electronic warfare, DEW, and point defenses.

Maintaining information dominance also requires the ability to distinguish routine probing in the form of hybrid air denial operations from preparations for larger operations using drone saturation attacks. Exercises should therefore include ambiguous data, degraded sensors, and adversarial attempts to manipulate inputs so that the troops learn to question AI outputs without losing their operational tempo.

Recommendation 5: Clarify escalation thresholds

Compressed timelines will produce decision paralysis unless allies agree on response triggers and predelegate command authority to avoid escalation risks. NATO allies should develop a shared understanding of escalation thresholds for algorithmic warfare, including thresholds defining the strategic effects of adversarial AI-enabled attacks, as well as of attacks on NATO’s own AI architecture.

NATO also should have clear protocols in place for attribution and proportionality regarding the Alliance’s responses. For instance, would poisoning an adversary’s data count as an offensive cyber operation? NATO allies also need to make sure there are clear rules of engagement for autonomous and semiautonomous response systems. In anticipating the adversary’s deniability claims in the event of AI-enabled attacks, such as “accident” or “loss of control,” NATO should not be adjusting its red lines between subthreshold manipulation and armed attack.

Recommendation 6: Assess the electromagnetic layer with accuracy

The electromagnetic spectrum should not be an afterthought. NATO defense planners need to take the electromagnetic spectrum into consideration at the beginning of warfare planning and develop a spectrum plan with assigned frequencies. Future algorithmic warfare may require NATO to update its standards for survivability (STANAG 4145) to reflect the reality that modern critical infrastructure includes data centers and commercial satellites in addition to traditional command facilities.
In planning for EM-contested environments, NATO allies should preposition shielded assets—power, fuel, generators, and communications equipment—in forward locations to avoid logistical shortages during compressed timelines. They could also invest in software‑defined or reconfigurable radios and optical/laser communications. They should also explore the use of UAS or balloon‑based repeaters to restore the ability to transmit information when ground infrastructure is compromised. Treating the spectrum as a distinct layer of multidomain operations will protect the strategic initiative and the superiority in command and control that NATO seeks to maintain.

III. Deterrence

As AI‑enabled systems underpin strategic command‑and‑control functions, NATO must develop a deterrence strategy based on black box ambiguity without locking itself into a rigid declaratory policy.

Recommendation 7: Deter by ambiguity

NATO should project resilience while keeping the internal architecture of sensitive AI systems opaque to adversaries. Black box AI would also deprive adversaries of the ability to assess the real costs of potential attack. At the same time, the Alliance must maintain the diagnostic capacity to distinguish foreign interference from technical failure in case of system malfunctions, so that ambiguity does not erode internal accountability.

Building and demonstrating resilience—technical, organizational, and informational—will enable NATO to signal confidence and control. Its strategic communication should make clear that deliberate interference with decision‑support systems could carry serious consequences, even if precise thresholds and responses remain undisclosed. Taken together, these seven recommendations translate the analytical sections into concrete actionable items. Literacy keeps humans in charge under compressed timelines. Redundancy and industry coordination make the AI triad more trustworthy. Doctrine secures the informational high ground and clarifies action in crisis. Finally, deterrence by ambiguity protects the Alliance’s AI advantage without inspiring its adversaries into building new countermeasures. Implemented in parallel, these steps position NATO to enjoy its AI advantage in algorithmic warfare on terms that contribute to a stable security environment.

Conclusion

NATO’s competitive edge in the era of emerging and disruptive technologies will come from treating AI as a general-purpose enabler embedded across the Alliance’s digital backbone, rather than as a stand-alone “wonder weapon.” AI-enabled decision support and autonomy do not create vulnerabilities that are different in kind from cyber risks, but they raise the stakes by tying mission-critical effects—speed, scale, and autonomy—to software-defined systems that adversaries will target. Escalation will continue to be governed by effects and targets, not labels, while cognitive factors complicate judgment under time pressure. The practical implication for NATO is clear: invest in literacy, engineer redundancy, clarify doctrine, and project resilience with measured ambiguity.

This report addresses NATO’s ambition to protect its AI technological edge while digitalizing defense. Part One showed how AI will matter most in two intertwined areas: decision-support systems that compress time and expand the scale of information processing, and autonomous or semiautonomous platforms that accelerate sensing, movement, and strike. These advantages rely on the secured AI triad of algorithms, data, and computing power. Part Two mapped where adversaries will try to turn those strengths into liabilities—poisoning data, spoofing sensors, stealing model weights, interrupting cloud access and cable backhaul, and attacking the AI physical infrastructure. The analysis emphasized that while attempts to degrade AI-enabled military capabilities will resemble cyberspace operations, the consequences of failure are amplified when AI is made responsible for situational awareness at the core of command-and-control decision-making.

Parts Three and Four translated those findings into future forecasting and recommendations. The foresight scenario exercise underscored that the most likely near-term pathway is one of guarded opportunism—AI improves productivity and tempo without changing the nature of war—while the most dangerous pathway blends real AI advantage with worsening threat perception, making EMSO and directed-energy tools more salient in crisis. The most deceptive pathway is driven by hype: Threat perceptions rise even when fielded capabilities do not correspond to exaggerated predictions. Across all futures, effects, targets, and collateral risk determine algorithmic warfare dynamics.

Crucially, military AI systems do not introduce vulnerabilities that are categorically new, yet the consequences of foreign interference can be greater. If AI-enabled systems are integral to a unit’s ability to operate and respond, then successful attacks on those systems may warrant responses that are more escalatory than tit-for-tat cyber exchanges. Timing matters as well. Loss of real-time situational awareness in a crisis reduces clarity about what happened and who is responsible, raising the probability of misperception and inadvertent escalation. In practice, this report calls for disciplined deployment of decision-support systems that can only rely on rehearsed secondary systems.

The study also clarified the relationship between EMSO and nuclear restraint in the context of tailored, nonstrategic nuclear weapons. Means-based analysis sheds light on how emerging technologies shape modern escalation dynamics. Rather than making technology-centric estimates, this report highlights systemic risks related to AI: How leaders perceive risk under pressure remains decisive.

Literacy is therefore more than a training agenda; it is an instrument of restraint. Educated policymakers, commanders, and publics are less likely to treat AI as “cyber pixie dust” or to confuse reversible electronic effects with strategic attack. They will be better able to choose the right mission for the AI-enabled capability. In parallel, designating data centers, cables, AI labs, and commercial satellites as critical infrastructure and strategic assets will help align strategy and doctrine with the realities of a software-defined force.

This study contributes to AI literacy by stripping away hype and clarifying where algorithmic warfare introduces new challenges. For NATO leaders implementing the Digital Transformation Vision, the immediate tasks are practical: align skill development programs, harden the AI triad, codify response triggers, and show resilience without over-specifying red lines. Doing so reduces the risk that exaggerated expectations about new technology will drive strategy.

The report’s findings point to a future research agenda that looks into how tactical actions can engage strategic effects. AI-enabled autonomy and speed can magnify the psychological impact of hybrid campaigns, especially where the cost of interceptors is high and the pace of exchange is machine-driven. Routine “gray zone” activities are already redefining the baseline of normalcy across Europe.⁷⁵ Such threshold uncertainty permits plausible deniability, keeping the adversarial action away from Article 5 territory.

Open questions remain. How robust is the “firebreak” in escalation theory when algorithmic systems increasingly shape perception and timing? Can allies maintain recognizable qualitative distinctions between domains when effects propagate across them in multidomain operations? And where, precisely, do we draw escalation thresholds when nonkinetic actions in the electromagnetic spectrum generate strategic consequences? Answering these questions will require continued red teaming, transparent metrics for AI readiness, and joint experimentation that links tactical vignettes to strategic decision-making fora.

The Alliance has long excelled at military hardware. In a data-centric, software-defined approach to defense, advantage will come from systems engineering and smart innovation adoption choices. If NATO invests in AI literacy and redundancy, elevates the EM spectrum within the multidomain operations concept, and projects resilience with measured ambiguity, it can protect its AI edge and defend against adversarial attacks. That is the path to credible deterrence and effective defense in the emerging AI era of algorithmic warfare.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the interviewed experts and workshop participants for their generosity in sharing their time and knowledge, the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative staff for making a home for this project, and the NATO Office of the Chief Scientist for choosing to fund this project as part of its 2025 grants program.

About the author

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Dominika Kunertova

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security Transatlantic Security Initiative

Artificial Intelligence Central Europe

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The Transatlantic Security Initiative aims to reinforce the strong and resilient transatlantic relationship that is prepared to deter and defend, succeed in strategic competition, and harness emerging capabilities to address future threats and opportunities.

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21 Ryan M. Leone et al., 2024, “Artificial Intelligence in Military Medicine,” Military Medicine 189, no. 9-10: 244–248, https://doi.org/10.1093/milmed/usae359.

22 Dominika Kunertova, 2025, “Embracing Drone Diversity: Five Challenges to Western Military Adaptation in Drone Warfare,” Freeman Air & Space Institute Paper 29, King’s College London.

23 Mark Bruno, 2022, “‘Uber for Artillery’–What is Ukraine’s GIS Arta System?,” Molochproject, August 24, https://themoloch.com/conflict/uber-for-artillery-what-is-ukraines-gis-arta-system/.

24 Ingvild Bode et al., 2023, “Algorithmic Warfare: Taking Stock of a Research Programme,” Global Society 38, no. 1: 1–23, doi:10.1080/13600826.2023.2263473.

25 Courtney Crosby, 2020, “Operationalizing Artificial Intelligence for Algorithmic Warfare,” Military Review, July–August: 43–51, https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/military-review/Archives/English/JA-20/Crosby-Operationalizing-AI-1.pdf.

26 Kenneth Payne, 2018, “Artificial Intelligence: A Revolution in Strategic Affairs?,” Survival 60, no. 5: 7–32, doi:10.1080/00396338.2018.1518374.

27 Simona R. Soare, Pavneet Singh, and Meia Nouwens, 2023, “Software-defined Defence: Algorithms at War,” International Institute for Strategic Studies, February, https://www.iiss.org/research-paper/2023/02/software-defined-defence.

28 Kateryna Stepanenko, 2025, “The Battlefield AI Revolution Is Not Here Yet: The Status of Russian and Ukrainian AI Drone Efforts,” Institute for the Study of War, Special Report, June 2, https://understandingwar.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/The20Battlefield20AI20Revolution20Is20Not20Here20Yet20The20Status20of20Current20Russian20and20Ukrainian20AI20Drone20Efforts20PDF.pdf.

29 Clara Le Gargasson and James Black, 2025, “Electromagnetic Warfare: NATO’s Blind Spot Could Decide the Next Conflict,” RAND Commentary, November 24, https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2025/11/electromagnetic-warfare-natos-blind-spot-could-decide.html; and Justin Bronk, 2025, “Airborne Electromagnetic Warfare in NATO: A Critical European Capability Gap,” RUSI Occasional Paper, https://static.rusi.org/airborne-electronic-warfare-in-nato_0.pdf.

30 NATO Allied Command Transformation, 2022, “Multi-Domain Operations: Enabling NATO to Out-Pace and Out-Think its Adversaries,” July 29, https://www.act.nato.int/article/multi-domain-operations-enabling-nato-to-out-pace-and-out-think-its-adversaries/.

31 Haley Britzky and Isabelle Khurshudyan, 2025, “US Drone Dilemma: Why the Most Advanced Military in the World Is Playing Catchup on the Modern Battlefield,” CNN, September 15, https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/15/politics/drone-us-military-russia-ukraine.

32 Anthony Downey, 2025, “The Alibi of AI: Algorithmic Models of Automated Killing,” Digital Wars 6, no. 9, https://doi.org/10.1057/s42984-025-00105-7.

33 NATO Science and Technology Organization, 2025, Science and Technology Trends 2025-2045, vol. 1, https://sto-trends.com/.

34 Hong-Lun Tiunn et al., 2025, “Drones for Democracy: U.S.-Taiwan Cooperation in Building a Resilient and China-Free UAV Supply Chain,” Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology, June 16, https://dset.tw/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Drones-for-Democracy-U.S.-Taiwan-Cooperation-in-Building-a-Resilient-and-China-Free-UAV-Supply-Chain-1.pdf.

35 Lena Trabucco and Esben Salling Larsen, 2025, “Artificial Intelligence in Command and Control,” Center for Military Studies, October 10, https://cms.polsci.ku.dk/english/publications/artificial-intelligence-in-command-and-control/.

36 NATO Allied Command Transformation, 2023, “Joint Force Development Experimentation & Wargaming Branch Fact Sheet – Human Considerations in Artificial Intelligence for Command and Control: Augmented Near Real-Time Instrument for Critical Information Processing and Evaluation (ANTICIPE),” ACT Fact Sheet; and SHAPE Public Affairs Office, 2025, “NATO Acquires AI-enabled Warfighting System,” News Release, April 14, https://shape.nato.int/news-releases/nato-acquires-aienabled-warfighting-system-.

37 Ben Buchanan, 2020, “The AI Triad and What It Means for National Security Strategy,” Center for Security and Emerging Technology, https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/CSET-AI-Triad-Report.pdf.

38 Ben Buchanan, 2020, “The U.S. Has AI Competition All Wrong,” Foreign Affairs, August 7, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-08-07/us-has-ai-competition-all-wrong.

39 Takami Sato et al., 2025, “On the Realism of LiDAR Spoofing Attacks against Autonomous Driving Vehicle at High Speed and Long Distance,” Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium 2025, February 24–28, San Diego, California, https://dx.doi.org/10.14722/ndss.2025.230628.

40 Sella Nevo et al., 2024, Securing AI Model Weights: Preventing Theft and Misuse of Frontier Models, RAND, May 30, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2849-1.html.

41 Elena Sokova, 2020, “Disruptive Technologies and Nuclear Weapons,” New Perspectives 28, no. 3, 292–297, https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825X20934975.

42 Pavel Sharikov, 2018, “Artificial Intelligence, Cyberattack, and Nuclear Weapons—A Dangerous Combination,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 74, no. 6: 368–73, doi:10.1080/00963402.2018.1533185.

43 Kelley M. Sayler et al., 2024, “Department of Defense Directed Energy Weapons: Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, July 11, https://crsreports.congress.gov R46925.

44 Zhanna L. Malekos Smith, 2024, “The Specter of EMP Weapons in Space,” Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, March 27, https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/media/article/the-specter-of-emp-weapons-in-space.

45 US Department of Energy, 2017, US Department of Energy Electromagnetic Pulse Resilience Action Plan, https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/01/f34/DOE%20EMP%20Resilience%20Action%20Plan%20January%202017.pdf#:~:text=Although%20an%20EMP%20is%20also%20generated%20by,EMP%20events%20produced%20by%20high%20altitude%20detonations.

46 Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan, 1977, “The Electromagnetic Pulse and Its Effects,” in The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, Glasstone and Dolan, eds., US Department of Defense and the Energy Research and Development Administration, 514–531, Digitized and published by Chris Griffith and Eric A. Meyer, 2022, https://atomicarchive.com/resources/documents/effects/glasstone-dolan/chapter11.html.

47 Roger Allen Meade, 2022, “Operation Fishbowl,” Los Alamos National Laboratory, National Nuclear Security Administration, US Department of Energy, October 25, https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1896391.

48 Glasstone and Dolan, “The Electromagnetic Pulse and Its Effects.”

49 Washington State Department of Health, 2003, “Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP),” Fact Sheet 320-090, Division of Environmental Health, Office of Radiation Protection, https://doh.wa.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/Documents/Pubs/320-090_elecpuls_fs.pdf.

50 Richard Wolfson and Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress, 2021, Nuclear Choices for the Twenty-First Century: A Citizen’s Guide, MIT Press.

51 Lawrence Freedman and Jeffrey H. Michaels, 2019, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, 4th ed. (London: Palgrave Macmillan).

52 Forrest E. Morgan et al., 2008, Dangerous Thresholds: Managing Escalation in the 21st Century (Santa Monica, California: RAND Corporation), 8.

53 Sarah Kreps and Jacquelyn Schneider, 2019, “Escalation Firebreaks in the Cyber, Conventional, and Nuclear Domains: Moving beyond Effects-based Logics,” Journal of Cybersecurity 5, no. 1: 1–11, tyz007, https://doi.org/10.1093/cybsec/tyz007.

54 Erik Lin-Greenberg, 2022, “Wargame of Drones: Remotely Piloted Aircraft and Crisis Escalation,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 66, no. 10: 1737–1765, https://doi.org/10.1177/00220027221106960.

55 James Johnson, 2021, “‘Catalytic Nuclear War’ in the Age of Artificial Intelligence & Autonomy: Emerging Military Technology and Escalation Risk between Nuclear-Armed States,” Journal of Strategic Studies, 1–41, https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2020.1867541.

56 Steve Fetter and Jaganath Sankaran, 2024, “Emerging Technologies and Challenges to Nuclear Stability,” Journal of Strategic Studies 48, no. 2: 252–96, doi:10.1080/01402390.2024.2433766; Vladislav Chernavskikh and Jules Palayer, 2025, “Impact of Military Artificial Intelligence on Nuclear Escalation Risk,” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), June, https://doi.org/10.55163/FZIW8544; and Jacob Stokes, 2025, Averting AI Armageddon: US–China–Russia Rivalry at the Nexus of Nuclear Weapons and Artificial Intelligence, Center for a New American Security, https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/averting-ai-armageddon.

57 Michael C. Horowitz, 2019, “When Speed Kills: Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems, Deterrence and Stability,” Journal of Strategic Studies 42, no. 6, 764–788. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2019.1621174.

58 David M. Allison and Stephen Herzog, 2025, “Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation: The Technological Arms Race for (In)visibility,” Risk Analysis 45, no. 11: 3839–3859, https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.70105.

59 Andrew W. Reddie and Bethany Goldblum, 2022, “Evidence of the Unthinkable: Experimental Wargaming at the Nuclear Threshold,” Journal of Peace Research 60, no. 5: 760–776, https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433221094734.

60 Matthijs M. Maas, 2019, “How Viable Is International Arms Control for Military Artificial Intelligence? Three Lessons from Nuclear Weapons,” Contemporary Security Policy 40, no. 3: 285–311.

61 Alexander Kott, and Philip Perconti, 2025, “How Accurate Is Forecasting of Military Technologies?,” NATO Defense College, Hindsight Series Paper no. 6, https://www.ndc.nato.int/how-accurate-is-forecasting-of-military-technologies/.

62 Charlie Edwards and Nate Seidenstein, 2025, “The Scale of Russian Sabotage Operations against Europe’s Critical Infrastructure,” International Institute for Strategic Studies, August 19, https://www.iiss.org/research-paper/2025/08/the-scale-of-russian–sabotage-operations–against-europes-critical–infrastructure/.

63 Avi Goldfarb and Jon R. Lindsay, 2022, “Prediction and Judgment: Why Artificial Intelligence Increases the Importance of Humans in War,” International Security 46, no. 3: 7–50, doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00425.

64 Paul Scharre, 2018, Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War, 1^st ed. (New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company).

65 Russian Federation Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2024, “Fundamentals of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence,” per Russian Presidential Order no. 991, https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/international_safety/1434131/.

66 Liviu Horovitz and Lydia Wachs, 2024, “Russian Nuclear Weapons in Belarus? Motivations and Consequences,” Washington Quarterly 47, no. 3, 103–29, doi:10.1080/0163660X.2024.2398952.

67 Jacek Durkalec, 2025, “Counterforce at the Regional Level of War: A European Perspective,” in Counterforce in Contemporary U.S. Nuclear Strategy, ed. Brad Roberts, Center for Global Security Research, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 152–167.

68 Wilfred Wan and Gitte du Plessis, 2025, “Blurring Conventional–Nuclear Boundaries: Nordic Developments, Global Implications,” SIPRI, https://www.sipri.org/commentary/essay/2025/blurring-conventional-nuclear-boundaries-nordic-developments-global-implications.

69 Katarzyna Zysk, 2023, “Struggling, Not Crumbling: Russian Defence: AI in a Time of War,” RUSI, Commentary, November 20, https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/struggling-not-crumbling-russian-defence-ai-time-war.

70 Peter Vincent Pry, 2017, “Foreign Views of Electromagnetic Pulse Attack,” Report to the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, http://www.firstempcommission.org/uploads/1/1/9/5/119571849/foreign_views_of_emp_attack_by_peter_pry_july_2017.pdf.

71 Frank Hoffman, 2025, “Assessing ‘Cognitive Warfare,’ ” Small Wars Journal, November 14, https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/11/14/assessing-cognitive-warfare/#_ednref3.

72 Dominika Kunertova and Olivier Schmitt, 2024, “Assessing NATO’s Cohesion: Methods and Implications,” International Politics 62: 1097–1110, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-024-00641-1.

73 Andreas Graae, 2023, Servers before Tanks? Defence AI in Denmark, Defense AI Observatory, DAIO Study 23|18, https://defenseai.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/daio_study2318_servers_before_tanks_andreas_graae.pdf.

74 Sophia Hatz et al., 2025, “Local US Officials’ Views on the Impacts and Governance of AI: Evidence from 2022 and 2023 Survey Waves,” PLOS ONE 20, no. 10, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0332919.

75 The Atlantic Council has defined the gray zone as “the space in which defensive and offensive activity occurs above the level of cooperation and below the threshold of armed conflict.” See “Adding Color to the Gray Zone: Establishing a Strategic Framework for Hybrid Conflict,” a Forward Defense project, Atlantic Council, December 23, 2023, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/programs/scowcroft-center-for-strategy-and-security/forward-defense/adding-color-to-the-gray-zone-establishing-a-strategic-framework-for-hybrid-conflict/.

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Drone superpower Ukraine is an ideal tech partner for the Gulf states

Anatoly Motkin — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 20:43:08 +0000

In recent weeks, the Iran war has shone a spotlight on Ukraine’s emergence as a drone superpower. Kyiv’s decision to help defend the Gulf states against Iranian attack drones by deploying teams of Ukrainian specialists is now highlighting the scope for broader tech sector cooperation between Ukraine and the region. This potential for partnership was underlined by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Saudi Arabia on March 26.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, few analysts predicted that the outgunned Ukrainians would soon fundamentally alter the global understanding of unmanned systems warfare. Yet that is precisely what has happened. From improvised FPV drones strapped with grenades to the long-range naval strike drones that have forced Russia’s Black Sea Fleet to retreat, Ukraine has demonstrated that asymmetric drone warfare can neutralize conventional military advantages in ways that expensive Western defense systems never quite anticipated.

What distinguishes Ukraine’s drone program is not simply its scale, but also the speed and adaptability of its development cycles. Ukrainian engineers, often operating in basements and converted workshops, upgrade drone designs in a matter of days rather than the year-long processes typical of conventional defense procurement. Software updates are pushed out overnight. Lessons from the morning’s combat inform the afternoon’s engineering innovations. The Ukrainian battlefield has become the most demanding product testing environment in the world.

This lean, decentralized, and ruthlessly practical model has not gone unnoticed in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and their Gulf region neighbors. All have been studying the Ukrainian experience carefully. For countries that have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in conventional military hardware only to find themselves operating in a world where a commercially available drone can threaten a warship, the Ukrainian approach represents both a warning and an opportunity.

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The Gulf states are not passive observers of technological change. The UAE’s Vision 2071, Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, and Qatar’s National Vision 2030 all share a common ambition to transform their economies from hydrocarbon dependency into diversified, knowledge-based societies where technology plays a central role.

Defense and security technology, long imported wholesale from the United States, United Kingdom, and France, is increasingly identified as a sector where these nations want enhanced domestic capacity. This is not merely a matter of patriotic pride; it is increasingly recognized as a strategic necessity.

For now, ambition and execution remain some distance apart. The Gulf states have capital in abundance and a genuine appetite for technology transfer. What they have found harder to cultivate organically is the specific combination of engineering talent, risk tolerance, regulatory flexibility, and competitive urgency that drives genuine innovation. This is precisely where Ukraine’s wartime technology ecosystem presents an intriguing counterpart.

The case for deeper Ukraine-Gulf technology cooperation rests on synergies that are easy to overlook amid the noise of geopolitics. Ukraine possesses what the Gulf states most covet: Battle-proven engineering expertise; a deep talent pool in software, electronics, and materials science; and a development culture forged under conditions of extreme pressure.

Meanwhile, the Gulf states can offer what Ukraine most urgently needs: Capital, global commercial networks, and the ability to provide a stable platform for technology commercialization at a time when much of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and economic base remain under threat.

Drone technology sits at the most visible intersection of these complementary strengths, but it is far from the only area for potential cooperation. The ecosystem that has made Ukraine’s drone program so formidable is built on broad technical foundations including robust software engineering, AI-assisted target recognition, electronic warfare countermeasures, and sophisticated logistics platforms. Each of these capabilities has substantial civilian and commercial applications in areas that match the priorities of the Gulf states.

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Any deepening of Ukraine-Gulf technology ties must navigate a complex geopolitical landscape. The Gulf states have, with varying degrees of success, sought to maintain working relationships with both Russia and Ukraine throughout the current war.

This studied neutrality is a potentially valuable asset in fostering Ukraine-related technology cooperation. Some Ukrainian companies might prefer partners who can operate without the political complications of deeper NATO engagement, while Gulf-based joint ventures offer a flexibility that Western partners often cannot.

At the same time, the Gulf states maintain active ties with both Russia and China, creating potential risks for Ukraine’s battle-tested tech to travel further than intended. EU and US sanctions packages have repeatedly flagged UAE-based entities for supplying military and dual-use goods to Russia, including microelectronics and UAV components. The threat of Ukrainian defense IP migrating toward Beijing or Moscow through a Gulf intermediary is not theoretical. It is a structural problem that any co-production framework would need to resolve before NATO partners could endorse it.

Western governments are watching these dynamics carefully. There is a legitimate concern in Washington and Brussels about the dual-use nature of drone and AI technologies amid alarm that capabilities developed by Ukraine could, if commercialized through Gulf intermediaries, find their way into the hands of hostile actors.

These concerns will require careful management. But they should not obscure the more fundamental point that technology partnerships between Ukraine and the Gulf, conducted transparently and within a clear governance framework, could potentially serve the strategic interests of both parties and of the broader rules-based international order.

Ukraine’s drone program is the most dramatic expression of a broader technological transformation that the country has undergone since the Euromaidan Revolution of 2014 and, with accelerating urgency, since 2022. The war with Russia has in many ways turbo-charged Ukraine’s tech sector, driving engineers toward defense applications with the same creative energy previously directed at consumer software.

For the Gulf states, engaging with this ecosystem means potentially accessing not just drone know-how but a broader pipeline of technology talent and startup energy. A deliberate focus on Ukrainian technology companies, whether through direct investment, co-investment structures with Ukrainian state entities, or technology accelerator partnerships, would represent a logical extension of existing Gulf region investment strategies.

Transforming this potential into reality requires deliberate institutional architecture. At the governmental level, the frameworks for technology and investment cooperation between Ukraine and the Gulf states remain underdeveloped compared to those with EU member states or the United States. Bilateral investment treaties, technology transfer agreements, and joint venture frameworks need to be negotiated, or existing agreements updated, to reflect the current reality of Ukraine’s technological capabilities and the investment priorities of individual Gulf states.

At the industry level, dedicated platforms for technology matchmaking are needed. Existing tech sector events are useful, but a more targeted mechanism such as an annual Ukraine-Gulf technology forum could provide the sustained attention that one-off exhibitions cannot. Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation and the country’s tech industry associations have the institutional capacity to anchor such an initiative from the Ukrainian side.

At the financial level, the structure of Gulf investment in Ukrainian technology will need to be carefully designed to account for the realities of war, reconstruction, and regulatory complexity. Special purpose vehicles, escrow arrangements, and the use of third-country holding structures may be necessary to provide Gulf investors with the governance certainty they require.

The interest that Gulf region governments and investors are showing in Ukraine’s drone capabilities is, at one level, simply pragmatic. But this interest, if properly cultivated, could serve as the entry point for a much broader and more consequential relationship.

Ukraine needs to rebuild its economy, attract sustainable foreign investment, and establish itself as a technology hub that can thrive in the postwar era. The Gulf states need to accelerate their technology transitions, diversify their strategic partnerships, and develop genuine domestic innovation capacity rather than simply buying capabilities off the shelf from Western defense contractors. These are not competing objectives. They are, in important respects, the same objective approached from different directions.

The drones are the headline. But behind the headline lies the possibility of a durable, mutually beneficial technology partnership between two of the world’s most dynamic and consequential technology stories of the current decade. Whether that possibility is realized will depend on the vision and initiative of policymakers, investors, and entrepreneurs on both sides. The ingredients for something significant are present. The question is whether those involved will have the strategic clarity to combine them.

Anatoly Motkin is president of the StrategEast Center for a New Economy, a non-profit organisation with offices in the United States, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan, developing the knowledge driven economy in the Eurasian region.

Several factors drive this skepticism. Safety concerns, including fears related to AI-driven psychosis and AI-enabled teen suicides, feature prominently in public discourse, as do worries about the technology’s environmental footprint and its impact on jobs. Search “AI and water” on Instagram and you’ll be flooded with posts from influencers calling on followers to boycott AI over the energy and water demands of the data centers powering it. Recent mass layoffs, such as fintech company Block’s decision to cut 40 percent of its workforce due to the integration of AI into the company’s workflows, have amplified fears around broader workforce contractions. Some studies have extrapolated from initial data around AI adoption to suggest that the technology will create more jobs than it eliminates, but much of the public discussion has focused on the prospect of significant job losses on the horizon, raising anxiety among white-collar workers.

This unease with AI is increasingly visible in politics. More than 1,500 AI-related bills have been introduced in state legislatures in 2026 alone, many focused on protecting consumers and minors from AI-related harms. AI skepticism has come from both sides of the aisle. Data centers have drawn criticism from left-leaning environmental advocates and from deep-red communities alike. A study found that twenty data center projects were blocked in the second quarter of 2025 due to local opposition, representing $98 billion in stalled investment. This year, Democratic and Republican lawmakers have begun backing away from data center investments that they recently championed. At least six Democratic governors used their state of the state addresses to announce plans to roll back incentives or impose new regulations on data centers. And Democratic lawmakers in New York and Maine, as well as Republican lawmakers in Oklahoma, are calling for temporary bans.

The Trump administration’s approach to AI

The second Trump administration has made AI a national priority from the outset. Just three days after his inauguration, US President Donald Trump issued the first of seven executive orders related to AI released in 2025, which signaled the administration’s intent to “sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.” The order set the tone for the administration’s follow-on actions, including a foundational AI Action Plan that positioned the United States as going all-in on AI against the backdrop of a rising global competition with China. So far, the administration has expanded AI education opportunities, worked to harness AI for science, accelerated permitting for data center construction, and attempted to prevent states from passing laws regulating AI.

Yet, even before the Anthropic-Pentagon controversy, tension between the administration’s position on AI and its own political base were surfacing. Upon the release of the AI Action Plan in July 2025, former US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene issued a pointed rebuke. She warned that “competing with China does not mean become like China by threatening state rights, replacing human jobs on a mass scale, creating mass poverty, and resulting in potentially devastating effects on our environment and critical water supply.” The administration’s push to preempt and pause future state laws regulating AI was defeated twice in Congress prior to being advanced by executive order in December 2025. The original congressional campaigns incurred widespread pushback from across the political spectrum, including a request to remove the legislative provision, which was signed by seventeen Republican governors.

Recent announcements suggest the administration is beginning to recognize public resistance. In his State of the Union address, Trump introduced a ratepayer protection pledge that calls on technology companies to commit to covering the cost of increased energy production to support the build-out of data centers. This is intended to prevent those costs from being passed on to local communities. Seven of the largest players in AI have since signed on. A National Policy Framework on AI released at the end of last week reaffirms this push and lays out the administration’s legislative priorities for the technology, including enhanced safeguards for children, increased action to combat AI-enabled scams, and protections for individuals against unauthorized distribution of AI-generated voice or image likenesses.

Despite these moves, the administration’s handling of the Anthropic standoff has intensified debates in public and within the tech sector around the dangers of AI and the necessity of building guardrails for responsible use. The administration’s maximalist position that contracts with AI companies should provide flexibility for the government to employ AI for “all lawful uses” runs counter to US public opinion. Indeed, 80 percent of US adults believe the government should maintain rules for AI safety and data security, even if doing so slows development.

Public distrust on display

Following OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s announcement on February 27 that the company had signed a deal with the Pentagon that it claimed contained the same provisions that Anthropic had been fighting for, public and private reactions were swift, with many skeptical of the company’s claims. Uninstalls of the ChatGPT app jumped 295 percent overnight and a #QuitGPT campaign gained steam on social media. Some OpenAI employees publicly criticized their company’s stance and OpenAI’s hardware lead resigned in protest.

Anthropic, meanwhile, filed suit, contesting the Pentagon’s designation of the company as a supply chain risk following the inability of the company and the Pentagon to reach an agreement on contractual terms. The case has attracted amicus briefs from a wide range of groups, including tech sector workers, Catholic theologians and ethicists, and the American Civil Liberties Union. A brief signed by a group of almost forty employees from Google and OpenAI, including Google’s chief scientist, affirmed a shared belief in the risks underpinning Anthropic’s contractual red lines. Their brief noted the dangers to US democracy posed by AI-enabled surveillance and warned that today’s AI systems are too immature to be relied on for use in lethal autonomous weapons.

While the immediate controversy may be fading, the episode has already provided a revealing window into US sentiment around AI and the ongoing litigation will keep the issue in public focus. A poll conducted by NBC News this month after the standoff found that 57 percent of registered voters believe the risks of AI outweigh its benefits.

That number should command attention. For the administration’s and the tech sector’s AI ambitions to translate into the economic growth and national security gains that policymakers and CEOs envision, it will take a concerted effort to rebuild the social contract with the public on AI. Treating public skepticism as noise to be managed rather than a signal to be heeded risks causing rapid political polarization on AI. This, in turn, could cause a self-imposed slowdown in the United States’ ability to realize AI opportunities at home and compete effectively abroad, stifling government and industry AI initiatives alike.

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Wilkening quoted in Indo-Pacific Defense Forum on hypersonic threats

Atlantic Council — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 19:02:13 +0000

On March 25, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Dean Wilkening was quoted in an Indo-Pacific Defense Forum article, titled “Indo-Pacific allies join to counter hypersonic threats.” Wilkening discussed the impacts of hypersonic capabilities on air and missile defense systems, highlighting the capability enhancements needed to counter these threats.

Fellow

Dean Wilkening

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Technologies Missile Defense

Forward Defense leads the Atlantic Council’s US and global defense programming, developing actionable recommendations for the United States and its allies and partners to compete, innovate, and navigate the rapidly evolving character of warfare. Through its work on US defense policy and force design, the military applications of advanced technology, space security, strategic deterrence, and defense industrial revitalization, it informs the strategies, policies, and capabilities that the United States will need to deter, and, if necessary, prevail in major-power conflict.

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Rosenstein quoted in Indo-Pacific Defense Forum article on hypersonic capabilities

Atlantic Council — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 17:27:44 +0000

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On March 25, Forward Defense assistant director Jonathan Rosenstein was quoted in an article from the Indo-Pacific Defense Forum on “Indo-Pacific allies join to counter hypersonic threats.” Rosenstein highlighted the unique advantage that hypersonic weapons present for operational capabilities in the Indo-Pacific theater.

Staff

Jonathan Rosenstein

Assistant Director

Defense Policy Israel

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The Iran conflict exposes the new cost curve of war

Nic Adams — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 21:06:41 +0000

“Shock and awe” was the term of art when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. That conflict saw the United States bring to bear overwhelming military force backed by superior technology in the form of precision-guided weapons, stealth aircraft, and satellite technology, as well as a finely tuned military force built on sound doctrine, world-class training, and a professional cadre of officers and noncommissioned officers. In many ways, the initial strikes on Iran resemble this dynamic—a world-class military with superior weapons and training engaging a weaker foe, aiming to achieve a lightning-fast military victory in service of political aims.

A closer look, however, reveals a shift in the battlefield dynamic over the past twenty years that often gives weaker militaries more tools to offset stronger adversaries. Cheap drones, open-source satellite imagery, and cyber tools give weaker states such as Iran new ways to hold superior militaries at risk, while forcing them to expend munitions and resources at far greater cost. And despite deep capital markets, a strong innovation base, and a growing defense tech sector in the United States, costs remain high and development timelines remain long due to an ornery requirements process, misaligned acquisition incentives, and bureaucratic inertia. The Pentagon’s challenge is to rapidly field innovative, lower-cost technologies alongside its exquisite capabilities, ensuring each is used where it delivers the greatest advantage.

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Consider the overwhelming firepower with which the United States initiated combat operations in 2003. Joint Direct Attack Munitions, aircraft carrier strike groups, and stealth bombers remained out of reach for Iraqi defenders. US bases in the region were also largely untouchable; while Iraqi Scud missiles inflicted serious damage in the first Gulf War, US missile defense systems proved highly effective during Operation Iraqi Freedom, leading to a decisive end of initial combat operations after just a few weeks of fighting, the following insurgency notwithstanding. Much has changed since then, especially with the proliferation of low-cost drone technology, at which Iran has become adept. By producing and exporting the Shahed-136 drone to Russia for use in Ukraine, Iran has refined both the technology and doctrine behind these systems.

The result is a weapon that forces the United States to intercept $30,000 drones with $2-million defensive systems—while still inflicting casualties in the opening salvos of a conflict. Iran’s combination of ballistic missiles and low-cost drones threatens to swiftly deplete defensive systems, leaving US, Arab, and Israeli targets vulnerable to attack. Additionally, Iranian-aligned groups in the region, such as the Houthis in Yemen, militias in Iraq, or even the much-weakened Hezbollah in Lebanon, can employ much of the same low-cost weapons to stretch and harass American and Israeli troops, broadening the battlespace across the region and striking civilian traffic and infrastructure to impose global costs to a growing conflict.

While the United States will continue to enjoy unquestionable military overmatch, both the United States and Israel enjoy another advantage over the terrorist regime in Tehran and its regional proxies: a deep pool of innovation, capital markets, and industry ready to produce in support of national security and defense. While there will always be a place for exquisite weapons systems and precision munitions, cheaper and more attritable weapons systems must be part of the fight to both adequately and economically defend against some of the systems being employed by Iranian forces, as well as weapons the United States might encounter in a future Pacific conflict. The Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System (LUCAS) drone is one example of the United States leaning into more cost-effective weapons, a rare case of reverse-engineering the Iranian Shahed. Other novel and emerging technologies changing the battlefield today include autonomous ground systems, artificial intelligence-driven counter-drone weapons, and energetics (such as propellants and explosives) for artillery strikes.

For example, autonomous ground vehicles armed with counter-drone weapons or sensors could be cheaply and effectively deployed across the Middle East to defend US bases as well as civilian oil infrastructure, allowing soldiers and civilians to take cover while autonomous systems remain exposed and engage incoming drones. This would obviate the need for expensive missiles to take down low-cost drones, allowing the United States to keep its high-cost systems in reserve for bigger targets that may yet be on the way.

In addition to hardware, the United States has a strong advantage over Iran in big data, computing power, and software. US systems are far more networked than they were twenty years ago. Intelligence collection and analysis is now supported by artificial intelligence. Open-source imagery solutions provide the United States with more options to locate enemy capabilities and stockpiles.

Supported by deep capital markets and institutional investors, the United States dominates the defense tech landscape—and will continue to do so. That means it’s up to the Department of Defense and the services to send a strong demand signal. Unless leaders are willing to employ proven innovative systems at scale, the United States will continue to rely on older, slower, and far more expensive weapons systems both in this fight and in the next.

From Nagorno-Karabakh to Ukraine to Iran, drones and loitering munitions have repeatedly demonstrated how inexpensive systems can reshape the battlefield. Now the United States must adapt in order to remain the world’s premier fighting force. The technology is already here. The question is whether policymakers have the vision and the flexibility to deploy it.

Nic Adams is a nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. He also advises frontier technology firms on strategic communications, business development, and government relations. He previously served as a professional staff member on the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and as a commissioned US Army officer.

The post The Iran conflict exposes the new cost curve of war appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Aquatic Tiger: How long-range submarine drones could play a role in a Taiwan conflict

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 15:11:51 +0000

Bottom lines up front

The Aquatic Tiger wargame explored how long-range autonomous underwater vehicles (LRAUVs) could help the US deter or counter Chinese military action against Taiwan.
LRAUVs showed promise for pre-conflict surveillance, mine countermeasures, and swarming attacks in chokepoints, but showed vulnerabilities in the shallow, constricted waters of the Taiwan Strait.
LRAUVs would be useful contributors—not decisive—if deployed in large numbers, with advance planning, and integrated into broader US and allied military operations.

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Introduction

According to the Pentagon, “[China’s military] continues to refine multiple military options to force Taiwan unification by brute force. Those options include, most dangerously, an amphibious invasion, firepower strike, and possibly a maritime blockade.”

To address this threat, the new National Security Strategy unveiled in late 2025 declares that “deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority” and emphasizes, to this end, “reinforcing U.S. and allies’ capacity to deny any attempt to seize Taiwan. The new National Defense Strategy of January 2026 further reinforces the goal to establish a “strong denial defense along the First Island Chain” and the need to “supercharge the defense industrial base.”

For this approach to succeed, the United States and its allies must rapidly field new military systems to counterbalance China’s military buildup. To offset China’s tremendous rate of military production, US defense thinkers and policymakers are increasingly focused on unmanned systems—particularly those far cheaper and faster to produce than the most advanced manned warships and aircraft. Such low-priced unmanned systems would be a key element of accelerating a buildup of US military capability to deter or defeat Chinese aggression against Taiwan at a feasible cost.

As Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, told the Washington Post: “I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities so I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything.”

Thanks to both sides’ mass use of unmanned aircraft in Russia’s war against Ukraine, this quote might bring to mind swarms of flying drones dropping munitions or ramming into targets. But Ukraine is largely a land war, and a fight to control Taiwan would be a different kind of warfare. Undersea drones could play a critical role in defending Taiwan, particularly if they could be produced relatively cheaply and paired with AI that would allow them to operate autonomously while submerged and maintain communications silence to preserve their stealth. Given the long distances involved in the Indo-Pacific region and the distance of US bases from Taiwan, such drones could be particularly useful for the US military in a Taiwan conflict if they had a range of over 1000 kilometers. This led to the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative (IPSI)’s interest in exploring, through wargaming and analysis, the potential of US LRAUVs in a Taiwan contingency. This issue brief is the result of Aquatic Tiger, an initial two-day wargame and post-wargame analytic effort conducted by IPSI, using the expertise of former US military, intelligence, and defense officials, along with non-government scholars and industry experts. This wargame, conducted over two days in November 2025, was the first of its kind with publicly available results, and is summarized below from the perspectives of a range of participants.

Aquatic Tiger’s initial results suggest that additional analysis, wargaming, modeling, technical experimentation, live exercises, and simulation on key issues related to such LRAUVs are warranted, including: how units of such drones would be best organized and employed by the United States, Taiwan, and US allies in such a contingency; whether such LRAUVs could be produced at a low enough cost and in sufficient scale to be effective; what tactical-level synergies these LRAUVs would have operating in concert with other manned and unmanned platforms; and the potential efficacy of various Chinese countermeasures.

LRAUV capabilities: A submariner’s perspective

The LRAUVs employed in Aquatic Tiger are systems still in development that have not been fielded in large numbers or used in combat. For the purposes of Aquatic Tiger, we made assumptions about the capabilities they would have in the next few years. The LRAUVs for Aquatic Tiger were uncrewed, extended-duration, multi-mission submersible platforms controlled by AI. Due to communications limitations imposed by the need to remain submerged and minimize the risk of detection when approaching their targets, they relied heavily on mission planning, programmed autonomous action, and post-mission data recovery. They were modular and configurable to various mission roles such as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), seabed survey, mine countermeasures (MCM), electronic warfare (EW), and maritime kinetic effects (high-explosive warhead) delivery. For the purposes of Aquatic Tiger, we also assumed that they would have an austere deployment capability, meaning they could be launched directly from the back of a truck or dropped from a ship or aircraft.

LRAUVs reduce personnel risk and are low cost, expendable, and less attributable than crewed submersibles. However, they lack the speed, endurance, mission versatility, stealth and survivability, payload, and real-time situational awareness and decision-making capability of crewed platforms like US attack submarines.

Compared to unmanned aerial systems (UAS), LRAUVs benefit from longer range and time on station, underwater concealment, and reduced exposure to the adversary’s anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities, particularly sensors and missiles. However, LRAUVs are also much slower, lacking the rapid deployment and potential wide-area coverage of UAVs, while their limited communication capabilities preclude the same level of immediate dynamic tasking and constant sharing of situational awareness with other platforms.

Wargame director’s overview of Aquatic Tiger

To explore LRAUVs’ potential in a near-future Taiwan scenario, we conducted the two-day Aquatic Tiger wargame with three teams including former US military, intelligence, and defense officials, along with non-government scholars and industry experts. The Blue Team representing the US military, including notional LRAUV capabilities, was led by a former US Defense Department senior executive with extensive experience with East Asian issues. The Red Team, representing China, was led by a former senior defense intelligence analyst whose career focused on China’s military. The control team planned and ran the wargame, adjudicated the results of player actions, and addressed the roles of countries other than the United States and China as needed. It consisted of former US government and military leaders with experience running wargames and tabletop exercises—including one retired US Navy officer with extensive experience directing wargames on undersea warfare—and a distinguished scholar bringing academic rigor to the analytic methodology.

Road to crisis and first turn: Chinese pressure on Taiwan building

To provide a starting point for the scenario, we began with a notional crisis, set a few years from now, in which China’s military placed unprecedented military pressure on Taiwan to convince its people to seek reconciliation with Beijing and oppose further defense budget increases. As tensions rose, a Chinese military aircraft crashed after a collision with a drone from Taiwan. Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-controlled media claimed several members of the aircrew were killed, and Chinese fighter jets soon shot down three more drones. CCP leadership threatened further escalation, warning that a “wrong decision” would trigger “decisive military action.” For its part, Washington announced stiff new economic punishments against China, warning they would remain in place until Beijing agreed to “maintain peace and to renounce aggression.” With that, the scene was set for a confrontation.

Figure 1: Turn one of the Aquatic Tiger wargame

The Red Team, simulating China, initiated the wargame planning to keep the Taiwan situation “an internal matter,” using an air and sea quarantine to pressure Taiwan while keeping out the US military and preparing for a potential armed conflict. China’s priorities included

enforcing a quarantine of Taiwan framed by the CCP as a domestic law-enforcement action (attempting to force all air and sea cargo to Taiwan to be routed via air and seaports on China’s mainland for inspection);
enhancing defensive military posture, including surveillance assets to detect potential US military intervention; and
conducting a messaging campaign targeting the populations of Taiwan, the United States, and the international community, along with diplomatic actions around the world to underscore that the goal is a peaceful resolution.

The Blue Team’s overall concept at the outset was to “flood the zone” to signal resolve and deter escalation. Its priorities included: surging ISR assets, including LRAUVs, into the area around Taiwan; increasing military posture, including with LRAUVs; and engaging allies and partners for support.

During the first turn of the wargame, US military-operated LRAUVs, along with small numbers operated deniably by the US government and others operated by non-government research entities and private contractors, successfully deployed into key areas to conduct surveillance and support public release of information on Chinese activities—though non-LRAUV assets proved to be more effective collectors of images compelling for public release. Beijing’s calculus and plans were ultimately unaffected. The information campaign built some international support and sympathy, but China leaned into its narrative and US key allies and partners ultimately remained hesitant due to risks and costs.

Second turn: China escalates and the United States responds

Figure 2: Turn two of the Aquatic Tiger wargame

In the second turn of the wargame, the situation rapidly escalated as Chinese coast guard vessels attempted to enforce the quarantine and Taiwanese coast guard vessels moved to escort incoming ships. Chinese military vessels intervened, with a People’s Republic of China (PRC) frigate sinking one of Taiwan’s coast guard vessels. A short time later, this frigate exploded and sank quickly, apparently hit by a torpedo or unmanned underwater vehicle.

The Red Team escalated under the premise that China would “prepare to achieve a resolution to the Taiwan question.” China declared a full blockade of Taiwan and, shortly thereafter, conducted limited joint firepower strikes on Taiwan bases. To stifle international opposition and justify its position, Beijing simultaneously conducted a strategic messaging campaign targeting the international community.

The Red Team’s pivot from pressuring Taiwan to use of force was a major and rapid escalation and a reaction to perceived US direct intervention. China was trying to impose costs to compel the United States to back off, not hesitating to destroy LRAUVs and other “interference” in the Taiwan Strait, while assuming US involvement in LRAUV operations and the sinking of the frigate. The Blue Team’s posture adjusted to provide broader military options and complicate PRC efforts beyond the vicinity of Taiwan, while leveraging allies and partners. LRAUVs were augmenting, but not replacing, a wide range of other surveillance assets and saw some limited use for counter-mine operations.

Third turn: Military conflict to control access to Taiwan

Figure 3: Turn three of the Aquatic Tiger wargame

At the start of the third turn, the Red Team continued wanting to convince the Taiwan government to come to the negotiating table. But it shifted to primarily focus on defeating (but not destroying) US military operations supporting Taiwan, while still attempting to avoid an all-out war with the United States and its allies. The PRC approach included three main elements.

Prevent US/allied military interference and support to Taiwan: Conduct A2/AD focused on chokepoints south and northeast of Taiwan in order to keep the US military at bay and impose costs on Washington, while warning the United States that China has deployed portions of its nuclear triad.
Defeat Taiwan’s forces with standoff attacks: Conduct joint firepower strikes on Taiwan’s military and infrastructure targets in order to damage logistics, disrupt command and control, and reduce Taiwan’s ability to resist.
Control the Taiwan Strait: Reinforce China’s control of the Taiwan Strait in order to deny US support and unity of action, and to enable cross-strait access for an amphibious assault, if needed.

The Blue Team’s overall concept, meanwhile, was to “throw Taiwan a lifeline” by securing access corridors east of Taiwan while countering and complicating PRC military efforts to threaten Taiwan. This included three main elements.

Stop the blockade: Attrit Chinese forces in the Taiwan Strait, continue mine countermeasures, and degrade Chinese blockading forces.
Increase US posture: Neutralize Chinese control of the South China Sea and demonstrate counter-invasion capabilities and rehearsals south and east of Taiwan.
Support Taiwan: Resupply and reinforce Taiwan, prioritizing mine countermeasures, anti-ship weapons, and beach defenses.

China successfully established clear maritime superiority in the Taiwan Strait despite some US LRAUVs entering. The control team, based on analysis of China’s countermeasures, adjudicated that China was able to take advantage of the geographic constriction and relatively shallow waters of the strait to detect, disable, and destroy the LRAUVs through various means faster than replacement LRAUVs could enter the strait through the passages at its north and south ends. China was also able to disrupt and interdict much of the air and maritime traffic coming into Taiwan from the east, particularly given the limited east coast port capacity.

The conflict began to coalesce around four key geographic areas prioritized by Blue Team forces.

The northern end of the Taiwan Strait: China achieved clear air and surface superiority in this area. LRAUVs were the primary US capability directly contesting Chinese control of this area, due to the Blue Team’s unwillingness to risk losing any of its relatively small number of high-value attack submarines.
Ryukyus, including Okinawa: In this area, the United States and Japan established a clear advantage by employing aircraft and warships supported by land-based assets and LRAUVs. China did not attempt to contest US control of this area but was content to block movement toward Taiwan by US and Japanese forces in this area.
The Luzon Strait: This area was heavily contested, including by air, surface, and subsurface forces engaged in intense combat with high attrition on both sides. US LRAUVs were a significant contributor to this fight, swarming and sinking Chinese surface vessels as they attempted to move through the strait.
South China Sea: The United States kept its carrier strike groups in this area well protected and away from the Chinese mainland, which limited China’s ability to find and strike them. There was little role for US LRAUVs in this area.

The wargame concluded with the conflict escalating and no end in sight, with all three teams having learned some important lessons. Observations from key members of the Red Team, Blue Team, and Control Team follow.

Red (China) Team leader’s perspective

For Beijing, managing the Taiwan issue in this type of scenario encompasses three principal components. The first is to convince Taiwanese authorities that actions opposing Beijing’s desires will be punished. China does this by demonstrating the capacity to ratchet up military or paramilitary pressure at points around the island. The second is to convince Taiwanese authorities that they have no realistic hope of decisive support from outside powers. These efforts primarily leverage the suite of US-focused A2/AD capabilities the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been developing for more than two decades. The third is to ensure that China retains a credible capacity to take control of the island by force.

LRAUVs present some, albeit limited, opportunity to impact each of these components.

The platform presents some utility to provide enhanced warning of PRC pressure operations or intent to use violence to impose Beijing’s will. China has been posturing kinetic assets for a short-notice use of force against Taiwan for decades. There has been a marked increase in their coercive posture around Taiwan in recent years. A transition to violent resolution could begin within days, or even hours, of receiving an order from Beijing. With the ability to loiter in place (unlike low-earth-orbit satellites or aircraft), LRAUV swarms in surveillance positions in the Taiwan Strait and off PRC marshalling points could augment national technical means to help differentiate between ambiguous and unambiguous warning.

The platform has the potential to shape PLA operations but not to deter them. The decision whether to use armed force to compel Taiwan to submit to CCP control will be a political decision, with relative military postures being only one of several considerations. Once the decision is made to place military force in the leading role, the PLA will calculate optimized campaign operations designed to mitigate the effect of Taiwanese or US resistance, including the already anticipated presence of LRAUV platforms. Platforms with counter-mine payloads could complicate blockade operations that include mining Taiwan’s ports. Swarming attacks by LRAUV platforms against PRC support vessels or capital ships could complicate PRC countermeasures. Thus, LRAUV platforms might have effect at shaping, but not deterring, PRC military operations.

LRAUVs’ contributions to defeating PRC blockade operations or an invasion will be a function of numbers of platforms, payload types, and their integration into larger US or Taiwanese systems of systems. PLA War Control theory and Systems Warfare doctrine emphasize warfare that is highly intense but also highly focused on carefully defined objectives. The result is a hybrid of maneuver and position warfare fought in a resource-intensive, and therefore potentially highly attritive, manner. PRC emphasis on optimization of military operations includes the ability to adapt to unforeseen battlefield developments. For these reasons, the impact of LRAUV platforms on PRC operations will be closely linked to volume and flexibility.

Strategic level

PRC military and paramilitary elements play a supporting role at the strategic level. Beijing’s objective at this level is to shape political thinking, primarily in Taipei and Washington. This is true even in more extreme strategies such as quarantines or blockades. Military coercion is more central in these strategies, but the objective remains to shape political thinking.

The utility of LRAUVs at the strategic level is less straightforward than at the operational level. It will probably be limited to shaping the choice and execution of China’s military operations to implement its strategy.

LRAUV platforms will likely be ineffective at providing enhanced strategic warning. A PRC decision to turn to armed force to resolve the Taiwan issue will almost certainly be rooted in CCP leaders’ political assessments that peaceful (albeit coerced) unification is no longer possible. LRAUVs are not positioned to monitor political decisions—only their operational manifestations.

These platforms will also likely be ineffective at deterring PRC strategic action. Although LRAUVs, in concert with other systems, have the potential to impose costs on China for military action, PRC leaders will almost certainly calculate that these platforms will be unable to deny them the achievement of key political objectives.

LRAUV platforms will not prove decisive in defeating a PRC strategy to resolve the Taiwan issue by use of military force—but they could play a role in shaping the course of the conflict. The CCP uses military force to drive political outcomes. The theory of victory underlying a blockade or invasion of Taiwan will be based on shaping political dynamics, not strictly military outcomes. By complicating certain types of operations, such as minefield components of blockade operations, LRAUV platforms could—in concert with other systems—help shape PRC military strategies so that Chinese leaders seek offramps from conflict rather than pursue complete domination of Taiwan.

Contextual limitations and political considerations

China has developed a wide range of military tools to deal with a Taiwan conflict scenario. Only those tools that operate in the maritime domain appear to be susceptible to LRAUV influence. This leaves significant elements of China’s toolkit unaffected. Notably, these include the mainland-based ballistic missiles, long-range artillery, and aircraft that would constitute the major part of a joint firepower strike designed to put logistical, communications, psychological, and political pressure on Taiwan’s leadership. Similarly, the majority of the A2/AD tools China has developed to hold potential US or third-party intervention at risk also operate predominately from PRC territory and are therefore beyond the influence of LRAUVs.

It is worth noting that the ways in which LRAUV kinetic payloads shape PRC operations will probably vary significantly depending on which party employs them. LRAUVs or shorter-ranged underwater platforms employed by Taiwan will almost certainly generate a different response than those employed by US forces. China will likely see Taiwan’s use as staying within the confines of a domestic conflict. Under its Active Defense doctrine, China might seek to avoid striking US targets—which would likely draw the United States into the conflict as a direct combatant—unless the United States has already struck PRC targets. Kinetic employment by US forces against PRC targets would likely escalate to a larger exchange of fires between the two sides. Depending on the scope and scale of escalation, this could increase PRC perceptions of the need to project larger amounts of military force across the Taiwan Strait earlier in the conflict, in an effort to compel resolution before the United States could posture forces for open-ended conflict.

Blue (US) Team leader’s perspective

From a US Blue Team perspective, Aquatic Tiger highlighted both the potential value and the inherent limitations of LRAUVs in a plausible China-Taiwan conflict. For Blue Team planners, the appeal of LRAUVs rested less in their ability to deliver decisive military effects than in their capacity to operate persistently and at scale, with comparatively low political and operational risk, in highly contested maritime environments. The wargame demonstrated that LRAUVs could support Blue Team objectives during selected phases of a crisis, while also revealing how quickly their utility narrowed as conflict escalated and China accepted higher levels of military risk.

Blue Team objectives and strategic logic

Across the turns of the wargame, the Blue Team pursued three consistent objectives: deterring further PRC escalation, maintaining access to the Western Pacific—particularly east of Taiwan—and preserving alliance cohesion while managing escalation risks with a nuclear-armed peer competitor. Blue Team decision-making was shaped by concerns related to attribution, proportionality, and alliance politics, which constrained both the timing and visibility of military actions.

Within this framework, Blue Team force posture prior to hostilities served two distinct purposes. The first was signaling—demonstrating resolve to deter PRC aggression, reassure allies and partners, and support diplomacy and strategic messaging with third parties. The second was positioning—quietly placing forces to gain an operational advantage should conflict occur. Aquatic Tiger demonstrated that LRAUVs were far better suited to the latter than the former.

Pre-hostilities posture and strategic messaging

LRAUVs’ low detectability, while operationally advantageous, limited their utility as signaling tools. Unlike air or surface platforms that can be employed deliberately for visible demonstrations of presence, LRAUVs operate largely outside public view. As a result, they contributed little to strategic messaging with allies, partners, or the broader international community.

During the wargame, strategic messaging and diplomatic efforts were more effectively supported by other assets, particularly those capable of generating clear, shareable imagery and data. Although contractor-operated concepts were discussed as a means of increasing volume, LRAUVs remained ill-suited to strategic messaging due to their limited fields of view and constrained sensor outputs. In short, their primary value before hostilities lay in positioning rather than persuasion.

ISR: Tactical value and strategic limits

LRAUVs contributed to intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance during the wargame, but Aquatic Tiger underscored clear limits to their ISR utility from a Blue Team perspective. These systems did not provide the strategic or operational indications and warning that Blue Team decision-makers would prioritize in a Taiwan contingency, such as detecting large-scale mobilization of PRC amphibious forces, munitions, or logistics.

Instead, LRAUV ISR proved most relevant at the tactical level, supporting localized awareness for operators already engaged in contested environments. In this role, LRAUVs complemented rather than substituted for airborne, space-based, and other ISR platforms, which proved more effective for broad-area coverage and early warning. The wargame reinforced that LRAUVs should not be viewed as primary ISR platforms for strategic or operational warning, but as contributors to tactical awareness once hostilities were imminent or under way.

Employment across escalation phrases

As the scenario progressed into the second turn and China declared a blockade, Blue Team objectives shifted from deterrence toward complicating PRC operations and imposing costs. LRAUVs were employed to augment ISR, support counter-blockade efforts, and contribute to mine countermeasures and maritime awareness. These contributions were incremental rather than decisive. LRAUVs enhanced the Blue Team’s ability to contest the blockade at the margins but did not alter the underlying balance of forces in the Taiwan Strait.

By the third turn, once China adopted a more explicit A2/AD posture along the First Island Chain, the constraints on LRAUV utility became more pronounced. Attrition increased rapidly as PRC forces demonstrated a willingness to destroy autonomous systems with limited concern for escalation. In the Taiwan Strait itself, LRAUVs were lost faster than they could be replaced, reinforcing the conclusion that constricted waters close to the mainland favored PRC countermeasures, including unconventional approaches.

In contrast, LRAUVs proved more effective in geographically differentiated areas such as the lower Ryukyus and portions of the Luzon Strait, where Blue Team and allied forces enjoyed greater standoff advantages, and where LRAUVs could complement land-based and maritime capabilities.

Blue Team leader perspectives on LRAUV capabilities in the Aquatic Tiger wargame

Within the wargame, the LRAUV system capabilities in the Blue Team’s inventory resonated with Blue Team planners because they reflected attributes aligned with their team’s operational needs—including long endurance, modular payloads, and forward deployability—without placing personnel at risk. These characteristics made such systems suitable for early deployment and for missions emphasizing persistence and access in contested environments.

At the same time, the LRAUV systems employed by the Blue Team during Aquatic Tiger proved not to be decisive platforms. Limited payload size and maneuverability constrained individual kinetic effects, while relatively slow transit speeds required advance planning and careful positioning. Once PRC decision-makers assumed Blue Team ownership of LRAUV operations, the political advantages of ambiguity diminished and kinetic employment risked escalation.

Kinetic employment and the access problem

During the wargame, the Control Team expressed skepticism regarding the kinetic utility of the LRAUVs in the Blue Team’s inventory, particularly against high-value targets such as large surface combatants or invasion force transports. Concerns focused on warhead size and maneuverability, leading to an adjudication that kinetic effects of individual LRAUVs would be limited.

Subsequent reflection suggests that this assessment might have undervalued the role LRAUVs could play in addressing one of the central challenges of a Taiwan contingency: gaining kinetic access inside heavily defended, shallow-water environments dominated by PRC A2/AD systems. In such environments, the principal constraint on Blue Team operations was often the ability to deliver kinetic effects at scale, rather than targeting information.

Viewed through this lens, the limitations appear less constraining than initially assumed. Employment as a form of point defense or a limited, mobile minefield aligns with the operational reality that adversary forces—particularly invasion and transport elements—must move through predictable maritime approaches. While individual warheads might be insufficient against large platforms, employment at scale could generate meaningful aggregate effects, consume PRC decision-maker bandwidth at multiple echelons, complicate PRC operations, and impose costs in areas otherwise inaccessible to Blue Team kinetic forces.

Constraints and integration challenges

Several clear constraints emerged from a Blue Team perspective. First, scale mattered. Individual LRAUVs had limited impact and were mission constrained by their pre-planned payloads. Only through numbers and pre-positioning could they influence PRC operations, and even then primarily at the tactical level. Second, command-and-control and integration challenges limited effectiveness. In this first iteration of wargaming, LRAUVs were considered largely as a standalone capability, fully leveraging neither the operational benefits of collaboration between and among LRAUVs at scale nor of teaming LRAUVs with other manned and unmanned systems.

Third, geography was decisive. LRAUVs were most useful in areas where PRC land-based sensors, aircraft, and missile forces constrained Blue Team air and surface operations, but least effective in narrow waters where maritime militia and other countermeasures could be employed. Attrition, while expected, raised questions regarding sustainment and replacement under combat conditions.

Strategic implications for the Blue Team

From a Blue Team perspective, Aquatic Tiger suggests that LRAUVs should be regarded as enabling capabilities rather than decisive instruments of deterrence or warfighting. Their greatest value lies in pre-hostilities and early crisis phases, where they can support positioning, access, and selected tactical effects at relatively low risk to personnel. As conflict escalates, their role narrows and must be integrated carefully with broader joint and allied operations.

The wargame also underscored the importance of allied and partner considerations. LRAUVs’ employment by third parties, including Taiwan and regional allies, could complicate PRC political and military calculations in ways distinct from their employment exclusively by Blue Team forces, particularly given Beijing’s sensitivity to legitimacy and escalation dynamics.

Bottom line for Blue Team planners

The Blue Team perspective emerging from Aquatic Tiger indicates that LRAUVs could occupy an important, but bounded, role in a Taiwan contingency. When employed with disciplined expectations and integrated into a broader operational framework, they can improve access, complicate adversary planning, consume adversary decision-maker bandwidth, and reduce risk to personnel. They cannot substitute for robust force posture, alliance coordination, or timely Blue Team strategic decision-making. Their value lies not in decisiveness, but in enabling options in environments where other capabilities face prohibitive risk.

Technical and tactical limitations

A number of technical and tactical considerations arose during the wargame that are relevant to consider in terms of potential challenges to the effectiveness of the small, autonomous, expendable LRAUVs employed in Aquatic Tiger, including limitations on intelligence collection, difficulties in attacking moving targets, and potential countermeasures.

ISR limitations

The collection of optical, electromagnetic, and sonar data by sensors on a small LRAUV is limited by the size of sonar carried and the low height of optics and collection antennas. The high density of maritime traffic along the Chinese coast—particularly of military vessels during a crisis—creates an extremely cluttered environment in which acoustic sensors with limited range and aperture, and lacking accurate positional information, offer limited insight. Small, lightweight, electromagnetic spectrum sensors and limited on-vehicle processing capability offer similarly limited capability to provide intelligence-quality electromagnetic spectrum data. Wide-area collection of limited-quality data can be leveraged to contribute to maritime domain awareness in general, but is more applicable to tracking commercial vessels of interest or sanctions enforcement than supporting military operations. A mast height of about one meter offers limited visibility in open ocean environments, where swells of 1–2 meters are common, offering significant periods of obstructed observation and difficulty ascertaining range, target angle, and vessel identification at more than a few nautical miles.

Target detection, classification, identification, localization, tracking, engagement, and assessment

Many of the challenges to intelligence collection are also relevant to completing a “detect to engagement sequence” or “kill chain” for an LRAUV to attack a target with its onboard warhead. Acoustic sensors for individual vehicles offer limited directional discrimination and require robust communications among swarms to reduce errors by taking directional readings from multiple vehicles. Detecting a potential target in a likely target-rich environment is not necessarily difficult, but the other steps to determine how effectively a target can be engaged pose different challenges depending on whether they are based on acoustic, optical, or electromagnetic sensing. The difficulty ascertaining range makes a decision to start a “run in” especially problematic because LRAUVs have only a limited amount of battery power to make a high-speed run to a target. They must also be close to have reasonable potential to intercept a fast-moving target, or even to chase down a slower target from behind.

The wargame did not explore the specifics of how decisions to authorize individual autonomous lethal attacks would be made. The decision to conduct a kinetic attack autonomously also could add considerable complexity to the planning aspect of the mission. Current US Department of Defense restrictions on autonomous lethal engagement might be difficult to satisfy without communications between a weapon release authority and the LRAUV. The workaround of having a contractor operate the vehicle might not eliminate this complication. These policy restrictions could also affect the viability of foreign military sales. Assuming policy issues can be worked out, aspects of international law (e.g., The Hague Convention on mines) require restrictions on location of use and notification of third parties that complicate planning and operational employment of “indiscriminate attack” by lethal autonomous systems.

Potential countermeasures

A number of potential counters to small LRAUVs were raised in Aquatic Tiger, ranging from broad sweeping using modified minesweeping or fishing gear, localized use of such sweeps to “clear limiting lines of approach,” the use of obstructions (nets, modified oil containment equipment), intervening lower-cost vessels to guard flanks of transit lanes, use of “hunter-killer” unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), and UAVs alone or in conjunction with the above (vulnerability while snorkeling/surfacing might be exploitable). Defensive barrier modifications and active defense systems on ships themselves are possible in analogous fashion to those on tanks for aerial drones. Double-hulled vessels are fairly resilient to contact explosions and are used to sweep areas as attractors. Reviving the historical use of torpedo nets in various configurations could prove effective. The development of torpedoes that ran at depth and exploded under the keel rendered such nets ineffective, but they could effectively counter UUVs impacting the hull at slow relative speed, particularly against ships at anchor or in port.

Recommendations for Congress

Autonomous systems broadly provide US and foreign forces the benefit of ambiguity of attribution and deployed intent. LRAUVs can particularly shine, given their potential oceanographic and environmental use, which might obfuscate the purpose, to be deployed at or before the first sign of indicators or warnings at the strategic level. However, to be effective, the systems must be better resourced and included in existing Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programs or through more creative export means such as encouraging co-production or direct commercial sales.

Oversight and acquisition follow-through: Congress should consider how LRAUVs can be used across theaters. Due to technical requirements, LRAUVs perform best in calmer waters, including in littorals and inland seas such as the Black Sea. Congress has already recognized the importance of such systems and included them in the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (FY 2025 NDAA), Section 1032, which defines LRAUVs as systems that exceed one thousand nautical miles in range and are capable of operating completely submerged at sea with modular payloads. Section 1032 further requires competitive demonstrations of these systems for the services. Congress, however, has not yet passed follow-up legislation on these competitive demonstrations or on the acquisition of LRAUVs. In the medium term, Congress should follow up on the required competitive demonstrations outlined in Section 1032 of the FY 2025 NDAA and solicit immediate feedback from the services on next steps for LRAUV development.
Export controls and dual-use framing: Congress should consider leveraging the oceanographic and environmental uses of LRAUVs with modular capacity to reclassify such systems for export from the more-restrictive ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) list to the less-restrictive EAR (Export Administration Regulations) category. By encouraging the sale of the LRAUVs separate from specific advanced kinetic and electronic effects, the United States can enhance the credibility of such systems for environmental and oceanographic use and encourage further indigenous modular innovations. To support such efforts, Congress should direct the Department of Commerce to consider additional support for the export of US LRAUVs to countries of interest. It should also consider a pilot program for a special license exemption for select countries purchasing such systems for environmental purposes.
Further analysis of LRAUVs’ impact: Congress should encourage more research and wargaming on the utility of LRAUVs as the technology develops. While this report posits that the strategic and operational effects of these systems are presently limited, continued technological development and the integration of LRAUVs into larger frameworks—such as regional maritime surveillance and interdiction—might yield higher-tier effects. Providing further encouragement—and, importantly, appropriations—toward analysis of LRAUVs is essential to maintaining a qualitative edge in this frontier technology and realizing its potential as a contributor to deterrence and war preparedness.

Key findings

The Aquatic Tiger Wargame and follow-on analysis led the authors to a set of key findings.

These types of LRAUVs are uniquely suited to forward deployment into sensitive areas during a crisis prior to hostilities, when US senior leadership is likely seeking to minimize escalation risks and conserve resources for a potential conflict. The lack of personnel placed at risk, along with LRAUVs’ low cost and low signature, could allow these platforms to conduct surveillance for extended periods to provide situational awareness and warning of impending attack. Their long-range capability could also equate to a long dwell time in a target area during an extended, open-ended period of crisis, meaning they offer a lower risk of burnout than other types of surveillance platforms. Their deniable, unclear national origin is also an advantage in terms of limiting the risk of crisis escalation. However, this lower risk profile, deniability, and ambiguity also mean that China could attack or interdict US LRAUVs prior to the outbreak of hostilities (including with unconventional means like fishing nets) with a relatively low fear of uncontrolled escalation.
Geography is a key consideration for LRAUV employment, and chokepoints can be a double-edged sword. US LRAUVs could be deployed into areas—including into constricted areas north and south of Taiwan—where PRC land-based sensors, surface-to-air missiles, aircraft, surface ships, and missile strike forces and sensors make air and surface operations high risk and high cost. Though constricted waters advantage Chinese countermeasures against LRAUVs moving through such areas, maritime chokepoints can also be excellent places for LRAUVs to loiter and detect vessels, as well as a good location to mass large numbers of LRAUVs to conduct swarming ambushes against surface vessels moving through the area. For sustained combat operations in the Taiwan Strait itself, the wargame’s results suggested it would be far preferable to have autonomous underwater vehicles deployed directly from Taiwan’s west coast into the strait rather than attempt to sustain a presence of LRAUVs in the strait by moving them via chokepoints where they could be more easily interdicted.
Sufficient numbers of platforms and sufficient advance planning are key factors for successful LRAUV employment. The limited payload size and relatively slower speed of LRAUVs require advance planning to ensure the right mix of payload capabilities is in the right place at the right time. Swarming capability and multiple types of LRAUV payloads could provide synergy, particularly to better position for attacks against fast-moving military vessels. Though attrition of LRAUVs will likely be high, large numbers of LRAUVs sustained over time could have a great impact.
Alternative uses for LRAUVs discussed in the wargame after-action discussions could dramatically increase their cost efficiency in a conflict if the United States is willing to operate them across an area much broader than the vicinity of Taiwan, particularly against slower, non-military vessels. Use against military targets and in constricted areas close to China could be effective, but this is probably not the most efficient use of such LRAUVs. They could instead be used, for example, to shadow high-value Chinese merchant and transport ships moving through the region to support China’s war effort—selectively signaling the US ability to put these ships at risk to influence Beijing’s calculus and then disabling or sinking them to hamper China’s war sustainment effort. LRAUVs could also be used to block access in and out of China’s mainland ports from a distance, as a sort of maneuverable minefield. LRAUVs could also be used in a conflict to bog down Chinese naval, paramilitary, and commercial vessels in areas north and south of Taiwan as part of a maritime insurgency approach.
The results of this initial Aquatic Tiger wargame suggest that additional analysis, wargaming, modeling, technical experimentation, live exercises, and simulation on key issues related to such LRAUVs are warranted. Subjects to consider include: how units of such drones would be best organized and employed by the United States, Taiwan, and US allies in such a contingency; whether such LRAUVs could be produced at a low enough cost and in sufficient scale to be effective; what tactical-level synergies these LRAUVs would have operating in concert with other manned and unmanned platforms; the potential efficacy of various Chinese countermeasures; and China’s potential employment of its own LRAUVs.

About the authors

Markus Garlauskas is the director of the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and was the wargame director for the Aquatic Tiger wargame.

Nicholas Takeuchi is a retired US Navy submarine officer and was a Blue (US) Team participant in the Aquatic Tiger wargame.

Drew Holliday is a former US deputy defense intelligence officer for China and was the Red (China) Team leader for the Aquatic Tiger wargame.

Paul Vebber is a retired US Navy and former assistant director for wargaming and future warfare research at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. He was a part of the Control Team in the Aquatic Tiger wargame.

Adam Kozloski is a nonresident senior fellow with the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative and former congressional staffer. He was a Blue (US) Team participant in the Aquatic Tiger wargame.

Acknowledgements and disclaimer

The Aquatic Tiger wargame and this associated issue brief were made possible by a financial grant and technical input from Albacore Inc., a developer of autonomous underwater vehicles, but Albacore personnel did not participate in developing the issue brief and the brief does not represent Albacore’s views. The Atlantic Council maintains strict intellectual independence for all of its projects and publications. The Council requires all donors to agree to the Council maintaining independent control of the content and conclusions of any products resulting from sponsored projects.

The authors are especially grateful to Colonel Gittipong “Eddie” Paruchabutr, IPSI nonresident senior fellow (US Army, retired) for his generosity in donating his time and support as wargame coordinator. The authors are also thankful to David Helvey for his time, expertise, and support in the project. Thanks also go to IPSI nonresident fellow Andrew Brown for his contributions to this project, and to IPSI program assistant Audrey Roh for her support.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the individual authors of each section.

Explore the program

The Indo-Pacific Security Initiative (IPSI) informs and shapes the strategies, plans, and policies of the United States and its allies and partners to address the most important rising security challenges in the Indo-Pacific, including China’s growing threat to the international order and North Korea’s destabilizing nuclear weapons advancements. IPSI produces innovative analysis, conducts tabletop exercises, hosts public and private convenings, and engages with US, allied, and partner governments, militaries, media, other key private and public-sector stakeholders, and publics.

The post Aquatic Tiger: How long-range submarine drones could play a role in a Taiwan conflict appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Kaluderovic in Foreign Policy: The drone attrition tap

Atlantic Council — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 20:12:51 +0000

The post Kaluderovic in Foreign Policy: The drone attrition tap appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Costa in the Washington Post on military readiness in Iran

Atlantic Council — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 19:00:00 +0000

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

On March 16, Forward Defense Director Joe Costa published an article in the Washington Post on the impacts of the war in Iran on US military readiness. Writing alongside Ely Ratner of the Marathon Initiative, Costa argues that the threat to readiness runs deeper than depleted stockpiles—deferred maintenance, equipment cannibalization, and broken dwell-to-deploy thresholds threaten US force projection and combat-credible readiness.

Staff

Joe Costa

Director

Defense Industry Defense Policy

The post Costa in the Washington Post on military readiness in Iran appeared first on Atlantic Council.

The coming compute war in Ukraine

Cate Hansberry — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 16:00:00 +0000

March 16, 2026

The coming compute war in Ukraine

Why compute infrastructure will decide the next phase of the conflict

By Clara Kaluderovic

It’s May 2026 in the Kharkiv sector of Ukraine. A Ukrainian commander launches eight hundred autonomous drones—a coordinated swarm of air and ground systems programmed to suppress enemy air defenses, identify and strike artillery positions, and exploit gaps in Russian lines. The operation depends on real-time coordination: sensors feeding targeting data to strike platforms, movement algorithms synchronizing advance rates, and machine learning systems adapting to Russian countermeasures.

Eighteen minutes into the mission, Russian electronic warfare assets sever the swarm’s tactical ground uplinks to Western cloud infrastructure.¹ The swarm doesn’t abort—it continues operating on preprogrammed instructions. But it can’t adapt. Russian forces rapidly move their artillery and air defense systems. Ukrainian sensors detect the movement but can’t retask strike drones without cloud connectivity. The algorithms that would normally coordinate sensors with shooters can’t execute. What should have been a precisely synchronized operation devolves into hundreds of individual platforms executing obsolete instructions against targets that have already moved.

This scenario hasn’t transpired yet. But the conditions that could make it inevitable are already in place.

The war in Ukraine is often described in the language of weapons: air defense systems, artillery pieces, drones, and munitions. Yet a less visible element will shape the next phase of the conflict just as decisively as any piece of military hardware: the infrastructure to create and harness computational power, or compute.

From state preservation to warfighting speed

For four years, Ukraine has executed a strategically sophisticated digital strategy: protecting state continuity by migrating critical data and services from vulnerable domestic servers to Western cloud infrastructure.² By mid-2022, just months into the invasion, more than ten petabytes of data—from ministries, universities, private firms, and individuals—had shifted to the cloud.³ This ensured continuity of government operations, supported remote learning, and reduced the risk that a missile strike could erase essential records.

That migration was brilliant crisis management. It preserved the Ukrainian state under fire. But state continuity is not warfighting. As combat evolves toward mass deployment of unmanned systems, algorithmic control of targeting processes, and increasingly autonomous operations, Ukraine’s computational requirements are changing fundamentally. The challenge is shifting from keeping systems online to enabling decisions at machine speed—despite Russian efforts to sever access to the infrastructure that makes machine-speed decisions possible.

The question is no longer whether Western cloud providers have sufficient storage and compute capacity. They do. The question is whether Ukraine can reliably access that capacity fast enough to sustain operations when Russia is actively denying the connection.

What is emerging is a war over compute capability itself: a contest over which side can sustain the fastest operational cycles—sensing, deciding, striking, adapting—while spectrum and infrastructure come under both kinetic and electronic attack.

The bandwidth wall

In peacetime, cloud computing feels abstract, almost invisible. In war, it becomes concrete and existential. Remote data centers accessed via networks become critical infrastructure. Designating cloud systems as critical infrastructure in the Ukrainian context unlocks vital resources, ensuring these facilities receive prioritized air and cyber defenses, guaranteed energy provisioning, and international reconstruction funding.⁴ When those links degrade, the cloud doesn’t just slow down—it vanishes.

Ukraine’s 2022 migration solved one vulnerability (domestic servers vulnerable to Russian missile attacks) while creating another: total dependence on contested network pathways now central to warfighting capability.

In peacetime, cloud computing feels abstract, almost invisible. In war, it becomes concrete and existential.

Drone swarms are often discussed as an artificial intelligence (AI) challenge—computer vision for target identification, autonomy for independent navigation, and coordination algorithms for multiplatform synchronization. In practice, the first constraint is bandwidth. A Carnegie Mellon University study found that a single high-definition (HD) drone video feed at twenty-five frames per second consumes approximately ten megabits per second (Mbps).⁵ While a commander wouldn’t stream video from every platform in a massive swarm, even pulling just a handful of feeds for operator control and target designation—combined with the constant telemetry data, encryption overhead, and packet retransmission required to coordinate the remaining hundreds of drones—creates an operational bottleneck.⁶

Because continuous human-in-the-loop control doesn’t scale gracefully in Ukraine’s contested electromagnetic environment, the operational logic is unforgiving: Forces must either process data locally at the edge—transmitting only highly compressed targeting summaries upstream—or accept that cloud-dependent systems will fail when links are degraded.

Satellite connectivity via Starlink has significantly strengthened Ukraine’s communications resilience. As a proliferated low earth orbit (pLEO) constellation, Starlink is inherently difficult to jam at the orbital level, making it an assured command and control (C2) backup to terrestrial fiber. However, even advanced pLEO architectures introduce constraints at the tactical edge. Uplink bandwidth (10 to 30 Mbps per terminal) and latency (25 to 60 milliseconds) create bottlenecks for high-volume operations. A single HD video feed can consume most of a terminal’s uplink budget, and the ground terminals themselves remain highly vulnerable to localized Russian electronic warfare.⁷

More dangerously, Starlink has become a single point of failure. If these tactical uplinks were effectively denied—whether by Russian terminal jamming, cyberattacks aimed at user networks, or corporate policy shifts—Ukraine would possess no terrestrial or satellite alternative capable of sustaining its current command tempo. If the link goes down, the current architecture of warfighting would collapse within days.⁸

When Russia induces intermittent denial through jamming or cyberattack, cloud-centric architectures don’t just degrade—they fail.

The arithmetic is merciless. Ukraine is producing drones at industrial scale—well over three million annually across aerial, ground, and maritime categories toward a projected seven million in 2026.⁹ As autonomy spreads throughout this ecosystem, bandwidth requirements will outstrip available connectivity by orders of magnitude unless Ukraine fundamentally restructures how and where computation occurs.¹⁰

The infrastructure asymmetry

Ukraine operates approximately fifty-eight data centers compared with Russia’s 251.¹¹ This disparity matters profoundly. More facilities mean greater resilience against kinetic strikes, sovereign control over critical workloads, and capacity to convert domestic energy into computational advantage. Ukraine has compensated through Western cloud access—a genuine strategic asset that Russia cannot easily match. But external dependence creates a ceiling that becomes visible as autonomy scales and adversaries systematically target the links.

The energy dimension compounds this vulnerability. Compute infrastructure requires massive electrical power. Data centers are power-conversion facilities as much as they are computing facilities. Ukraine’s electrical grid has been under sustained Russian attack since October 2022. Strikes have destroyed approximately nine gigawatts of generating capacity—roughly half of prewar levels.¹² Millions of Ukrainians face rolling blackouts lasting up to four days.

This energy crisis has exposed critical fragility. Attacks have decimated thermal power plants, which provide critical load-balancing, while the largest nuclear facility, Zaporizhzhia, remains under occupation and offline. This places extreme strain on the remaining active plants, like the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant, to sustain baseload power.¹³

This strain creates a strategic trap: Russian attacks degrade Ukraine’s domestic power generation, which reduces capacity for domestic compute infrastructure, which in turn increases dependence on external cloud services accessed via networks that Russia can interdict. Ukraine needs compute infrastructure to fight effectively, but the same threats that create that need also are destroying the energy systems required to sustain domestic computing capability. This forces a difficult data localization trade-off: Keeping data within national borders ensures sovereign control and reduces latency, but relying on infrastructure outside of Ukraine’s borders trades that sovereignty for unparalleled physical security against kinetic attacks.

Russia, meanwhile, is pursuing computational sovereignty. Moscow is deepening AI cooperation with China, investing in domestic data-center capacity, and expanding energy infrastructure specifically to support compute-intensive operations. Russia announced a 200 percent increase in military spending for 2025-2026, with significant portions allocated to domestic technology development and infrastructure hardening.¹⁴

This strategy doesn’t mean Russian capabilities are superior; to the contrary, Western cloud infrastructure remains far more advanced, boasting superior hyperscale efficiency, next-generation AI accelerators, and deeper integration of cutting-edge foundational models. But Russia is building resilience through sovereign control and redundancy, accepting lower performance in exchange for systems that can’t be easily severed by adversary action. Ukraine cannot fully mirror this approach given resource constraints and the ongoing attacks on its energy grid. But it must complement cloud reliance with domestic and forward-deployed compute nodes to sustain rapid decision cycles when connectivity degrades or fails.

The interior of one of the apartments in a residential multi-story building is damaged as a result of a Russian strike drone hit in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on February 26, 2026. (Photo by Dmytro Smolienko/Ukrinform/NurPhoto).

The architecture of warfighting compute

What Ukraine needs—and what any military force will need for autonomous operations at scale in the future—is a layered computational architecture.

The first layer is cloud-scale compute for strategic functions, hosted primarily in allied nations outside of Ukraine. This handles large-scale data aggregation, AI model training, pattern analysis across theater-wide sensor networks, and long-term intelligence processing. This will remain vital and leverage Western technological advantages that Russia cannot match.

The second layer consists of domestic data centers for operational workloads that cannot tolerate cloud latency or link vulnerability. These support theater-level coordination, regional sensor fusion, command and control systems, and logistics planning. These facilities need hardening against kinetic strikes and cyberattacks—such as zero-day exploits or data-wiping malware designed to paralyze command and control. They also require redundant power supplies and geographic distribution to prevent single points of failure.

The third layer involves forward-deployed compute nodes at brigade and battalion levels. These are rugged servers in mobile containers or hardened facilities that can execute tactical coordination, sensor-to-shooter integration, and autonomous system management even when higher-echelon networks are degraded or severed. These nodes need enough processing power to manage hundreds of autonomous platforms simultaneously, updating targeting data, coordinating maneuver, and adapting to enemy actions—all without requiring constant capacity to access and employ cloud infrastructure.

Finally, edge compute on platforms themselves provides the last line of resilience. These are processing capabilities embedded in drones, ground vehicles, and sensor systems that enable basic autonomous functions—obstacle avoidance, target recognition, and formation keeping—without any external connectivity.

This is not hypothetical. New interceptor programs scaling in Ukraine in late 2025 operate on exactly this principle.¹⁵ These systems utilize optical navigation modules that cost less than a smartphone but possess sufficient edge processing to visually lock onto Russian drones. Once locked, they cut their radio link entirely, rendering Russian electronic warfare useless because there is no signal to jam. The drone effectively becomes a flying, disconnected server that solves a single terminal problem: collision.

Each layer serves a different function and operates under different connectivity assumptions. Cloud computing assumes reliable high-bandwidth links and optimizes for processing power and data scale. Edge computing assumes zero connectivity and optimizes for survival of individual platforms. The layers in between—domestic and forward-deployed nodes—are what enable operational effectiveness when conditions fall between those extremes, which in modern combat will be most of the time.

The cost implications are significant but manageable. A forward-deployed compute node with sufficient capacity to manage battalion-level autonomous operations might cost two million dollars, with a total cost of five million dollars when you include hardening, redundant power, and cooling systems. This is expensive relative to individual drones, but modest compared to traditional armored vehicles or artillery systems. More importantly, these nodes are force multipliers: A three-million-dollar compute node that enables effective coordination of five hundred autonomous platforms represents a far better return on investment than three million dollars spent on additional uncoordinated platforms.¹⁶

Current Western aid to Ukraine has focused overwhelmingly on kinetic systems: artillery, air defense, and armored vehicles. Very little has gone toward computational infrastructure. This made sense when the primary challenge was state survival and maintaining basic military capability. As the war evolves toward autonomous operations, however, aid priorities need to evolve accordingly.

What Russia is learning

Russia’s approach to the compute challenge differs fundamentally from Ukraine’s. While Ukraine has leveraged Western cloud superiority, Russia has pursued what might be called “computational autarky”—accepting lower performance in exchange for independence and resilience.

Russian domestic data-center capacity, while less sophisticated than Western equivalents, provides sovereign control over critical military workloads. While Russian military planners face less risk from radio-frequency jamming of satellite uplinks due to their reliance on hardwired domestic fiber-optic lines, they trade one vulnerability for another. To sustain their operations, they must aggressively defend these physical nodes against kinetic strikes—as proven by air domain attacks like Operation Spiderweb—and targeted cyber operations aimed at paralyzing specific computing centers. While completely severing Russia from its compute power is exceedingly difficult, degrading its critical operational nodes is a highly viable threat.¹⁷

More concerning is Russia’s deepening cooperation with China on AI and computing. This isn’t just about purchasing Chinese technology—though that matters. It’s about access to Chinese expertise in autonomous systems, sensor processing, and algorithmic targeting. China already supplies roughly 80 percent of the critical technologies used in Russian drones, and engineers from both nations are collaborating closely on technology development and battlefield adaptation.¹⁸ China leads the world in certain AI applications, particularly computer vision and pattern recognition. Russian access to Chinese AI capabilities could narrow the technological gap with Western systems faster than most Western analysts currently anticipate.

Russia is also learning operationally. Ukrainian drone strikes on targets inside Russia—reported almost daily throughout early 2026—force Russian air defenses to process massive volumes of sensor data, coordinate response across multiple systems, and adapt to Ukrainian tactics in near-real time. These aren’t just kinetic exchanges; they’re competitions in computational speed and algorithmic effectiveness. Russia is building institutional knowledge about autonomous operations under fire at operational tempo, not in peacetime exercises.

The Russian approach has significant weaknesses: lower-quality infrastructure, dependence on Chinese cooperation that may not survive geopolitical shifts, and vulnerability of domestic data centers to long-range Ukrainian strikes. But Russia has thought systematically about computational resilience in ways that Ukraine, focused on survival and leveraging Western support, has not yet fully addressed.

The compute war: Speed vs. resilience

The coming compute war will test whether Ukraine can preserve something that may be even more critical than state continuity: the speed of its learning and decision cycles.

Modern warfare increasingly resembles software development more than industrial production.

Modern warfare increasingly resembles software development more than industrial production. Ukrainian drone units update software and tactics continuously—a technique that works on Monday may be countered by Russian forces by Friday and adapted again by the following Monday. This operational tempo demands computational infrastructure that can support experimentation, rapid prototyping, large-scale testing, and instantaneous deployment across thousands of platforms simultaneously.

Victory will not hinge on who possesses the most servers in aggregate. It will hinge on who can keep computation, coordination, and adaptation functioning under active denial—when spectrum is contested, networks are degraded, and time itself becomes a weapon.

The paradox is that speed and resilience often conflict. Cloud computing optimizes for speed: massive processing power, global data access, and rapid scaling. But it assumes reliable connectivity. Autonomous edge computing optimizes for resilience: operation under denial, degraded communications, and individual platform survival. But it sacrifices coordination, learning, and adaptation that require centralized processing.

The side that solves this paradox—building systems that maintain speed while surviving denial—will have a decisive advantage. And all of this requires not just technology but operational art: understanding what computation must happen when and where, what can be prepositioned before links fail, what decisions can be delegated to autonomous systems, and what must remain under human control even when that means accepting slower execution.

A soldier from the Taifun Special Forces UAV Unit, who participates in combat missions in the Kharkiv region, carries an aerial reconnaissance drone recovered upon landing, Ukraine, February 22, 2026. (Photo by Viacheslav Madiievskyi/Ukrinform via ZUMA Press Wire)

The implications for the United States

There is a second lesson here that extends far beyond Ukraine. For the United States, this conflict is a preview of a fundamental shift in what constitutes strategic infrastructure.

Federal, state, and local governments in the United States still regard data centers primarily as commercial real estate—involving zoning questions, permitting challenges, and local economic development. The Ukraine war suggests a radically different framework: Sustaining compute under attack is a national security imperative, as critical as shipbuilding capacity or semiconductor production.

If the next phase of warfare is shaped by learning cycles and distributed autonomy, then the defense industrial base is no longer only steel and shells. It includes electrical grid capacity, cooling infrastructure, secure facilities, and resilient compute systems that can convert data into operational advantage faster than adversaries can disrupt the process.

Furthermore, because the United States projects power globally, it will face severe distance and latency challenges in any future conflict. A secure data center in Virginia cannot command a drone swarm in the Indo-Pacific at machine speed. This geographic reality dictates that the United States must possess forward-deployed, allied-hosted compute architectures to mitigate the immense latency constraints of expeditionary warfare.

This shift has immediate policy implications. First, grid resilience for computing infrastructure is paramount. Data centers require enormous electrical power: A large facility can consume as much electricity as a small city. In the continental United States, these facilities depend on a grid that was designed for efficiency, not resilience against military attack. Strategic data-center locations need hardened power supplies, backup generation capacity, and rapid restoration capabilities that current commercial facilities lack.

Second, the United States needs mandated geographic distribution of computing capacity. Commercial cloud providers optimize for efficiency, often concentrating computing capacity in specific regions with favorable power costs and network connectivity. From a national security perspective, this approach creates vulnerabilities. Geographic distribution ensures no single region or facility becomes a strategic single point of failure.

Third, the nation should consider a strategic compute reserve. The United States maintains strategic reserves of petroleum, grain, and medical supplies. A similar approach to dormant but maintained data-center capacity would allow activation during crisis, providing surge computing capability when commercial systems are disrupted or need to prioritize military workloads.

Fourth, technology export controls must expand. The United States restricts the export of advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment to adversaries. It should consider similar controls on data-center technology, cooling systems, and high-performance computing architecture that could help adversaries build resilient computational infrastructure.

Finally, NATO computational resilience must be addressed. While NATO has already acknowledged that severe cyberattacks can trigger the Article 5 collective-defense pledge, the Alliance must go further to explicitly include computational infrastructure in its joint defense planning. Allied nations need assured access to computing capacity during crises even when their domestic infrastructure is under attack. This might require treaty-level agreements on computing resource sharing, protection of undersea cables connecting allied data centers, and prepositioned computational capability in forward-deployed locations.

These aren’t theoretical concerns. Ukraine is living this reality now. Ukrainian commanders are making life-and-death operational decisions based on whether they can access computational resources through contested networks. The United States and its allies would face these same challenges in any high-intensity conflict with a peer adversary capable of targeting networks and infrastructure.

The advantage the United States currently enjoys is time to prepare, though that may be running out. Ukraine is solving these problems under fire, improvising solutions while fighting for its very survival. The United States can—and must—solve them expeditiously, investing in resilience before conflict makes that investment impossible and focusing on enhanced deterrence to make such conflict unlikely.

What must happen now

For Ukraine, the immediate requirement is diversification of computational architecture. This doesn’t mean abandoning Western cloud access, which remains a critical advantage and asset. It means complementing that access with:

Hardened, bunker-grade domestic data centers in western Ukraine, away from front lines but close enough to support operational tempo. These facilities need redundant power from multiple sources, physical hardening against missile strikes, and cyber defenses against Russian intrusion. International assistance should include funding for this infrastructure, which will likely need to be established through robust public-private partnerships.
Forward-deployed compute nodes at the operational and tactical levels. These don’t need to match cloud-scale processing power, but they do need sufficient capacity to manage autonomous operations when higher-echelon networks degrade, with enough redundancy that destruction of individual nodes doesn’t collapse the entire system.
Redundant nonradio communications to ensure reliable connectivity to drones, a core issue. Therefore, investment in redundant physical links is as vital as the computing layers. This capacity includes fiber-optic tethered drones that are physically immune to jamming and free-space optical (laser) links that can transmit high-bandwidth data between “mother” drones and forward nodes without creating a radio signature.
Bandwidth prioritization and compression algorithms that reduce data transmission requirements. If raw video from one thousand drones requires ten Gbps but processed targeting data requires only one hundred Mbps, the system becomes sustainable on available networks.
Energy infrastructure specifically designated for computing, including small modular reactors, solar arrays with battery storage, and protected generator facilities—power sources that can sustain computational infrastructure even when the broader grid is under attack.

For the United States, the requirement is recognition that this isn’t just a Ukrainian problem—it’s a preview of US challenges in future conflict. That recognition should drive Department of Defense investment in distributed computing architecture designed for operation under denial, not just peacetime efficiency.

It also should include mandating “endpoint autonomy” in acquisition. The Department of Defense must shift acquisition requirements to favor systems capable of fully disconnected execution. Rather than treating weapons solely as kinetic effectors dependent on off-board data, future programs must define them as self-contained edge compute nodes. Critical kill chain functions—target identification, discrimination, and terminal guidance—must reside on the platform’s own hardware. This ensures that a loss of a link during the terminal phase does not result in mission failure, treating connectivity as an enhancement for coordination rather than a prerequisite for operation.

A whole-of-government strategy for computational resilience is required, including the Department of Homeland Security for grid protection, the Department of Energy for energy infrastructure, the State Department for international agreements on undersea cables, and the Department of Commerce for export controls. Simultaneously, professional military education must treat computational infrastructure as seriously as logistics, fires, or maneuver. Commanders need to understand bandwidth constraints, latency implications, and trade-offs between centralized and distributed processing, just as they currently understand fuel consumption or ammunition expenditure rates.

Finally, experimentation and exercises must specifically test performance under degraded connectivity. While the US military has increasingly integrated assured C2 into its operational exercises, the depth and scale of these denied-environment simulations must rapidly expand. Exercises need to consistently simulate complete network denial, test autonomous operations under severe communications loss, and identify failure modes before those failures occur in combat.

For NATO and allied nations, the requirement is collective computational resilience as part of collective defense. This includes protected undersea cables connecting allied data centers with the same defensive priority currently given to sea lines of communication. It requires prepositioned computational infrastructure in forward locations, similar to prepositioned stocks of equipment but focused on enabling command, control, and autonomous operations. Information-sharing agreements must specifically address access to computational resources during crisis to ensure smaller allied nations aren’t disadvantaged by lack of domestic infrastructure. Joint investment in energy infrastructure is also critical to sustain allied computing requirements, recognizing that electrical power for computation is as strategically important as fuel for vehicles.

What’s at stake

The technology is already here. Ukraine is producing autonomous drones at industrial scale. Algorithmic targeting is becoming increasingly operational. Machine-learning systems are adapting to Russian countermeasures in real time. What’s missing isn’t technology—it’s the infrastructure to sustain use of that technology under deliberate adversary denial.

If this problem is solved correctly, autonomous tactical units will collapse the coordination overhead that currently limits military effectiveness. New algorithmically piloted systems will enable operational realities built on machine-tempo, combined-arms synchronization. Commanders will delegate bounded execution to formations that self-synchronize sensors, fires, and maneuver, exploiting fleeting windows faster than adversaries can respond, while retaining ultimate responsibility for intent, constraints, and actions taken.

If this problem is solved incorrectly—or not solved at all—autonomous systems will become liabilities rather than assets. Platforms that depend on cloud connectivity will fail when an adversary severs that connectivity. Operations that assume reliable networks will collapse when those networks degrade. The side that builds autonomous capability without building resilience will discover that sophisticated technology without infrastructure becomes inert hardware.

Ukraine’s cloud migration preserved the state under fire. The coming compute war will test whether Ukraine can preserve the speed of its decision cycles—and whether the West understands that speed without resilience is fragility waiting to be exploited.

The United States and its allies have been given an extraordinary gift: the opportunity to learn these lessons while someone else is paying the cost in blood and treasure. Ukraine is the laboratory. The experiments are ongoing. The data is available. The question is whether Western militaries and policymakers will learn quickly enough, and whether they will invest in computational resilience before the next conflict removes that option.

It is imperative to get this right—and get it right first. The autonomous transition will not wait. Neither will the United States’ adversaries.

about the author

Clara Kaluderovic is a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, a former Schmidt Fellow at the Special Competitive Studies Project, and a member of the Aspen Strategy Group’s Rising Leaders Class of 2026. Kaluderovic is co-founder and CEO of Mental Health Global, a nonprofit partnered with the Ukrainian Armed Forces to deliver AI-enabled mental health support in conflict zones, and co-founder of ex2, an AI nonprofit developing large language models for underrepresented languages including Kurdish.

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1 Jack Watling and Nick Reynolds, “Meatgrinder: Russian Tactics in the Second Year of Its Invasion of Ukraine,” Royal United Services Institute, May 2023.

2 Emma Schroeder and Sean Dack, “A Parallel Terrain: Public-Private Defense of the Ukrainian Information Environment,” Atlantic Council, February 2023.

3 Amazon Web Services (AWS), “Safeguarding Ukraine’s Data,” AWS Public Sector Blog, June 2022.

4 Tianjiu Zuo et al., “Critical Infrastructure and the Cloud: Policy for Emerging Risk,” Atlantic Council, July 2023.

5 Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science, “Bandwidth-efficient Live Video Analytics for Drones via Edge Computing,” IEEE/ACM Symposium on Edge Computing, 2018.

6 Carnegie Mellon, “Bandwidth-efficient Live Video Analytics.”

7 Ookla Speedtest Intelligence, “Starlink Performance in Europe,” Q3 2024.

8 “Ukraine Says Starlink’s Global Outage Hit Its Military Communications,” Reuters, July 25, 2025; and “Starlink Crackdown Cripples Russians—but American Engineer Warns Ukraine Is Just as Vulnerable,” Euromaidan Press, February 6, 2026.

9 “Ukraine on Track to Produce 3 Million Drones in 2025,” Kyiv Independent, December 2024.

10 See “Data Centers in Ukraine” and “Data Centers in Russia,” Cloudscene Market Directory, Cloudscene, 2024.

11 International Energy Agency, “Ukraine’s Energy Security and the Coming Winter,” 2024; and Financial Times, “Russia Has Taken Out Half of Ukraine’s Power Generation,” June 2024.

12 Energoatom Official Statement; and Al Jazeera Staff, “Mapping Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant,” Al Jazeera, September 2022.

13 “Ukraine’s DefTech at the End of 2025: From Drone Mas s to Systems Warfare,” New Geopolitics Research Network, December 2025; and “Ukrainian Company Reveals Its New Drone Interception Control Technology,” Pravda, January 2026.

14 Michael Newton, “How are Drones Changing War? The Future of the Battlefield,” Center for European Policy Analysis(CEPA), November 3, 2025.

15 David Kirichenko, “Ukraine’s AI Drones Are Reshaping Modern Warfare as Precision Strikes Outpace Traditional Artillery,” Milwaukee Independent, October 24, 2025.

16 General James E. Cartwright and Jags Kandasamy, “Operationalizing Artificial Intelligence and the Edge Continuum for Joint All-Domain Dominance,” Atlantic Council, August 2023.

17 “How Fiber Optic Networks Resist Signal Interference,” Fiber Optics Explained, May 2, 2025.

18 David Kirichenko, “The Booming China-Russia Drone Alliance,” CEPA, June 4, 2025.

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Chinese narratives around Anthropic highlight contradictions for the US

Kenton Thibaut — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 20:59:44 +0000

TAIPEI—The dispute between the US artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic and the Department of Defense has garnered much attention in the Western press in the past few weeks. It has also been the subject of lively commentary in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). For one, there is no shortage of schadenfreude being directed toward Anthropic in PRC outlets: The company has been vocal in highlighting China’s abuses of its technology and restricting Chinese firms from using its models under the auspices of preventing Chinese entities from advancing capabilities that might threaten US national security.

Given this, Chinese outlets noted with glee that Anthropic, which “has long been one of Silicon Valley’s most vocal proponents of peddling the ‘China AI threat narrative’ to Washington,” later faced US government restrictions on national security grounds. One Chinese outlet argued that this revealed the “chaos at the heart of US tech governance.” Perhaps the most uncomfortable PRC media critique of the Pentagon’s move against Anthropic is one that has long been lodged at PRC-based companies: that the trustworthiness of US AI systems is undermined when the government can compel access to them without restraint.

An analysis of Chinese articles across social media, as well as official and semi-official media, reveals several key themes that PRC observers of the US tech landscape have drawn from this episode.

PRC commentary does highlight a real contradiction in US AI governance.

First, a throughline in many of the PRC sources surveyed is that the conflict between Anthropic and the Department of Defense has laid bare some of the fundamental bargains that US AI companies have made as they have sought to strike a delicate balance: They seek to position themselves and their technologies as core to US national security while also trying to uphold high ethical standards with regard to the development and deployment of AI. In the view of many commentators, US policy has come to increasingly frame AI as a strategic national security capability. As they seek advantageous market position, favorable regulatory policy, and government partnerships, tech companies have argued that there is a need to protect and develop US AI capabilities against Chinese encroachment. As Chinese academician Gao Lingyun put it, the episode shows that “so-called ‘national security’ has become a political tool aimed at making enterprises serve its own interests.”

Much of the Chinese commentary on the Anthropic dispute aims to highlight the consequences of this framing. In the view of several commentators, US technology firms such as Anthropic promote national security narratives to demonstrate their strategic importance; however, those same narratives in turn strengthen the state’s claim to control the technology. In the view of several commentators, Anthropic in particular has embraced narratives that have contributed to the securitization of AI. For example, Anthropic founder Dario Amodei once said that selling high-end chips to China would be like “selling nuclear weapons to North Korea.”

In pushing these national security narratives, these analysts claim, companies such as Anthropic are now victims of their own success, as they are facing demands for full military access to their technologies. That a US firm is now facing a supply-chain risk designation—a provision once only applied to firms located in countries that are considered foreign adversaries—illustrates for many analysts in China the fundamental truth that as national security categories expand, governments will seek to assert greater sovereignty over advanced technologies. As one commentator put it, the dispute shows that the US government is “redefining the boundaries between technology and power within its AI national security framework.” One commentator similarly argues that the dispute “strips away the veil of so-called ‘technology neutrality,” showing that as AI capabilities grow, governments will increasingly deploy state power to integrate these systems into military operations.

More broadly, Chinese commentary examined the growing structural tensions between state power, corporate ethics, and AI militarization. Many commentators argued that the incident reveals a fundamental incompatibility with AI designed to curb its capabilities to not harm humans—as in Anthropic’s “Constitution” for its large language model Claude—while also claiming that developing the same technology for use in military applications is a determining factor in the “race for AI dominance.” In modern warfare, they argue, AI has become essential to intelligence analysis, targeting, and decision cycles, making its development and deployment a matter of strategic necessity, with corporate safeguards subsumed under the will of the state. In other words, when technology enters “efficiency-driven state machinery,” corporate restrictions become unsustainable. Companies may choose whether to participate in defense programs, these commentators argue, but they cannot dictate how militaries employ advanced technologies.

Some commentators pointed to Anthropic’s February announcement of a change in its Responsible Scaling Policy, in which the company would no longer pause training on new models whenever capabilities reached predefined danger thresholds, as evidence that in a battle between company ethics and state priorities, the latter always wins. Firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic, which once shaped global digital platforms and had broad leeway to operate as they saw fit, now face increasing pressure to align with state security priorities or face penalties.

In a bit of irony coming from PRC commentators, several analysts argued that this securitized language allows governments to redefine risks and obligations depending on their own strategic priorities. According to researcher Gao Lingyun, when national security definitions become “arbitrarily defined,” they lose moral authority as policy justifications. This argument mirrors criticisms that the United States has long directed at Chinese technology firms. US policymakers frequently warn that Chinese companies are compelled to assist PRC government authorities, including military and intelligence services, under existing legal frameworks such as the National Intelligence Law and the Data Security Law. PRC analysts have turned this criticism back on the United States, asking how much trust to put into AI technologies if governments possess the legal authority to compel access to them (and to US citizen data to enable surveillance, if Anthropic’s accounting is accurate).

Ultimately, PRC commentary on the Anthropic-Pentagon dispute reveals how the Chinese political apparatus is seeking to frame the incident internally for Chinese audiences. It behooves the PRC to present the US AI governance ecosystem as chaotic and to heighten the perception of risk around US military use of AI. However, PRC commentary does highlight a real contradiction in US AI governance. If US AI firms promote trust, safety, and independence as core advantages over their competitors, how durable are those claims in the long run when national security authorities intervene? And how does this impact the competitiveness and trustworthiness of US systems writ large? As AI systems are becoming increasingly central to military and economic competition, the answer to these questions will shape global perceptions of technological trust and jurisdictional risk beyond this dispute and the context of US-China competition.

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Iran war highlights Ukraine’s rapid rise to drone superpower status

David Kirichenko — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 21:00:19 +0000

Ukrainian drone warfare experts arrived in the Middle East this week to defend the region against Iranian attack drones. Teams of Ukrainian specialists will help coordinate air defense operations in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, and will also reportedly work alongside American colleagues to protect US military bases in Jordan.

News of these landmark deployments came also exactly one year after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s infamous Oval Office meeting with US President Donald Trump, which saw the US leader tell his Ukrainian counterpart, “You don’t have the cards.” Twelve months on, it would appear that Zelenskyy does in fact have some trump cards of his own.

The Iran war has sparked a sudden surge in international demand for Ukraine’s unique drone warfare expertise. As hostilities have spread across the Gulf region, more and more states are now looking to Kyiv for support as they seek to counter swarms of Iranian attack drones that are threatening to overwhelm or exhaust conventional missile-based air defenses.

Nobody is better equipped to address this challenge than Ukraine. Since 2022, the Ukrainians have gained unrivaled experience defending their country against massive Russian drone attacks on an almost daily basis. They have learned to do so in a cost-effective and sustainable manner by employing a wide range of tools including cheap interceptor drones, sophisticated monitoring systems, electronic warfare equipment, and helicopter gunships.

Since the outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East, Ukraine has signaled a readiness to share its drone warfare experience with the United States and its Gulf region allies. Kyiv’s offer has been readily accepted. As a result, the Ukrainian drone defense crews currently deploying to the Middle East are likely to be the first of many. Others are also taking note. Berlin confirmed plans this week to have Ukrainian experts train German troops, while Romania unveiled a major joint venture to co-produce drones together with Ukraine.

This is having a profound impact on Ukraine’s international image. Until recently, Ukraine was widely regarded as a country with little leverage that was heavily dependent on the West for survival. In light of recent developments, a radically different picture is now emerging of Ukraine as a valuable security partner and a major military power in its own right.

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Ukraine’s rise to drone superpower status has been remarkably rapid. The country first began experimenting with the use of drones on the battlefield in the wake of Russia’s initial invasion in 2014. However, major breakthroughs would not take place until the full-scale invasion of 2022.

In the space of just four years, Ukraine has gone from defense tech startup to global leader in the art of drone warfare. This remarkable progress owes much to Ukraine’s vibrant prewar tech sector and the country’s strong entrepreneurial spirit, which have combined to turbo-charge the wartime development of a domestic drone manufacturing sector. The existential nature of the Russian threat has also played a key role, providing local producers and government officials with all the motivation they need to remove potential roadblocks and maximize domestic output.

Ukrainian officials recognized early in the war that they could not rely on Western partners to supply the necessary weapons and ammunition on time and in sufficient quantities. Prioritizing the mass production of comparatively cheap drones was identified as Ukraine’s most realistic strategy as the country sought to counter Russia’s often overwhelming advantages in terms of manpower and conventional firepower. The results speak for themselves. When the full-scale invasion began, Ukraine only had a handful of drone producers. In 2026, domestic output is expected to reach seven million drones.

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Ukraine’s strategic emphasis on drones has transformed the war on land, in the air, and at sea. Around three-quarters of all Russian battlefield casualties are now inflicted by Ukrainian drones. Meanwhile, a drone-dominated kill zone stretching for over ten kilometers either side of the front lines makes any major offensive operations fraught with danger for the attackers. As the Russian invasion enters a fifth year, Ukraine’s “drone wall” is now the key to the country’s defensive strategy.

At sea, Kyiv has used domestically developed naval drones to break the Russian blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports and neutralize around one-third of Russia’s entire Black Sea Fleet. Following a string of naval humiliations, Putin was forced to withdraw the remainder of his warships from Crimea to the relative safety of Russia itself.

Ukraine’s naval drones are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Some recent models have been armed with anti-aircraft missile capabilities, while others have served as mini aircraft carriers for smaller drones. This creative use of maritime drone technologies has made it possible for Ukraine to gain the upper hand in the Battle of the Black Sea, despite not having a conventional navy to speak of.

Ukraine’s growing drone arsenal also includes long-range drones that have made it possible to strike targets deep inside Russia. In recent years, Kyiv has escalated attacks on military and industrial sites located over one thousand kilometers from the Ukrainian border. This has expanded the geographical scope of the war and brought Putin’s invasion home to Russia in ways that the Kremlin propaganda machine is unable to censor.

Ukraine’s new friends in the Gulf region are primarily interested in Kyiv’s interceptor drone technologies. These weapons have been developed in response to Russia’s own innovative use of attack drones. Since acquiring the blueprints from Iran during the early stages of the war, Russia has significantly upgraded its fleet of Shahed drones to make them bigger, faster, and more maneuverable. Moscow has also dramatically increased production, enabling far larger nightly attacks on targets throughout Ukraine.

The Ukrainian authorities have responded to this escalating Russian bombardment by developing a series of interceptor drones that can be mass produced for a fraction of the cost of traditional air defense missiles. Customers including oil giant Saudi Aramco are reportedly now queuing up to acquire these Ukrainian interceptors.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he expected an easy victory and vowed to “demilitarize” the country. With Ukrainian drone specialists now training NATO forces while guarding Gulf petrostates and US military bases, it is safe to say that this attempted demilitarization has backfired in spectacular fashion.

Rather than leaving Kyiv disarmed and defenseless, the war unleashed by Putin four years ago has transformed Ukraine into a drone superpower. This newfound status is already changing outside perceptions of the country and looks set to further strengthen Ukraine’s geopolitical standing as more countries seek to benefit from Kyiv’s drone warfare expertise. Zelenskyy clearly holds plenty of cards and is prepared to play them.

David Kirichenko is an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

Joe Costa

Director

Defense Industry Defense Policy

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Q&A with Turkish Member of Parliament Fuat Oktay

Atlantic Council Turkey Program — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Fuat Oktay is the chairman of the Turkish Grand National Assembly’s (Türkiye’s Parliament) Foreign Affairs Committee. He previously served as a vice president of the Republic of Türkiye. The Defense Journal of the Atlantic Council Turkey Program recently interviewed Oktay, covering US- Türkiye relations, the Turkish defense industry, and NATO.

The interview was conducted on February 18, 2026 and has been lightly edited for style.

DJ: Recent developments in Syria appear to have removed a long-standing elephant in the room in US–Turkish relations. Washington and Ankara now seem aligned on preserving Syria’s territorial integrity and on the primacy of a centralized government in Damascus under President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s leadership. How do you assess this convergence, and what does it signal for the future of US–Turkish security cooperation?

Oktay: It is true that Türkiye and the United States have converged in recent years on a number of foreign policy issues. This convergence is visible not only in Syria, but also in efforts to end the war in Ukraine, support a durable framework in Gaza, and encouraging progress in the Azerbaijan-Armenia peace process, among other areas. This convergence is for the establishment of sustainable peace and stability in our region. Our region is tired of conflicts and war. The issues in our region should be solved through dialogue and not through armed clashes and war.

In Syria, Türkiye has been supporting the unity and territorial integrity of this country since the very beginning. Now both Türkiye and the United States support Syria’s territorial integrity and unity and recognize the importance of a centralized and effective government in Damascus. A united, stable, inclusive, and prosperous Syria is, first and foremost, in the interest of the Syrian people. It is also in the interest of the broader region.

This convergence reflects a realistic reading of regional dynamics and a mutual understanding that sustainable solutions require regional actors and inclusive diplomacy.

It is the right time to reinforce the positive momentum in Türkiye–US relations to a resilient, future-oriented, principled relationship, grounded in mutual respect and strategic responsibility.

DJ: Do you see this more constructive atmosphere on Syria translating into movement on bilateral defense ties? In your view, what should both sides do to enhance the defense portfolio? And to follow up, what are the odds of Türkiye’s eventual return to the F-35 program in the near to medium term?

Oktay: Defense cooperation should be viewed in the wider context of the overall relationship. One of the main drivers of a more constructive atmosphere has been the direct and cordial dialogue between President [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan and President [Donald] Trump. Strong engagement at the leadership level has generated momentum across multiple areas of cooperation.

Economically, our bilateral trade volume is approaching $40 billion, and we share the objective of reaching $100 billion. Major items—such as Turkish airline companies’ aircraft purchases, long-term LNG [liquefied natural gas] arrangements, and potential future cooperation in civil nuclear energy—can further deepen our economic ties.

In this spirit, defense cooperation should mirror the positive trajectory in our bilateral relations, as well as the growing convergence on regional policy issues. For this reason, it is important to overcome the existing restrictions affecting Türkiye in the defense industry domain. Restrictions between allies are, by definition, inconsistent with the spirit of alliance and partnership.

At present, there are efforts at the governmental level in both countries to identify a workable path forward, including on the question of Türkiye’s access to the F-35 program. In February, as the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, we visited Washington, DC, and held constructive discussions with our counterparts in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. We conveyed our view that it is neither coherent nor sustainable to maintain such restrictions among partners and allies. We hope to see tangible progress at the congressional level to strengthen defense industry cooperation.

DJ: Türkiye’s defense industry has undergone a remarkable transformation over the past decade. Where do you see Turkish defense industrial capabilities today, and what do they represent for both Türkiye and the NATO Alliance? Looking ahead, what should be Ankara’s strategic priorities in this domain?

Oktay: Türkiye’s defense industry has achieved significant and sustained progress over the past two decades. During this period, we have transitioned from an import-procurement model toward a high-volume domestic design and production model, with a growing export dimension.

The share of local and national production in the defense industry has increased from around 20 percent to more than 80 percent, and we expect this rate to reach 85 percent in the near future.

Today, Türkiye is producing manned and unmanned fighter aircraft, such as the Kaan and Kızılelma jets, warships, armored vehicles, missiles, and rockets, as well as advanced sensors and related systems. At the same time, Türkiye is increasingly localizing critical electronic subsystems, including avionics, data links, communications, and mission computers, as well as smart munitions. Defense exports have now surpassed $10 billion annually. Turkish defense industry exports and cooperation cover 185 countries covering all continents, including such NATO members as the US, UK, Spain, and Italy.

In summary, Türkiye has become an important global producer of advanced defense technologies. These capabilities—both in production scale and technological innovation—represent a valuable contribution to NATO’s collective security, and particularly to European security. In this context, the inclusion of Türkiye in European defense industry initiatives is essential in order for both NATO and Europe to fully benefit from Türkiye’s achievements in this field.

DJ: The KAAN fighter program is widely viewed as a cornerstone of Türkiye’s future force structure. What vision do you associate with KAAN, both in terms of operational capabilities and Türkiye’s broader ambitions for defense cooperation and access to new defense markets?

Oktay: KAAN is among the most advanced fifth-generation fighter projects currently under development. It reflects core fifth-generation design requirements such as low observability, sensor fusion, and network-enabled operational concepts.

KAAN will represent a significant capability enhancement for the Turkish Air Force and will strengthen NATO’s southeastern flank. In addition, the program is a major driver of innovation for Türkiye’s broader aerospace ecosystem, with spillover effects across engineering, production, and advanced systems integration.

A number of countries have expressed interest in acquiring or co-producing KAAN. Last year, an agreement for forty-eight KAANaircraft was signed with Indonesia, and several other countries remain in close contact with Türkiye regarding potential cooperation.

DJ: The next NATO summit will be hosted in Ankara. What does this mean symbolically and strategically for the Alliance and for Türkiye? How do you assess Türkiye’s role within NATO today—and NATO’s importance for Türkiye?

Oktay: We look forward to hosting NATO’s next summit in Ankara on July 7–8, 2026. The summit will be an important opportunity to review progress in implementing the Hague commitments and to take decisions that further strengthen NATO’s deterrence and defense posture.

As the war in Ukraine has heightened Europe’s security concerns and uncertainty is affecting transatlantic relations, the Ankara Summit will be a critical meeting. Key issues will be discussed, and major decisions will be taken on the future direction of the Alliance.

Türkiye has always played, and continues to play, a vital role in the security of the entire Euro-Atlantic region. Türkiye holds NATO’s second-largest army and remains among the top contributors to NATO operations and missions, supporting both the Alliance’s southeastern and eastern flanks. We have already exceeded the 2-percent benchmark in defense spending, and we remain committed to further strengthening our contributions.

As we are committed to the security of our allies, we likewise expect them to be fully committed to Türkiye’s security and defense.

DJ: Türkiye’s influence across the Turkic world has grown, particularly through the Organization of Turkic States. How would you characterize Ankara’s strategic vision in this space, and what does the geopolitical horizon suggest about Türkiye’s long-term role across this geography?

Oktay: Türkiye has deep historical and cultural ties across the Turkic world. The Organization of Turkic States (OTS) is today the principal political framework for multilateral cooperation in this space. It reflects a shared vision to deepen integration and promote regional peace, stability, and prosperity. The OTS also functions as a catalyst for stronger regional ownership, and with the establishment of multiple sub-institutions, it is evolving rapidly into a more structured and specialized organization.

In parallel, the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic States (TÜRKPA) serves as the main platform for strengthening parliamentary cooperation among Turkic states and supporting broader integration efforts. At the parliamentary level, we have also developed a mechanism for bringing together the Foreign Relations Committees of the Parliaments of Turkic States. The first such meeting took place in Azerbaijan, and the second meeting was held in Istanbul last year.

Through these institutions—along with strong bilateral relations—Türkiye is expanding cultural, political, and economic cooperation and coordination among Turkic states, with the objective of promoting peace and prosperity across Central Asia and the Caucasus.Bottom of Form

Fuat Oktay is the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Grand National Assembly of the Republic of Türkiye. He served as the last Undersecretary of the Prime Ministry between 2016 and 2018. In the first cabinet of the Presidential Government System, he served as Türkiye’s first Vice President between 2018 and 2023.

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Within the Atlantic Council’s longstanding commitment to strengthening the transatlantic relationship, the Atlantic Council Turkey Program conducts research, provides thought leadership, and offers a platform for strategic dialogue between the US, Turkey, and NATO allies to address the region’s toughest challenges and explore opportunities, including in the fields of energy, business & trade, technology, defense, and security.

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Air defense in the age of saturation: Europe after the post-Cold War peace dividend illusion and Turkey’s Steel Dome

Can Kasapoğlu — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 13:00:00 +0000

By the end of the Cold War, European NATO nations considered air and missile defense to be a secondary military priority rather than an essential tool of intrawar deterrence, which refers to controlling escalatory patterns within an ongoing conflict.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disproved this view, revealing how mass missile and drone salvos can quickly overwhelm limited interceptor supplies and unready command structures. The threat is not about somebody else’s war. When as many as two dozen Russian unmanned aerial vehicles entered Polish airspace on September 10, 2025, NATO allies responded by scrambling one of the most sophisticated tactical defensive contingents in the world. Italian airborne early warning and control aircraft, German Patriot air and missile defense systems, Polish F-16s, fifth-generation Dutch F-35s, and a Belgian A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport aircraft were all brought forth to track and engage the drones. The imbalance between the overall price tags of the offensive and defensive packages clashing in the aerial engagement was gargantuan. More importantly, Russia could pursue similar concepts of operations in a NATO showdown—whereas Europe’s air defenses would experience wear and tear quickly in a high-operational-tempo scenario.

While Europe debates between urgent gap filling and long-term industrial autonomy amid the drone wall talks, Turkey has taken a different path. The Steel Dome initiative demonstrates Ankara’s early understanding that air defense requires integrated, scalable, and mass-produced systems on rapid timelines.

Air defense as a strategic imperative after Europe’s post-Cold War illusion

During the Cold War, NATO treated air defense as a foundational mission. This paradigm eroded after 1991 as threat perceptions faded. For more than three decades after the Cold War, Europe operated under the egregiously naive assumption that peer-level air and missile threats had receded into history. That illusion collapsed with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which reintroduced ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, combat aviation, and mass drone attacks as central tools of interstate warfare. Moreover, the Twelve-Day War between Iran and Israel in June 2025 cemented the new air threat picture. The new conflict trends have forced Europe to confront a long-neglected reality: without a coherent, layered air and missile defense, control of the air cannot be assumed and nations cannot stay safe.

Russia fields two missile types that matter most to European defense: the 500-kilometer range, ground-launched 9M723 Iskander and the air-launched, medium-range Kh-47M2 Kinzhal. Ukrainian intelligence assesses combined annual production at roughly 840 to 1,020 missiles, higher than earlier

estimates. The ballistic and aeroballistic missiles are backed by large salvos of cruise missiles and Shahed drones—the latter marks more than five thousand kamikaze assets raining overwhelming damage onto Ukraine in a given month.

Europe’s defense relies mainly on the US Patriot and the Franco-Italian SAMP/T antimissile systems, both dependent on costly interceptors priced at around $2 million to $4 million each—often far more expensive than the missiles they are meant to defeat. Production is the choke point. Patriot interceptor output across the United States, Japan, and Germany might rise from about 850 today to 1,130 by 2027, and possibly to 1,470 by 2029. Even then, global demand means Europe might receive only a fraction of the output, and combat experience shows two or three interceptors are often needed per incoming missile. Output of the alternative, Aster 30 interceptors for SAMP/T, is projected at only 230 to 270 annually for ballistic missile defense, and their performance in Ukraine has lagged that of Patriots, implying higher interceptor consumption. Compounding the problem, Russia and Iran have been producing large numbers of long-range drones that can saturate defenses, increasing the odds that ballistic missiles penetrate targets. Cheaper, mass-produced systems might eventually counter drones, and lasers could one day address ballistic threats—but neither solution will arrive in time to close the imminent missile defense gap.

Europe’s current air defense posture remains uneven. High-end fighter fleets and a mix of European, US, and Israeli missile systems exist, but warfighting prowess lags behind capability. Interceptor stockpiles are insufficient for sustained high-intensity conflict, production timelines are slow, and short-range air defense gaps leave European forces exposed to the kind of kamikaze drone warfare now routine in Ukraine. These weaknesses are as much industrial as military. The response has revealed a strategic divide between two conceptual camps: the “gap fillers” and the “autonomists.” Gap fillers, as defined in this paper, favor rapid procurement of proven, off-the-shelf systems, primarily from the United States and Israel—predominantly the Arrow-3, Patriot, NASAMS, and Barak systems—to close urgent gaps. In contrast, autonomists, led by France, argue for long-term European autonomy through indigenous systems, even at the cost of slower fielding. This tension defines current debates over air defense initiatives and reinforces Europe’s continued reliance on US-made systems at the upper tier. Meanwhile, Turkey, a sui generis European NATO nation with its national defense technological and industrial base, has an alternative path: the Steel Dome.

Europe’s strategic air defense gaps and Turkey’s Steel Dome architecture

Turkey’s Steel Dome represents a critical leap in framing air defense as a national, system-of-systems architecture rather than a collection of stand-alone platforms. The Russian S-400, therefore, will need to be left out in the cold as a stand-alone weapon in Turkish military capabilities.

Designed as an integrated and layered air and missile defense construct, the Steel Dome aims to address threats across short-, medium-, and long-range engagement envelopes and all endoatmospheric altitude segments, while preserving operational sovereignty through indigenous development. The system-of-defensive system has been endorsed at the highest levels of defense decision-making and support for it continues rising as additional components reach operational status. In late August 2025, Turkey crossed a critical threshold in its pursuit of strategic autonomy in air defense with the first operational delivery of the components for the indigenous Steel Dome air defense system. The delivery coincided with the expansion of military electronics company Aselsan’s industrial base, reflecting Ankara’s view of defense production as a pillar of sovereignty. In November 2025, Turkey’s defense industrial base took a significant step forward with the signing of contracts valued at approximately $6.5 billion to procure a broad range of systems for the Steel Dome.

At the force-employment level, the Steel Dome integrates point and area air defense assets with longer-range interceptors into a unified command-and-control framework. Close-in defense is provided by antiaircraft artillery and very short-range systems optimized for counter-UAS (unmanned aircraft system) and low-altitude cruise missile threats. The Hisar family forms the short- and medium-range surface-to-air missile layer, while the Siper system anchors the long-range air and missile defense mission, extending coverage against high-performance aircraft and missile threats. An artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted command-and-control architecture fuses sensors, shooters, and electronic warfare elements into a unified air picture, compressing decision timelines and enabling commanders to operate in a dynamic, contested airspace. In an era defined by unmanned systems and saturation salvos, this coherence is as decisive as kinetic action. The strategic significance of Steel Dome lies less in individual interceptors than in its integration logic. By fusing sensors, effectors, and command elements into a single air picture and prioritizing serial production under national control, Turkey is building an air defense posture designed for sustained competition rather than episodic procurement. In other words, Steel Dome epitomizes the Turkish leadership’s strategic autonomy agenda. The most critical lesson of Ukraine is not merely about the quantities of missiles or radars, but about strategic coherence. Air defense is no longer a procurement problem to be managed in peacetime cycles. Turkey has already grasped the bitter truth and made its choice to act rapidly and decisively through the Steel Dome initiative—a response Turkey’s European allies should study. The Steel Dome initiative also serves industrial and geopolitical purposes. It is intended to reduce dependence on foreign air defense systems while positioning Turkey as a supplier to states facing similar threat environments. The emphasis on modularity and scalability suggests an export-oriented mindset, enabling partners to buy into the architecture incrementally rather than commit to a single, rigid system.

Conclusion

Europe’s current air defense dilemma is defined by scarcity and sequencing. Interceptors are expensive, production is slow, and operational experience shows that quantity alone does not translate into resilience. The deeper vulnerability lies in fragmentation: multiple systems, limited stockpiles, and insufficient integration across sensors, shooters, and command layers. As long as air defense remains divided between national stopgaps and Alliance bottlenecks, Europe will struggle to convert capability into credible deterrence.

Turkey’s Steel Dome offers a contrasting defense industrial policy. By building a layered, integrated architecture under national coordination from the outset, Ankara has prioritized coherence over perfection and sustainability over symbolic capability or overpriced foreign sales. The emphasis on systems integration, domestic production, and serial scalability is key to the Turkish government. In an era in which airspace is increasingly contested by mass and speed, the strategic advantage revolves around a defense that can endure, adapt, and sustain in highly attritional and prolonged wars.

Dr. Can Kasapoglu is a non-resident senior fellow at Hudson Institute. Dr. Kasapoglu holds a Ph.D. from the Turkish War College and an M.Sci. degree from the Turkish Military Academy. Previously he was an Eisenhower Fellow at the NATO Defense College in Rome and held a visiting research post at the NATO Cyber Center of Excellence in Tallinn.

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Russian army faces comms crisis amid Starlink cut and Kremlin crackdown

Katherine Spencer, Marc Goedemans — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 14:05:45 +0000

The Russian army in Ukraine is facing a growing communications crisis amid recent disruptions to Telegram and Starlink, leaving troops increasingly in the dark and exposing mounting strains inside Russia.

The problems began in early February when Elon Musk imposed restrictions on unauthorized Russian access to Starlink satellites operated by Musk’s SpaceX company that provide high-speed internet. The move came following talks between Musk and recently appointed Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.

Starlink made headlines in 2022 as a crucial tool for the Ukrainian military during the initial phase of the Russian invasion. More recently, Russia has acquired thousands of Starlink internet terminals and incorporated them as an important element of the invading army’s communications infrastructure.

Efforts to disable unauthorized Russian terminals operating in Ukraine had an immediate impact, with Ukrainian officials reporting a sharp drop in Russian bombardments and drone attacks on front line positions. In one incident on the Zaporizhzhia front, twelve Russian soldiers were reportedly killed by friendly fire after a Starlink terminal failure.

Ukraine appears to have benefited from Russia’s sudden loss of connectivity. In the first five days following the Starlink cutoff, Ukrainian forces reportedly liberated more than two hundred square kilometers of territory, representing an area roughly equivalent to the Russian army’s gains throughout the whole month of December. This trend has continued into early March.

While there is still some debate over the extent to which the areas reclaimed by Ukraine had previously been under Russian control, the advances provided a boost to Ukrainian morale while strengthening the country’s front line position. According to the Institute for the Study of War, this battlefield success owed much to the disruption caused by Russia’s loss of Starlink services.

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With no domestically produced alternative to Starlink technology, Russian units are now scrambling to find alternative ways to communicate. Some have sought to revive access to the Starlink system, with the Ukrainian authorities warning that Russians are now attempting to pressure the families of Ukrainian prisoners to register terminals.

Russia’s own satellite communications system, which is run by Gazprom Space Systems, has been used in a limited capacity during the war. However, it is regarded as far less reliable than Starlink and is not seen as a viable alternative.

The fallout over the loss of Starlink has sparked a scandal in Russia, with many questioning why the army allowed itself to become so dependent on a communications system owned and controlled by an American company. Critics have attacked this development as both a national humiliation and a strategic blunder which left the Russian military dangerously vulnerable.

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Russia’s recent communication woes are not only due to external restrictions. Days after Musk agreed to cut Starlink access, the Kremlin moved to slow down the hugely popular messenger app Telegram, citing the application’s failure to comply with Russian data laws.

This was widely seen as a significant step toward closing one of the few remaining uncensored communications channels in Putin’s Russia. Telegram serves as a leading news platform among Russian audiences with over 93 million users in the country.

The Kremlin decision to restrict Telegram sparked a rare backlash within Russia’s own ranks, with pro-war bloggers particularly vocal in their criticism. The limitations further undermined connectivity between Russian forces fighting in Ukraine, with many soldiers complaining that the loss of Telegram would hamper their ability to share battlefield information and conduct fundraising activities.

Recent measures against Telegram are part of a much larger effort by Putin to exert greater control over all digital communications. The end goal appears to be the establishment of a “sovereign internet” inside Russia sealed off from foreign influence.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia has banned Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, and X. Meanwhile, the Kremlin is now actively pushing Russians to use the new state-controlled MAX app, which contains extensive tracking capabilities for surveillance and is now pre-installed on all phones in Russia.

As the war in Ukraine has progressed, Russia has also restricted internet usage through the widespread implementation of mobile internet blackouts. Putin recently signed a law expanding the ability of state bodies to restrict connectivity, essentially handing the security services a kill switch to the internet inside Russia.

Putin’s readiness to target Telegram despite the challenges this creates for the Russian army in Ukraine has led to speculation that he may be prioritizing domestic regime stability over military success. Some have suggested that he could be preparing for a new and politically risky mobilization; others believe the Kremlin fears unrest as the economic situation in Russia worsens.

Whatever the true motives behind recent efforts to throttle Telegram in Russia, the Kremlin’s actions do not project confidence. On the contrary, they hint at a regime seeking to silence critics and prevent any potential grassroots discontent from gaining traction.

Katherine Spencer is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Marc Goedemans is a Young Global Professional at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

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Ukraine’s experience is indispensable in the fight against Iranian drones

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 01:14:09 +0000

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer says Britain plans to deploy Ukrainian drone warfare specialists to the Middle East as part of international efforts to counter the growing threat posed by swarms of Iranian drones. Amid Iranian airstrikes across the region, Starmer announced on March 1 that Britain would “bring experts from Ukraine to help Gulf partners shoot down Iranian drones attacking them.”

For Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Starmer’s proposal represents long overdue recognition of his country’s status as a military force to be reckoned with. “Ukraine’s experience in defense is, in many respects, irreplaceable,” Zelenskyy commented following Starmer’s remarks. While the Ukrainian leader has yet to commit to a role in the Gulf, he has offered to dispatch Ukraine’s leading anti-drone specialists if regional leaders can first convince Vladimir Putin to pause his ongoing invasion.

Britain’s decision to call on Ukrainian expertise serves to underline modern Ukraine’s remarkable transformation from military backwater to world leader in drone warfare. When the Russian invasion of Ukraine first began in 2014, decades of post-Soviet neglect had left the Ukrainian military in a sorry state. At the time, Kyiv could only call on a few thousand combat troops and had to rely on a ragtag collection of volunteer battalions to contain Kremlin forces in the east of the country.

A series of ambitious reforms followed, but it was not until the full-scale invasion of February 2022 that the Ukrainian army truly came of age. Faced with the existential threat of Russia’s invasion, the Ukrainian nation rose up to resist. The ranks of the army swelled to include around one million troops, while the country’s stagnant defense industry was soon taking the first steps toward an unprecedented resurgence that continues to this day.

Over the past four years, much of Ukraine’s defense sector growth has focused on new technologies as Ukrainians have sought ways to counter Russia’s often overwhelming advantages in terms of funding, manpower, and conventional weapons. A thriving domestic ecosystem of defense tech startups has emerged, with a particular emphasis on drone production. Ukrainian developers are able to test new ideas almost immediately in combat conditions, leading to a culture of relentless innovation that has turbo-charged the evolution of drone warfare and reshaped the battlefield.

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Ukraine’s prowess has not gone unnoticed, with numerous European partners seeking to benefit from Ukrainian military know-how. In recent weeks, Germany became the latest NATO country to unveil plans for Ukrainian military instructors to train their troops. Ukrainian trainers are also reportedly sharing their drone warfare insights with multiple other European countries including Poland and Britain.

This represents a striking shift in the relationship between Ukraine and the country’s allies. Throughout the period from 2014 until 2022, Western military trainers routinely traveled to Ukraine to provide instruction, while the defense sector discourse in Kyiv revolved around Ukrainian efforts to adopt and incorporate NATO standards. After four years of defending themselves against the biggest European invasion since World War II, it is now Ukraine that is setting the standards, while NATO commanders try to catch up.

Ukraine’s NATO partners have much to learn, it would seem. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that during a spring 2025 exercise in Estonia involving NATO forces and Ukrainian drone crews, the Ukrainians easily overcame a far larger NATO contingent, sparking considerable alarm and much debate. Meanwhile, many Ukrainian soldiers have noted that the military equipment provided by the country’s Western partners is often now redundant due to the lightning pace of the technological advances taking place on the Ukrainian battlefield.

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Ukraine’s emergence as a major military power is a nightmare scenario for Russia. When Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion four years ago, he identified the “demilitarization” of Ukraine as one of his two key war aims. If demilitarization was the goal, the invasion has failed in spectacular fashion. Far from being demilitarized, today’s Ukraine now boasts the largest and most technologically advanced army in Europe.

Across the continent, there is growing awareness that with the United States seeking to reduce its transatlantic security commitments, Ukraine is destined to play a central role in the future defense of Europe. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine any European security strategy that doesn’t include Ukraine as a core contributor. A country that spent years fruitlessly seeking an invitation to join NATO is now acknowledged as a guarantor of Europe’s security at a time when faith in the effectiveness of the alliance has fallen to record lows.

Zelenskyy’s proposal to send specialists to the Middle East in exchange for a Kremlin ceasefire should probably not be taken literally, but it does reflect the confidence of a man who knows his country is more prepared than most for the realities of twenty-first century warfare. Zelenskyy clearly recognizes that Ukraine’s unrivaled experience is a valuable commodity. This is particularly true in the current context, with Iranian drones saturating existing air defenses and demanding the kind of cost-effective solutions that Ukraine has spent the past four years perfecting.

The Ukrainian leader also well aware that his country’s military strength represents a major trump card as he seeks to negotiate a settlement that will safeguard Ukrainian statehood and secure the country’s European future. The war unleashed by Putin in 2022 was meant to strip Ukraine of its army, its identity, and its sovereignty. Instead, it has transformed Ukraine into one of Europe’s leading military powers and positioned the country at the cutting edge of global defense sector innovation. This new reality will help define Ukraine’s place in the wider world for decades to come, while serving as a formidable obstacle to Russia’s imperial ambitions.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

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The emergence of the Flamingo as a credible threat marks a major upgrade in Ukraine’s long-range strike capabilities. With a reported maximum range of around three thousand kilometers and a payload of over one thousand kilograms, the Flamingo is far more powerful than the drones typically used by Ukraine for strikes inside Russia. While long-range drones have been instrumental in puncturing the myth of Russian invulnerability, their relatively small payloads have meant that damage caused in attacks is often easy to repair. As the recent strike in Votkinsk demonstrated, the Flamingo has the potential to be far more destructive.

Much will now depend on Ukraine’s ability to scale up output and produce enough Flamingos to make a difference. While the February attack on the Votkinsk facility was a success, Ukrainian officials have since confirmed that multiple missiles were required in order for one to hit home. It will therefore be crucial to manufacture entire flocks of Flamingos if the Ukrainians wish to make the most of this new weapon.

The Flamingo initiative is one of a number of Ukrainian missile projects currently under development. Ukraine is pouring millions of dollars into a new domestic “missile market” that aims to replicate the success of its rapidly expanding drone industry. Recently appointed Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has noted that the government is acting like a venture investor by giving large grants to multiple different local companies active in missile production.

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Ukraine’s emphasis on the development domestic missile capabilities makes strategic sense. The front lines of the war have remained largely static for over three years, with Russia unable to secure any decisive breakthroughs despite holding the battlefield initiative throughout this period. Kyiv’s current plan is to reduce any further Russian advances to a bare minimum while inflicting crippling losses. In parallel, Ukraine aims to bring Putin’s invasion home to Russia with an escalating campaign of airstrikes using missiles in combination with drones.

Ukrainian commanders are playing a long game by targeting the Russian oil refineries, energy infrastructure, and military production facilities that support the war effort. This approach is designed to gradually erode Moscow’s ability to generate revenues and fund the invasion. Adding missiles to the mix dramatically increases the challenges facing the Kremlin. As Ukraine’s long-range arsenal expands, Russia’s limited air defenses will be stretched thinner and thinner. The end goal is to transform Russia’s vastness from an asset into a liability.

No single weapon can serve as a silver bullet to stop Russia’s invasion. However, the true significance of Ukraine’s domestic missile program lies in its trajectory. If Kyiv can maintain the current pace of innovation while simultaneously reducing costs and scaling production, this will greatly strengthen the country’s position at the negotiating table.

Putin seems to be well aware of the dangers posed by long-range missiles and has worked hard to prevent Kyiv’s partners from supplying Ukraine with these weapons. When Western leaders mulled lifting restrictions on the use of Western missiles against targets inside Russia in late 2024, Putin warned that this would place NATO “at war” and Russia. More recently, he intervened directly when US President Donald Trump appeared to be on the verge of providing Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles.

There is no denying that Putin has been successful in his efforts to deter Kyiv’s allies, but he cannot stop the Ukrainians from producing their own long-range missiles. If this trend continues, it can help establish a framework for a pragmatic settlement. Many in Ukraine believe a strong arsenal of domestically produced long-range missiles can serve as a meaningful deterrent against future Russian aggression. While Ukrainians have little faith in written security guarantees, they see long-range missile capabilities as something Putin simply cannot ignore.

David Kirichenko is an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

Putin’s plan: Make Ukraine unlivable by destroying essential infrastructure

William Dixon, Maksym Beznosiuk — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 22:02:33 +0000

The first signs of spring have been particularly welcome in Ukraine this year as the country begins to emerge from the toughest winter in living memory. Since late 2025, millions of Ukrainians have been plunged into subzero darkness as Russia relentlessly bombed heating and energy networks amid Arctic weather in a bid to freeze the country into submission.

Despite rising temperatures, the Ukrainian civilian population will almost certainly continue to face challenging conditions in the coming months as the strategic emphasis of Russia’s invasion turns increasingly toward destroying Ukraine’s infrastructure and making the country unlivable. This shift reflects changing military realities, with Putin’s invading army unable to achieve any major breakthroughs while suffering catastrophic casualties.

Russia has held the battlefield initiative since late 2023 but has only managed to capture around one percent of additional Ukrainian territory during this period at enormous cost in terms of both manpower and equipment. With drones now dominating the front lines, the potential for conventional large-scale offensive operations has been greatly reduced.

This is forcing Putin and his generals to rethink. The Kremlin dictator remains determined to extinguish Ukrainian independence and force Ukraine permanently back into the Russian orbit. However, he knows that there is little prospect of achieving his ambitious objectives via the bloody battles currently taking place over the rust belt towns and villages of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

In order to break this strategic deadlock, Russia aims to systematically dismantle the conditions that allow Ukraine to function as a state. This means the continued bombardment of energy infrastructure throughout the country; it is also likely to involve expanded attacks on other crucial public utilities, such as municipal water services and sewage treatment. In parallel, Russia will increase strikes on civilian transport with an emphasis on Ukraine’s logistically vital rail network.

The end goal is to deprive Ukraine of the industrial capacity to defend itself and destroy the basic amenities to sustain even a minimum standard of living. Kremlin officials hope this will break Ukrainian morale and enable Putin to dictate the terms of peace.

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Russia has made no formal declarations regarding its intentions, but the strategic shift toward the bombardment of infrastructure over the past year has been unmistakable. In 2025, Russia launched around 55,000 kamikaze drones at targets in Ukraine, representing a fivefold increase from the total one year earlier. Attacks have sought to deprive individual cities of power while severing Ukraine’s national energy network along the Dnipro River.

The impact of this bombing campaign extends far beyond civilian suffering. By cutting off major power generation assets and disrupting connectivity, Russia is pushing the entire grid into a near-permanent state of emergency. This is placing heavy strain on Ukraine’s defense industry, which is often deprived of the electricity it needs to function. With Kyiv now relying on domestic defense sector output to cover around 50 percent of the country’s military needs, this disruption to production poses a grave threat to national security.

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The coming spring season will be crucial. The next few months of warmer weather should be Ukraine’s window to rebuild and recover lost industrial capacity. However, Moscow will be working hard to slam that window shut with waves of attacks made possible by Russia’s surging domestic drone production.

The continued bombardment of infrastructure targets across Ukraine will also help exhaust the country’s limited air defense ammunition supplies. Every interceptor missile used to defend a Ukrainian city or a power substation is one less available to cover front line positions. This will force Kyiv to prioritize between protecting the civilian population or shielding soldiers in the combat zone.

Another key feature of the war during the first half of 2026 will be escalating Russian attacks on Ukraine’s railways. Recent strikes on key routes linking Ukraine to Poland indicate that this campaign is already well underway. Any major disruption to rail services could cause significant economic damage and prevent millions of Ukrainians from traveling. More importantly, it would leave the army under-supplied and logistically isolated during the height of the summer campaigning season when Russia’s offensive capacity is expected to peak.

It is still not too late to counter the Kremlin’s plans, but the clock is ticking. Kyiv’s partners must urgently enhance Ukraine’s air defense capabilities and provide the country with more systems to protect the expanding list of potential infrastructure targets. Efforts should also be made to fortify strategic sites and anticipate future repair requirements by providing likely replacement components in advance.

Russia’s current strategy should come as no surprise. At the very start of his reign, Putin learned in Chechnya that pulverizing infrastructure was a reliable path to victory in a conflict that conventional military force could not resolve. In 2003, the United Nations reportedly called Chechen capital Grozny “the most destroyed city on earth.”

The Kremlin dictator now plans to secure victory in Ukraine by employing similar tactics. If Ukraine’s electricity grid and critical infrastructure are allowed to fragment further, the authorities in Kyiv may find themselves literally powerless to defend their country.

William Dixon is a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Service Institute specializing in cyber and international security issues. Maksym Beznosiuk is a strategy and security analyst whose work focuses on Russia, Ukraine, and international security.

In Kursk, this advantage proved consequential. Over seven months of fighting, Russian fiber-optic drones helped render Ukraine’s presence in the Kursk region increasingly unsustainable. Ukrainian forces ultimately withdrew back across the border in March 2025.

Open source strike videos published by Russian war bloggers indicate that a disproportionate share of Russian fiber-optic drone attacks from August 2024 to September 2025 took place in the Kursk sector, even though the area represented only a small fraction of the overall front lines of the war during that period.

Strikingly, Russian fiber-optic drone attacks contributed to an unprecedented vehicle loss ratio that saw Ukraine lose 25 percent more vehicles than Russia in Kursk. Many of the vehicles damaged or destroyed were supply trucks and personnel carriers, but targets also included high-value equipment such as Abrams tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, systems that Ukraine did not have in abundant supply. In the words of a Ukrainian medic who fought during the Kursk campaign: “Our logistics just collapsed; fiber-optic drones were monitoring all routes, leaving no way to deliver ammunition or provisions.”

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After Kursk, the trend soon spread. Fiber-optic drones began proliferating across other areas of the front, graduating from a niche capability to a staple weapon. Their use has since expanded to such an extent that vast swaths of Ukrainian farmland and forest are now littered with fiber-optic cables shed by drones. Fiber-optic drones have also featured prominently in a series of major battles, including the most consequential fighting of the past year in the Pokrovsk region of eastern Ukraine.

By mid-2025, the fiber-optic drone story was no longer so one-sided as Ukraine moved to replicate and adapt the capability. Domestic production surged thanks to Ukraine’s agile ecosystem of innovative defense tech startups. Within months, more than 80 Ukrainian-designed fiber-optic systems had been approved for use, while the number of Ukrainian companies involved in producing or integrating this category of drones has rapidly expanded.

Ukrainian developers are now pushing the boundaries of range, with the country’s famous Birds of Magyar drone unit fielding a fiber-optic drone model capable of reaching approximately forty kilometers. What began as a Russian experiment has evolved into a mutual innovation cycle in which Ukraine is now leading in certain aspects.

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The rapid emergence of fiber-optic drones has caught the attention of NATO officers. In 2025, countering fiber-optic drones became the central theme of NATO’s Innovation Challenge, with participants from Ukraine and the United States taking the podium.

There is no silver bullet to neutralize the threat posed by these unjammable drones. Countermeasures range from last-resort shotgun blasts and physical barriers to radar tripwires, acoustic sensors, and experimental AI-assisted detection systems. Some are improvisations; others are technologically sophisticated solutions with longer development timelines. As with much of the war in Ukraine, adaptation is continuous and ephemeral; what works today may fail tomorrow.

The rise of fiber-optic drones has implications that extend far beyond the battlefields of Ukraine. Sudanese militias, Mexican cartels, and even the Chinese People’s Liberation Army are already reportedly incorporating fiber-optic drones into their growing arsenals. As drone warfare proliferates globally, the ability to avoid jamming will continue to attract attention wherever electronic interference is common or expected.

Ukraine’s experience suggests that militaries relying exclusively on radio-controlled drones and electronic warfare risk catastrophic disruption at critical moments. Fiber-optic drones may not replace conventional systems, but they have established themselves as a durable component of the modern battlefield toolkit. What began in Kursk as an experiment with a seemingly retrograde technology has now reshaped drone warfare.

Vlad Sutea is head of intelligence at Pravo Ventures and an open source intelligence expert focused on defense issues.

Russia’s blitzkrieg attack failed because it was based on a series of false political and military assumptions. In the political realm, Russia’s leaders had long dismissed Ukraine as an artificial state with no unifying national identity. As a result, they seem to have been genuinely shocked by the scale of popular resistance in spring 2022 as millions of Ukrainians rose up to defend their nation.

On the battlefield, the initial stage of the invasion exposed the underwhelming reality behind Russia’s military superpower pretensions. The Russian army may look impressive when marching unopposed across Red Square, but Putin’s commanders struggled to conduct combined arms operations in Ukraine and demonstrated a distinct lack of imagination. Likewise, the Russian air force was unable to establish control of the skies over Ukraine.

Putin’s plans unraveled because he underestimated Ukraine. After years of dismissing Ukrainian statehood as an accident of history and insisting Ukrainians were really Russians (“one people“), he seems to have convinced himself that Ukraine could not possibly demonstrate the national cohesion necessary for a sustained defense. His commanders appear to have been similarly dismissive, and clearly did not think the Ukrainian military was capable of waging a modern war.

These assumptions were largely the product of wishful thinking. They conveniently ignored Ukraine’s significant nation-building progress during the post-Soviet era, and failed to anticipate the impact of the comprehensive military reforms undertaken in the country following the onset of Russian aggression in 2014.

Putin and his Kremlin colleagues were not the only ones to fall into the trap of underestimating Ukraine. On the eve of the full-scale invasion, military and political leaders throughout the West were also queuing up to write off the country.

While individual forecasts differed, there was a broad consensus that Ukraine had no real chance of resisting the might of the Russian military and would be completely overrun by the Kremlin war machine in a matter of days. Instead, Ukraine won the Battle of Kyiv and stunned the watching world.

This remarkable success set the tone for all that has followed. By the end of 2022, Ukraine had liberated around half of the land seized by Russia during the initial stage of the invasion. Since then, Kyiv has managed to decimate the Russian Black Sea Fleet and has forced Putin to withdraw the bulk of his remaining warships from occupied Crimea. Ukraine is also now increasingly bringing Putin’s invasion home to Russia with long-range drone and missile strikes deep inside the Russian Federation.

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Over the past four years, Russia’s invasion has become the biggest European war since World War II, with a series of game-changing technological advances transforming military doctrine. In 2022, the battlefield was dominated by tanks, armor, and artillery, much as it had been since the early twentieth century. Today, the war is being shaped primarily by drones and small groups of infantry.

The proliferation of these technologies has turned what began as a war of movement into a war of attrition, with a kill zone stretching at least ten kilometers from ground zero on both sides of the front line. Robotic systems can now strike enemy targets on land, in the air, and at sea, and are also being deployed to evacuate the wounded, perform logistics roles, and serve as front line sentries.

Ukraine has proved highly adept at this innovative form of warfare. In many cases, Ukrainian military commanders have sought high tech solutions in order to counter Russia’s overwhelming advantages in manpower and conventional firepower.

Kyiv has also viewed defense tech innovations as an economically viable way to compensate for often unpredictable flows of military supplies from the country’s Western partners. This approach has helped to minimize any negative consequences following the reduction in direct US aid to Ukraine since the return of Donald Trump to the White House last year.

As a result, Ukraine now boasts a large and sophisticated domestic drone industry, with developers constantly upgrading existing models based of real-time combat feedback. Ukraine’s remarkable defense tech progress since 2022 has positioned the country at the cutting edge of drone technologies. Partner countries increasingly acknowledge this status and are seeking to benefit from Ukraine’s expertise, with Ukrainian soldiers training their NATO counterparts in drone warfare.

As the Trump presidency leads to dramatic shifts in the international security landscape, Kyiv is more generally in the geopolitical ascendancy. With America looking to downgrade its transatlantic commitments, the Ukrainian army is recognized as a key contributor to Europe’s future security. A country once seen as militarily insignificant is now regarded as indispensable for the defense of the continent.

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Ukraine’s emergence as the largest and most innovative military in Europe has enabled the country to stem the tide of Russia’s invasion and prevent any major breakthroughs. While Moscow has consistently held the battlefield initiative since late 2023, the Russian army has only managed to seize around one percent of additional Ukrainian territory while suffering hundreds of thousands of casualties.

Faced with a bloody quagmire on the front lines, Putin has resorted to exaggerating his army’s advances as he seeks to maintain the myth of inevitable Russian victory and discourage further support for Ukraine. This tactic was brutally exposed in late 2025 when Putin repeatedly claimed to have captured Kupyansk in northeastern Ukraine, only for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit the city personally and record a selfie video revealing the Kremlin dictator’s lies.

Despite Ukraine’s strong record of military innovation and battlefield success since 2022, there are indications that both Russia and some of Kyiv’s Western partners continue to underestimate the country. Putin’s recent public statements reaffirming his determination to fight on, together with Russia’s increasingly open rejection of a compromise peace, suggest that Moscow still expects the Ukrainian army to collapse.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that Ukraine has “no cards” and should therefore agree to a Kremlin-friendly peace deal. Others in Europe continue to argue that unfavorable military realities make painful Ukrainian concessions unavoidable in order to end the war.

These pessimistic perspectives ignore the lessons of the past four years. The Russian army is clearly not the irresistible force of Kremlin propaganda, while Ukraine is no longer a military minnow and has multiple trump cards in its possession. The most important conclusion of all is that the human dimension still ultimately determines outcomes on the battlefield. It is here that Ukraine truly excels, with an army of skilled, inventive, and highly motivated personnel defending their homes and families.

The grassroots ingenuity of Ukraine’s military and the country’s readiness to embrace defense sector innovation have undoubtedly been instrumental in sustaining the Ukrainian war effort. But while impressive new weapons systems have often grabbed the headlines, it would be shortsighted to attribute Ukraine’s military strength to technological advances alone.

As the war enters a fifth year, the Ukrainian nation as a whole deserves the respect of the world for defying Russia so emphatically and transforming their country into a formidable military power. Nobody knows this better than Putin, who is paying a very high price for making the mistake of underestimating Ukraine.

Mykola Bielieskov is a research fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies and a senior analyst at Ukrainian NGO “Come Back Alive.” The views expressed in this article are the author’s personal position and do not reflect the opinions or views of NISS or Come Back Alive.

Airbus U.S. Space and Defense, Inc. (a subsidiary of Airbus Americas, Inc.) operates under a Special Security Agreement (SSA)—the subject of this report—with the US government. Other companies mentioned in this report in the context of their SSAs with the US government—American Rheinmetall Defense and Leonardo—are also donors to Forward Defense, but are not supporters of this report.

This report was written and published in accordance with the Atlantic Council’s Intellectual Independence Policy, which requires all donors to agree to the Council maintaining independent control of the content and conclusions of its work. The author is solely responsible for its analysis and recommendations.

The author thanks Abigail Rudolph for her writing and editing support.

About the author

Fellow

Rob Murray

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

Executive summary
Introduction: SSAs and the US defense advantage
Problem statement: US defense strategy—the five fault lines
Advantages offered by SSAs
Understanding SSA structures, proxy models, and national interest determinations
SSAs under fire: Risks and critiques
A risk-benefit analysis
The SSA model and the future of defense technology
Policy recommendations to maximize SSA benefits
Streamlining SSA approval processes to encourage more investment
Pathfinder projects for further SSA integration
Conclusion

Executive summary

Special Security Agreements (SSAs) can help sustain a defense advantage for the free world amid rising global competition. These agreements allow foreign-owned, US-based defense companies to engage in sensitive US defense contracts under stringent government oversight, ensuring adherence to national security protocols.

SSAs strategically reconcile the use of foreign expertise with the protection of US interests, bolstering defense self-sufficiency by diversifying supply chains and augmenting domestic production capabilities. These companies can stimulate innovation and fortify the US industrial base. While it is predominantly European defense companies that utilize SSAs, Asian defense companies have long participated in US national security projects under SSAs—Japan, South Korea, and Singapore have maintained such arrangements for more than a decade. South Korea’s Hanwha Aerospace is the latest example, currently undergoing the SSA accreditation process to expand its role in the US defense industrial base.¹

Maintaining engagement with allied defense technology via SSAs can help the United States; it ensures interoperability and alliance resilience even as current geopolitical dynamics require a flexible and pragmatic approach. For Europe, SSAs prevent the division of transatlantic defense cooperation and helps to assure compatibility with NATO systems. Companies operating under an SSA are subject to stringent safeguards, including direct oversight by the US Department of Defense (DOD) via the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) and continuous internal monitoring by a Government Security Committee (GSC) composed of cleared US citizens. This dual structure mitigates foreign ownership, control, or influence (FOCI), while enabling the US government to safely access and operationalize allied technologies for critical national security needs.

To optimize the advantages of SSAs, this paper recommends streamlining export approvals for defense systems, utilizing SSA companies to broaden US access to allied defense markets, countering Chinese and Russian arms sales with SSA-backed defense agreements, expediting the SSA approval process, and establishing a dedicated SSA office within the US DOD.

This report also identifies four Pathfinder Projects—in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), counter-hypersonics, maritime autonomy, and cyber resilience—that demonstrate how SSA companies can be leveraged as strategic enablers to enhance allied defense integration, while addressing regulatory, operational, and policy barriers to collaboration.

In sum, SSAs are a strategic asset that can enhance US military strength, reinforce alliances, and secure the United States’ ongoing leadership in global defense innovation.

Introduction

The United States has long maintained the world’s most advanced and capable large-scale military, underpinned by technological superiority and a robust defense industrial base. Yet, as global threats evolve, China and Russia are rapidly modernizing their militaries and challenging US dominance. To sustain its edge, Washington must strengthen its defense sector while maintaining control over foreign investment in sensitive industries.

SSAs are a critical, yet often misunderstood, tool in this effort. First introduced in 1984 during the Cold War, these agreements emerged as a response to growing concerns about FOCI in the US defense industry. By the 1970s, policymakers had started formalizing security measures to regulate foreign investments in defense companies. Over time, these mechanisms evolved through the National Industrial Security Program (NISP) and were further strengthened as security concerns deepened after 9/11. Today, SSAs provide a structured framework that allows foreign-owned, US-based defense companies to contribute to national security while operating under strict US government oversight.²

The advantages are clear. SSAs enable the United States to harness foreign technology, investment, and competition while managing national security risks through security controls. They also strengthen transatlantic and broader allied defense cooperation.

The strategic logic behind SSAs is simple: They ensure that foreign companies contribute to US military strength while remaining fully compliant with US regulations. In a world where technological dominance defines military superiority, Washington must use every available tool to stay ahead. Properly managed, SSAs are one such tool, allowing the United States to leverage foreign defense investments for competitive advantage.

Problem statement: US defense strategy—the five fault lines

The US defense industrial base is at a crossroads. While the United States maintains the world’s most advanced large-scale military, its ability to sustain technological dominance is under pressure from several converging trends.

First, industrial capacity constraints have become a national security concern. The war in Ukraine has underscored bottlenecks in US production lines, from ammunition stockpiles to shipbuilding delays. The Pentagon has struggled to ramp up manufacturing at the speed required for sustained military operations.
Second, US defense research and development (R&D) investment is falling behind. Insufficient internal R&D funding has made it difficult for defense primes and mid-tier contractors to drive innovation at the pace of geopolitical relevance. While China rapidly scales military-technological advancements, the US defense sector remains overly reliant on government-funded programs with slow procurement cycles.
Third, the rise of dual-use technology is reshaping military competition. Critical advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), space-based defense, and cybersecurity—among other sectors—are now driven by the commercial sector rather than government labs or traditional defense contractors. The United States must find ways to integrate advanced allied technologies while safeguarding national security interests, protecting classified information, and maintaining appropriate oversight of foreign investment in sensitive sectors.
Fourth, allied interoperability is no longer optional. As NATO and Indo-Pacific alliances grow in strategic importance, the United States must ensure its defense sector remains deeply integrated with allied defense industries. However, driven by geopolitical concerns, European nations are increasingly prioritizing defense-industrial sovereignty, creating risks of fragmentation.
Finally, US defense exports face growing competition from adversaries. China and Russia have expanded their arms sales across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, offering cheaper alternatives to US defense systems. Without strategic measures to maintain US leadership in global arms markets, the influence of US defense technology could erode.

Given these structural challenges, the United States cannot afford an isolationist approach to defense industrial policy.

Advantages offered by SSAs

SSAs provide a powerful mechanism that can help expand US access to cutting-edge capabilities—enhancing domestic production where appropriate, strengthening R&D investment, integrating dual-use technologies, improving allied interoperability, and maintaining US export competitiveness—all while ensuring that foreign investment is subject to rigorous US government oversight. While SSAs can support the relocation of manufacturing to the United States, they do not require it; rather, their primary function is to permit secure integration of foreign-developed capabilities into the US defense ecosystem under tightly controlled conditions. This section will examine each of these strategic advantages in turn.

Strengthening US defense self-sufficiency by reducing dependence on adversarial supply chains

SSAs play a pivotal role in helping the United States diversify and secure its defense supply chains without retreating into full-scale onshoring. They enable US-based subsidiaries of trusted foreign defense firms to contribute to critical programs. These companies operate within a framework that includes cleared US citizen leadership, firewalls to prevent foreign parent interference, and strict compliance with US defense contracting and export-control regimes.

This structure achieves two objectives simultaneously.

It allows the United States to safely access high-quality components and subsystems from allied supply chains in areas where domestic production might be insufficient or unavailable at scale.
It encourages trusted foreign firms to invest directly in the United States—boosting local manufacturing capacity, injecting competition, and accelerating innovation.

One example of this dynamic can be seen in American Rheinmetall’s expansion into the US armored vehicle sector.³ As the US Army pursues its modernization agenda, Rheinmetall—a global defense prime operating a US subsidiary under an SSA—has invested in domestic production facilities, with vehicle components manufactured onshore and under US security protocols. Another example is Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace, Inc., which announced in September 2024 the opening of a new missile production facility in James City County, Virginia, investing more than $100 million in capital expenditure over the next few years and creating over 180 new jobs.⁴ This approach on-shores defense production with less reliance on potentially vulnerable foreign supply chains while still allowing the DOD to access allied technology.

While SSAs do not address commodity-level vulnerabilities—such as rare earth element (REE) dependencies—they are a critical part of the broader solution. The 2010 incident in which China restricted REE exports to Japan over a diplomatic dispute illustrates how adversaries can weaponize supply chains.⁵ SSAs help mitigate this risk at the system level by insulating the defense industrial base from undue foreign influence and expanding the set of trusted suppliers across allied nations.

Expanding US defense production capacity

Beyond securing supply chains, another key challenge facing the US defense sector is limited production capacity. The ongoing war in Ukraine has exposed severe bottlenecks in US ammunition and missile stockpiles, raising concerns about whether the United States can sustain high-intensity military operations over extended periods.⁶ Similarly, US shipbuilding faces significant delays, with the US Navy struggling to meet its long-term fleet expansion goals.⁷ These industrial constraints highlight the need for increased defense manufacturing capabilities—a challenge that SSA companies can help address.

SSA companies can contribute to US defense self-sufficiency by building and operating US-based manufacturing facilities, expanding domestic production capacity, and reducing strain on other US defense companies. Rather than replacing US companies, SSA companies serve as force multipliers that increase the United States’ ability to manufacture critical defense equipment. For example, Leonardo Electronics, an SSA firm specializing in military electronics and avionics, has established multiple production sites in the United States, providing technology to US military aircraft and battlefield systems while keeping production within US borders.⁸ Similarly, Elbit America has several US production sites. Its facility in Roanoke County, Virginia is set to undergo a $30 million expansion and add 288 new jobs.⁹

The benefits of this approach extend beyond immediate military needs. By increasing manufacturing output, SSA companies create US jobs, attract foreign investment, and strengthen local economies. These investments bolster US industrial capacity, ensuring that critical defense production remains resilient in times of crisis.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in US transportation equipment manufacturing—the Bureau of Economic Analysis industry category that captures aerospace, land systems, and missiles—rose from $167 billion in 2020 to $229 billion in 2023, a 37-percent jump despite tighter screening rules.¹⁰ Europe drove almost 40 percent of that 2023 increase; German-owned assets alone grew by $58.9 billion.¹¹ By industry, affiliates in manufacturing increased the most, increasing $58.6 billion to a total investment position of $2.22 trillion.

Figure 1: US and foreign direct investment positions 2022-2023¹²

Understanding SSA structures, proxy models, and national interest determination

While SSAs provide a powerful framework for integrating foreign-owned companies into the US defense industrial base, it is important to understand how SSA companies differ from proxy companies, as well as how certain regulatory requirements—particularly NIDs—impact their operational flexibility and ability to deliver capability to the warfighter. While the SSA model successfully allows the United States to leverage allied industrial capabilities under controlled conditions, the NID process introduces an additional layer of regulatory scrutiny. The experience of some SSA companies suggests that the average NID approval time can exceed twelve months for Top Secret programs and Special Access Programs (SAPs), underscoring the schedule risk these requirements introduce. To clarify the operational and regulatory distinctions between these structures, the table below summarizes the key differences between SSA companies, proxy companies, and the role of the NIDs process.

Proxy companies are wholly US-controlled entities established when foreign ownership must be structurally separated from operational control to protect highly sensitive national security interests. While the foreign parent company retains economic ownership, the company is governed by a board of US citizens who exercise exclusive authority over day-to-day management and operations. Although the foreign parent does not have access to classified information or direct operational control, it does not surrender all forms of influence. Notably, in some cases, companies do have some control as to whether they are placed under a proxy agreement or an SSA. Proxy companies are generally allowed to access Top Secret programs, SAPs, and other highly classified activities without requiring additional government approvals beyond their facility clearance.

By contrast, while SSA companies operate under stringent US government oversight—including US citizen management, security controls, and regular audits—they must seek NIDs whenever they require access to classified information above the Confidential level, particularly for Secret, Top Secret, or SAP contracts. A NID is a formal finding by the sponsoring US government agency that granting classified access to an SSA firm for a specific program or contract is in the national security interest of the United States.

Many companies choose the SSA model over a proxy or voting trust because it offers a more practical balance between security and strategic integration. SSAs allow the US government to mitigate foreign influence while still enabling the subsidiary to benefit from the technical expertise, supply chain efficiencies, and innovation capacity of the parent company—provided these are delivered in a strictly advisory capacity. For founder-led businesses or long-term industrial partnerships, the SSA structure provides visibility and continuity that proxy agreements—often perceived as a total separation—do not allow. In this way, SSAs support both security assurance and operational alignment across allied defense ecosystems.

While the SSA model successfully allows the United States to leverage allied industrial capabilities under controlled conditions, the NID process introduces an additional layer of regulatory scrutiny. Delays in obtaining NID approvals—whether due to bureaucratic backlog, shifting security assessments, or political considerations—can slow contract execution, complicate program management timelines, and create uncertainty around an SSA firm’s ability to deliver capability to the warfighter on schedule. In an environment where defense acquisition increasingly emphasizes speed to deployment, any perceived risk of delay can erode customer trust, damage a company’s reputation, and disincentivize program managers from awarding contracts to SSA companies even when they offer technological or cost advantages.

Recognizing these structural realities is critical to refining SSA policy. While the safeguards built into SSA and NID processes are necessary to protect national security, a more predictable, streamlined, and risk-calibrated approach would strengthen SSA companies’ ability to contribute fully to US defense priorities without compromising operational timelines or trust. Properly managing these regulatory mechanisms is essential both for maximizing industrial capacity and ensuring that the strategic advantages of SSAs are realized at the speed required by modern conflict.

SSAs under fire: Risks and critiques

Despite the jobs, dollars, and infrastructure SSAs bring to the United States, their role in the US defense ecosystem is sometimes debated. While proponents argue that SSAs enhance the US industrial base and strengthen transatlantic and broader allied defense collaboration, critics raise concerns about their impact on national security, economic sovereignty, and US jobs. The most vocal opposition stems from two major areas: security risks and economic competitiveness.

National security concerns: Do SSAs expose US defense capabilities?

Critics worry that allowing foreign-owned companies to operate in the US defense sector—even under SSAs—introduces material risks of foreign influence and potential technology transfer.

While SSAs are designed to mitigate these risks through security controls, critics argue that they leave open channels for subtle, but powerful, influence by foreign parent companies. According to a 1990 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, which remains the office’s most recent comprehensive review of SSAs, many former Defense Department security officials expressed concerns that SSAs “do not negate” FOCI but accept it “as a risk/hazard,” especially in the absence of US-owned alternatives.

Indeed, unlike proxy agreements, which mitigate FOCI by transferring all voting power to cleared US proxies, SSAs explicitly acknowledge the presence of FOCI and manage its risk through a government security committee, independent US directors (though the foreign owner still has a presence on the board), and strict information-access controls. In other words, proxy agreements strongly mitigate FOCI; SSAs accept and mitigate it to a lesser degree. The former DOD officials mentioned above noted that company directors and employees might still feel beholden to foreign owners, thereby rendering them susceptible to undue pressure, even if it is unintentional. The 1990 GAO report also documented cases in which SSAs granted access to highly classified programs—including the stealth bomber and the Strategic Defense Initiative—raising alarm among security professionals who emphasized that such information is often not releasable even to close allied governments.

Furthermore, auditors found systemic weaknesses in how SSAs were implemented. In some instances, foreign owners were granted interim access to classified work for more than a year while formal safeguards were still under negotiation, undermining the DOD’s leverage and oversight. In other cases, National Interest Determinations (NIDs) used to justify SSAs lacked adequate documentation, and there were examples in which foreign companies had ties to adversarial states that were not formally evaluated during the clearance process.

These findings underscore a broader challenge with foreign investment in the defense sector: the security risks that arise when adversaries gain influence over US contractors. Despite oversight from DCSA, safeguards to mitigate foreign influence are historically reactive rather than proactive. Complex corporate structures and scattered information hinder the effectiveness of strategies to mitigate FOCI.¹³ Plus, agencies such as DCSA are facing budget cuts that could add to enforcement challenges.¹⁴

These shortcomings have fueled a perception among critics that SSAs, while administratively convenient, could compromise national security when used too broadly or without stringent enforcement.¹⁵

Understanding SSAs’ impact on American jobs and industry

Another critique of SSAs stems from a broader concern that allowing foreign defense companies to operate in the United States could displace US companies, impact domestic employment, and weaken the country’s industrial sovereignty. Some argue that foreign-owned companies, even if restricted by SSAs, still compete for US defense contracts—potentially squeezing out US suppliers and reducing opportunities for US-based manufacturers.¹⁶

There is also a perception that SSA companies might undermine the goals of “Buy American” policies, which aim to prioritize US workers and suppliers in defense procurement. This perspective has led to political opposition, particularly from factions that view any form of foreign participation in the defense sector as a threat to economic self-sufficiency.¹⁷ As US Senator Patty Murray put it during a 2008 debate over an Air Force contract, “We are hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs to foreign countries already, so I cannot imagine why … our government would decide to take 44,000 American jobs, good jobs, and give them to the Europeans.”¹⁸

A risk-benefit analysis

While concerns about SSAs are valid, they must be weighed against the strategic benefits these agreements provide. A blanket rejection of SSA companies would risk alienating key allies, reducing the competitiveness of US defense exports, and limiting the Pentagon’s access to cutting-edge technology. Instead, the focus should be on refining SSA policies to ensure even greater transparency, security, and alignment with national interests.

The United States must strike a balance between maintaining industrial sovereignty and leveraging allied defense investment. With the right safeguards in place, SSAs remain a strategic tool that strengthens US defense posture while keeping foreign participation firmly under Pentagon oversight regarding what technologies are developed, how they are used, and where they are exported.¹⁹

Ensuring the United States calls the shots

SSAs include rigorous legal and operational safeguards that restrict foreign influence over sensitive defense projects.

US government oversight: SSA companies must comply with DOD regulations and operate under strict security protocols, including security controls to prevent foreign access to classified programs.
US-controlled management structures: SSA companies are required to appoint US citizens to key leadership positions, ensuring that strategic decisions remain in American hands.
Restrictions on FOCI: While the parent company might be foreign, the US subsidiary operates independently, adhering to US industrial security laws and regulations.²⁰

These safeguards are working. In fact, FOCI-mitigated companies receive high ratings in their DCSA security reviews. And that’s one reason why they serve as a model for other areas of the federal government.

In April 2025, DCSA announced that it is set to expand foreign ownership reviews to unclassified defense contracts. New regulations will soon require companies to conduct FOCI assessments before being awarded contracts over five million dollars, representing a significant change from the previous focus primarily on companies seeking or holding security clearances for classified work.²¹ In parallel, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has demonstrated its effectiveness in preventing acquisitions that could undermine US technological competitiveness and national security. For example, in March 2018, the first Trump administration blocked a proposed takeover of US telecom leader Qualcomm by a Singapore-based company.²² This successful intervention indicates that oversight mechanisms can work and security risks can be mitigated effectively.

More competition, lower costs, faster innovation, and supply chain resilience

Beyond technological access and security safeguards, SSA companies also play a key role in keeping the US defense sector competitive, cost-efficient, and innovative. The US military has long benefited from a defense market driven by competition among suppliers, which encourages efficiency and technological advancement. However, with a shrinking number of major US defense contractors dominating the industry, the risk of monopolistic pricing and slower innovation has increased.²³

SSA companies help counteract this trend by introducing additional competition into the defense procurement process. When SSA companies bid for contracts, they push domestic companies to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and accelerate technological development.

SSA companies can also expand access to cutting-edge technologies and specialized expertise that might not otherwise exist in the domestic industrial base. Such international technology infusion strengthens US warfighting capability and supports an operational advantage on the battlefield.

Additionally, the SSA framework signals a high level of trust and interoperability among allies and partners. It represents more than just diplomatic coordination—it enables industrial integration, linking allied nations through shared production, innovation, and security standards. This deepened collaboration fosters strategic alignment and ensures that the United States and its closest partners remain technologically and operationally synchronized in future conflicts. It also reinforces the resilience and diversity of the defense industrial base by broadening the supplier pool and reducing overreliance on a limited number of domestic contractors.

Strengthening global arms competitiveness

The benefits of SSA companies extend beyond domestic defense needs; these companies also play a crucial role in expanding US defense exports and maintaining US dominance in global arms markets.

When SSA companies operate within the United States, they become part of the US defense ecosystem, aligning their interests with US export strategies. This participation enables the following:

International joint ventures: Whether led by the United States or allies in Europe, Asia, or elsewhere, these can expand arms exports by integrating complementary defense technologies into unified weapons systems, often making them more attractive to third-country buyers.
Greater US influence over global arms deals: SSAs give the US government greater influence over foreign defense companies operating domestically, enabling Washington to shape how their technologies are marketed, integrated, and exported—often favoring US-led configurations and supply chains over those aligned with geopolitical rivals.
Partnerships with US companies on international bids: SSAs can facilitate industrial partnerships that strengthen US companies’ participation in international bids by enabling secure collaboration on joint solutions, co-production, and technology integration that aligns with both US export controls and allied defense priorities.
Help for US companies navigating international procurement regulations: SSA-governed companies can serve as trusted international intermediaries, helping US defense companies navigate foreign procurement dynamics by offering local insight, industrial access, and co-bid pathways aligned with both US compliance standards and foreign political expectations.
The creation of joint defense platforms: These are more attractive to foreign buyers, strengthening US defense export potential.

By allowing foreign companies to participate in the US market under SSAs, Washington ensures that US defense companies remain deeply integrated into allied procurement decisions (increasing US companies’ global competitiveness) and that allied technological advancements primarily complement—rather than compete with—US military exports.

For an administration focused on “America First” policies, SSAs are a strategic asset that enhances US technological superiority while ensuring that foreign investment serves US national security goals.

Countering China and Russia in the global arms export competition

Beyond transatlantic defense markets, the United States faces growing competition from China and Russia in arms exports, particularly in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Both Beijing and Moscow have aggressively expanded their defense sales, offering lower-cost alternatives to US weapons and positioning themselves as preferred suppliers to nations that might otherwise purchase US systems.²⁴

China has significantly expanded its arms exports, particularly in the drone and missile sectors, for countries that have struggled to navigate US export restrictions.
Russia remains a leading global supplier of military equipment, leveraging historical defense ties with India and countries in the Middle East and Africa.

The United States cannot afford to cede global market share to its adversaries, particularly in strategically significant regions. SSA companies provide an opportunity to strengthen US arms sales abroad by ensuring that allied defense companies are working in alignment with US strategic goals rather than competing with them.

For example, the United States can leverage SSA companies to position joint US-European defense solutions as the preferred alternative to markets that Russia or China might seek to serve. This approach ensures that Washington remains the dominant supplier of advanced military technology to friendly nations while limiting the ability of China and Russia to expand their defense influence.

SSAs as a tool for strengthening NATO and allied defense capabilities

In addition to securing US defense exports, SSA companies play an important role in strengthening NATO interoperability and allied defense capabilities. One challenge of multinational defense cooperation is ensuring that allied forces can seamlessly integrate their military technologies.²⁵

Europe’s governments are simultaneously doubling defense budgets and signaling that at least 50 percent of those outlays should be spent on equipment “made in Europe” by 2030, according to the European Union’s first-ever European Defence Industrial Strategy (EDIS), unveiled on March 5, 2024.²⁶ For many European primes, establishing or expanding a ring-fenced US SSA subsidiary is therefore the politically low-friction way to stay interoperable with US forces without appearing to export scarce production capacity across the Atlantic—a consideration that has become more salient as capitals debate strategic autonomy.

SSA companies help solve this problem by serving as a bridge between US and European defense platforms, allowing for better compatibility between NATO systems and joint development of interoperable technologies.²⁷

Balancing interoperability gains with political realities

For the United States, strengthening allied interoperability through SSAs is not only advantageous but necessary for future coalition operations and maintaining NATO’s technological edge. However, it is important to recognize that, in the current geopolitical environment, some European allies face domestic pressures to prioritize strategic autonomy and might be cautious about deepening visible industrial collaboration with the United States. Acknowledging these dynamics, Washington should continue to expand SSA-based cooperation in ways that are operationally meaningful but politically sustainable—emphasizing trusted, scalable frameworks that allow interoperability gains without forcing binary political choices. Flexibility and strategic patience will be critical to reinforcing alliance cohesion while ensuring that allied defense industries remain aligned with US strategic objectives.

By leveraging SSA companies as integrators of transatlantic defense capabilities, the United States ensures that its allies remain militarily compatible while also strengthening its own defense export potential.

Why “Buy American” policies should not mean “buy alone”

The idea of promoting domestic defense production through “Buy American” policies is widely supported across the US political spectrum.²⁸ However, any protectionist approach that might exclude SSA companies would be counterproductive. Instead of strengthening the US defense industrial base, such an approach would limit access to advanced technologies, increase procurement costs, and weaken defense ties with allies.

The reality is that the United States does not manufacture everything it needs within its own borders. In today’s global defense landscape, military technology development is inherently international, with key components, subsystems, and research collaborations spanning multiple countries.

For example, missile development, naval shipbuilding, and avionics technology all benefit from transatlantic collaboration.²⁹ If the United States were to shut out SSA companies, it would lose access to advanced allied technologies and risk damaging its alliances with key defense partners. A more effective policy would be to balance national security with strategic openness, ensuring that SSA companies operate under strict conditions but remain part of the US defense ecosystem.

The SSA model and the future of defense technology

While traditional defense primes remain essential to US military power, the character of warfare is shifting toward the integration of AI-driven operations, electronic warfare (EW), space-based defense, and autonomous systems. The emergence of new defense technology companies, many of them global in scope, demands an SSA model that can accommodate nontraditional defense players. Indeed, many of the most cutting-edge dual-use and single-use military technologies—particularly in cybersecurity, AI, and battlefield intelligence—are being developed by non-US companies, many based in Israel and Ukraine. SSAs provide a mechanism for bringing such companies into a US defense context.

Why SSAs are essential for emerging defense technologies

The SSA framework could help facilitate the integration of emerging foreign defense technologies, especially where the United States stands to gain from technologies advanced in the context of active battlefields overseas or through peacetime international defense co-production efforts.

The war in Ukraine has driven extraordinary advancements in drones, battlefield AI, and electronic warfare. Regardless of whether and when it moves toward a ceasefire, Ukraine’s burgeoning defense technology sector will need investment to commercialize and scale its capabilities.³⁰ A streamlined, tailored SSA framework—featuring faster processing, simplified compliance, and strategic prioritization—could provide a pathway for Ukrainian defense startups to integrate into US military development pipelines and ensure that battlefield-proven technologies and talent are retained within the US and NATO defense ecosystem, rather than being lost due to uncertainty, dispersion, or demobilization if the conflict enters a lower-intensity or politically unsettled phase. Indeed, this technology backflow should be seen as an important return on US and allied investment in Ukrainian security.

Additionally, SSAs could play a critical role in strengthening the AUKUS alliance between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, which is central to Indo-Pacific security and deterrence against China.³¹ To advance AUKUS Pillar II cooperation on AI-enabled warfare, quantum technologies, and next-generation naval capabilities, Washington should encourage more UK and Australian defense tech firms to establish US-incorporated subsidiaries operating under SSAs. This would enable trusted collaboration within a US legal and security framework, ensuring that emerging AUKUS technologies are interoperable, export compliant, and developed in coordination with US national security priorities.

Policy recommendations to maximize SSA benefits

By refining SSA policies, streamlining regulations, and strategically leveraging foreign investment, the United States can ensure that SSA companies remain an asset to national security. To that end, the following proposals are recommended.

Coordinate export strategies with SSA-governed firms.
- The State Department and DOD should better align export approvals and timelines for foreign defense companies offering systems with critical technology that are part of broader allied production chains.
- Much of this coordination challenge relates to International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which govern the export of US-origin defense technologies. Inconsistent or delayed licensing processes can disadvantage SSA-governed companies in international competitions, even when they operate under strict US oversight.
- By harmonizing these strategies, Washington can ensure that allied defense firms operating under US jurisdiction strengthen—rather than undercut—US arms sales and industrial influence abroad.
Use SSA companies to expand US access to global defense markets.
- For political and regulatory reasons, many foreign nations prefer to buy military equipment from manufacturers in their own country or region rather than US companies.
- SSA companies provide a gateway for US defense companies to enter foreign procurement programs, as they can serve as a bridge between US technology and international market demands through various prime and subcontractor relationships.
- Washington could negotiate preferential procurement agreements with foreign governments, ensuring that SSA companies facilitate greater integration between US and global defense industries.
Counter Chinese and Russian arms sales with SSA-backed defense agreements.
- Both China and Russia are aggressively expanding their arms exports to developing nations, particularly in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
- SSA companies could be used as a strategic tool to counter these sales by promoting joint US-European defense solutions in regions where China and Russia seek influence.
- By offering SSA-backed defense agreements to strategic partners and their industry, the United States could reinforce global military alliances while limiting the reach of adversarial arms suppliers.

Streamlining SSA approval processes to encourage more investment

While SSAs provide a strategic advantage, the bureaucratic process for approving them is often slow and complex, discouraging foreign investment in US defense. Washington must balance national security concerns with a regulatory environment that encourages trusted allied companies to invest in the United States.

To fully leverage SSAs for US military, economic, and strategic advantage, policymakers should do the following.

Establish a clearer and faster SSA approval process.
- The current SSA approval process can take years, potentially discouraging allied companies from pursuing US investments. This is particularly relevant for allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific that might seek closer collaboration with the United States and thus use SSAs as a tool to help achieve such collaboration.
- A more efficient approval system, with clear timelines and security benchmarks, would encourage greater FDI in US defense without compromising national security.
Elevate SSA-governed companies within US defense industrial strategy.
- The DOD should establish a formal mechanism to integrate SSA-governed companies into broader defense industrial base planning, export strategy, and capability development frameworks. While the DCSA should continue to lead oversight and security compliance, a dedicated policy coordination function is needed to ensure these firms are recognized not just as compliant entities, but as strategic assets within the allied defense ecosystem.
- SSA companies often possess advanced technologies, global supply chains, and R&D capabilities that are directly relevant to US modernization priorities. However, without a clear point of integration within DOD policy structures, these companies risk being under-leveraged or misunderstood—particularly when navigating export approvals, joint programs, or eligibility for domestic production incentives.
- Establishing a policy focal point inside the DOD could help ensure that SSA-governed companies are factored into key decisions—such as National Technology and Industrial Base (NTIB) planning, trusted capital pathways, or Defense Production Act Title III investments.
- This approach would not impose new compliance burdens but would instead unlock strategic value from firms that are already trusted, cleared, and operating under US law. It would also help align the SSA framework with US goals to expand allied production capacity, improve supply chain resilience, and strengthen transatlantic defense collaboration.
Expand SSAs to include emerging defense tech companies.
- Create a specialized SSA pathway for US-prioritized emerging technologies—such as AI, space, quantum, and counter-hypersonics— ensuring US access to cutting-edge military innovations.
- Create narrowly scoped ITAR exemptions or expedited licensing pathways for SSA-governed US companies engaged in co-development of AI and hypersonic technologies with trusted allies—in which the end users are pre-cleared partner governments and the programs fall within strategic initiatives such as AUKUS Pillar II.
- Establish a transatlantic SSA Innovation Task Force to coordinate technology integration policy, streamline FOCI mitigation practices, and align US and European defense industrial innovation—particularly in areas such as AI, space, and next-generation munitions.
Establish a post-war SSA program for Ukrainian defense startups.
- A streamlined, tailored SSA framework—featuring faster processing, simplified compliance, and strategic prioritization—could allow Ukrainian companies to integrate into US and NATO procurement at the speed of relevance.
Use SSAs to deepen AUKUS defense collaboration.
- Encourage greater participation by UK and Australian defense tech firms in US-based SSA structures by improving standardization, accelerating approval timelines, and clarifying long-term strategic pathways—helping build the trust and predictability needed to deepen transatlantic and Indo-Pacific cooperation in the face of growing strategic competition with China.
Strengthen supply chain risk management for SSA-governed firms.
- SSA companies are already subject to US supply chain security requirements, including restrictions under Section 889 of the fiscal year (FY) 2019 NDAA and the “Drone Act” provisions of the FY2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).³² The DOD should better integrate SSA firms into its broader supply chain risk management ecosystem—providing access to tools such as the Supply Chain Illumination initiative.³³
- Where critical dependencies persist—such as in rare earths, semiconductors, or specialized components—the Office of Industrial Base Policy should consider targeted support through Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III funding, NTIB co-production, or advance purchase commitments. These instruments can help SSA firms transition to secure allied sources without disrupting program timelines.
- Finally, the GSC structure could be leveraged to include annual supply chain risk mitigation plans, aligned with DOD cyber and export control standards. This would reinforce the GSC’s strategic role while enhancing transparency and resilience across the industrial base.

Pathfinder projects for further SSA integration

To fully capitalize on the SSA model, the United States and its allies must actively integrate SSA companies into priority defense initiatives. This report proposes the following Pathfinder Projects to provide a structured way to demonstrate and expand the role of SSA companies in strengthening US security capabilities, ensuring they are leveraged not just as industrial assets but as strategic enablers of next-generation defense cooperation. These projects will also help address regulatory, operational, and policy constraints that currently limit the full potential of transatlantic defense collaboration.

Each Pathfinder Project outlined below is designed to tackle a critical defense challenge, illustrating how SSA companies can provide a competitive advantage and what specific steps are required to implement them effectively.

1. AI-driven multi-domain ISR: Closing transatlantic intelligence gaps

Strategic priority

The next generation of warfare requires real-time, multi-domain intelligence fusion across space, cyber, air, land, and sea. While US ISR capabilities remain formidable, foreign companies are pioneering AI-enhanced sensor fusion and passive detection technologies that could significantly enhance allied intelligence-sharing and decision-making capabilities.

Why SSA companies?

US ISR remains platform-centric, whereas foreign SSA companies offer advanced AI-driven networked surveillance architectures.
SSA companies can act as controlled integration nodes, ensuring secure and compliant transfer of foreign ISR innovations into US and NATO battle networks.
The SSA model allows NATO-wide standardization of ISR fusion algorithms without exposing classified US ISR systems to foreign influence.

Implementation plan

Establish a DOD ISR Task Force to oversee SSA-led AI sensor fusion standardization.
Integrate SSA companies into US ISR modernization programs to enable dual-use AI for intelligence sharing.
Address ITAR barriers for ISR data sharing, ensuring that SSA companies can legally contribute to AI-driven intelligence collaboration.

2. Counter-hypersonic defense: Aligning US and allied missile interceptors

Strategic priority

Hypersonic missile threats are one of the most urgent challenges facing the United States and its NATO allies. While the United States has invested in kinetic interceptors (THAAD, SM-6, Glide Phase Interceptor), foreign companies have developed complementary countermeasure capabilities, electronic warfare-based tracking, and multi-layered interceptor concepts.

Why SSA companies?

Foreign SSA subsidiaries can integrate their sensor-fusion algorithms into US hypersonic defense architectures, improving target tracking and kill chain efficiency.
SSAs enable secure and controlled software integration, preventing siloed national defense solutions that weaken NATO missile defense coordination.
Without SSA collaboration, allied and partners could independently develop competing missile defense systems, leading to fragmented capabilities.

Implementation plan

Mandate SSA participation in the Pentagon’s Hypersonic Defense Program, ensuring European tracking systems integrate with US missile defense platforms.
Launch a joint US–European Hypersonic Task Force focused on aligning missile defense tracking architectures and addressing shared capability gaps. As trusted foreign firms demonstrate the ability to contribute, US agencies should facilitate SSA participation through a more transparent and predictable process—making it clear that integration into sensitive US defense efforts is both strategically necessary and procedurally achievable.
Refine ITAR implementation guidelines to establish a dedicated, fast-tracked review process for SSA-governed firms contributing to counter-hypersonic technologies—enabling secure transatlantic collaboration while maintaining US export control authority and national security safeguards.

3. AI-enabled maritime security: Unmanned naval defense networks

Strategic priority

US and NATO maritime forces face increasing pressure from near-peer adversaries utilizing swarms of unmanned surface and underwater vehicles (USVs/UUVs) to contest sea lanes. While the US Navy has initiated its Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) strategy, foreign companies are further ahead in developing operational AI-driven naval swarm technologies.

Why SSA companies?

SSA companies can fast-track integration of European unmanned maritime platforms into NATO naval task forces.
The SSA framework prevents technology transfer barriers, ensuring that European autonomous naval systems are interoperable with US networks.
SSA companies allow controlled software and algorithm sharing, ensuring AI-based unmanned platforms comply with US and NATO cyber standards.

Implementation plan

Designate SSA companies as key partners in the US Navy’s Disruptive Capabilities Office, enabling joint development of autonomous maritime security systems.
The Pentagon should establish a Maritime AI Lab focused on developing and fielding autonomous naval systems, with structured participation from SSA-governed firms—enabling secure integration of allied technologies into US and coalition naval operations.
Streamline ITAR and Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) approval for unmanned naval technologies, prioritizing SSA companies for expedited integration into US naval programs.

4. AI-driven cyber and electronic warfare resilience

Strategic priority

The battlefield of the future is increasingly digital, with adversaries leveraging AI-enhanced cyberattacks, electronic jamming, and digital deception. SSA companies have pioneered AI-led cyber deception tools, adaptive EW jamming, and quantum-resistant encryption, which could significantly enhance US and NATO cyber resilience.

Why SSA companies?

SSAs allow foreign-owned companies to contribute to NATO-aligned AI-enabled cyber defense solutions, while ensuring compliance with US national security protocols governing access to classified systems and information.
US and European cyber capabilities remain fragmented—SSA companies provide a secure bridge for coordinated cyber-EW collaboration.
SSA companies can be tasked with joint development of AI-driven EW standards, ensuring future-proofed US and NATO digital defenses.

Implementation plan

Create a Cyber and Electronic Warfare Task Force composed of SSA-governed companies, operating under US Cyber Command oversight, to integrate AI-enabled cyber resilience tools in alignment with NATO’s Cyber Defense Policy and in coordination with NATO’s center for cyber expertise.
Expand SSA participation in the DOD’s Joint AI Cyber Operations Initiative, ensuring transatlantic AI cyber defenses remain interoperable.
Update ITAR to address the classification and licensing of AI-driven cyber defense tools—ensuring SSA-governed companies can contribute to secure transatlantic integration without breaching US export control rules or delaying iterative software development cycles.

Conclusion: Reforming SSA policy to enable scalable implementation

In this era, the United States cannot afford to take an isolationist approach to defense procurement. Military technology is increasingly global in scope, and the United States’ ability to maintain its technological edge depends on strategically integrating the best capabilities from trusted allies while maintaining rigorous security controls.

SSAs provide a controlled and secure framework that allows the United States to benefit from foreign investment, increase industrial capacity, and enhance military readiness—without compromising national security. Instead of viewing SSA companies as a threat, Washington should leverage them as a force multiplier for US defense superiority.

A smart “America First” strategy does not mean closing the door on allied defense companies. It means ensuring that every dollar of defense spending strengthens US national security while keeping the United States at the forefront of military innovation. SSAs achieve this goal—enhancing US military strength, reinforcing transatlantic and Pacific alliances, and ensuring that the United States continues to set the global standard for defense excellence.

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Forward Defense is grateful to Airbus Americas, Inc. for its support of this report.

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1 Steve Brock, “Strengthening the Allied Industrial Base,” Hudson Institute, October 17, 2024, https://www.hudson.org/events/strengthening-allied-industrial-base-nadia-schadlow-bryan-clark

2 “Defense Industrial Security: Special Security Agreements Permit Foreign-owned U.S. Firms to Perform Classified Defense Contracts,” United States General Accounting Office, March 21, 1990, https://www.gao.gov/products/t-nsiad-90-17

3 Elodie Collins, “Rheinmetall Expands Presence in US Defense Market with $950M Acquisition of Loc Performance Products,” GovConWire, December 3, 2024, https://www.govconwire.com/2024/12/rheinmetall-loc-performance-products-acquisition/

4 Jen Judson, “Norway’s Kongsberg to open new Virginia missile production plant,” DefenseNews, September 17, 2024, https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2024/09/17/norways-kongsberg-to-open-new-virginia-missile-production-plant/

5 “Critical Materials Are in High Demand. What is DOD Doing to Secure the Supply Chain and Stockpile These Resources?” US Government Accountability Office, September 12, 2024, https://www.gao.gov/blog/critical-materials-are-high-demand.-what-dod-doing-secure-supply-chain-and-stockpile-these-resources; “How Japan Solved Its Rare Earth Minerals Dependency Issue,” World Economic Forum, October 13, 2023, https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/10/japan-rare-earth-minerals

6 Seth G. Jones, “The U.S. Defense Industrial Base Is Not Prepared for a Possible Conflict with China,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, February 22, 2023, https://features.csis.org/preparing-the-US-industrial-base-to-deter-conflict-with-China/

7 David Hutchins, Shaun McDougall, and Jon Helmer, “Steel and Strategy: America’s Shipbuilding Plans Enter Stormy Waters,” Defense and Security Monitor, January 15, 2025, https://dsm.forecastinternational.com/2025/01/15/steel-and-strategy-americas-shipbuilding-plans-enter-stormy-waters

8 “Leonardo DRS Awarded $117 Million Production Order for Family of Weapon Sights,” Leonardo DRS, August 27, 2024, https://www.leonardodrs.com/news/press-releases/leonardo-drs-awarded-117-million-production-order-for-family-of-weapon-sights/; David Simonetta, “Trade Compliance Manual Policy,” Leonardo Electronics, https://www.leonardo.us/hubfs/EXP-100 Rev 12 Trade Compliance Manual.pdf

9 Riley Johnson, “Elbit Systems expands in Roanoke, growing to over 1,000 employees with $30M boost,” Nexstar Media, November 12, 2025, https://www.wfxrtv.com/roanoke-county/elbit-systems-expands-in-roanoke-growing-to-over-1000-employees-with-30m-boost/

10 Connie O’Connell, “Direct Investment by Country and Industry, 2023,” Bureau of Economic Analysis, Table 9, July 23, 2024, https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/2024-07/dici0724.pdf

11 Ibid., Table 9

12 Ibid., Chart 1

13 Accrete, “The Silent Threat: How Foreign Influence Undermines America’s Defense Industrial Base,” April 29, 2025, https://www.accrete.ai/blog/the-silent-threat#:~:text=While%20foreign%20investment%20can%20provide,Chain%20Vulnerabilities:%20A%20Trojan%20Horse

14 House Committee on Appropriations, “House Passes FY26 Defense Bill, Investing in America’s Military Superiority,” US House of Representatives, July 18, 2025, https://appropriations.house.gov/news/press-releases/house-passes-fy26-defense-bill-investing-americas-military-superiority

15 United States General Accounting Office, “Defense Industrial Security: Special Security Agreements Permit Foreign-owned U.S. Firms to Perform Classified Defense Contracts,” Testimony for the Armed Services House of Representatives, US Congress, March 21, 1990, https://www.gao.gov/products/t-nsiad-90-17

16 Lindsay I. McCarl, “Foreign Competition in U.S. Defense Contracts: Why the U.S. Government Should Favor Domestic Companies in Awarding Major Defense Procurement and Acquisition Contracts,” Global Business and Development Law Journal 24, 1 (2011), https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1069&context=globe

17 R. J. Caster, “What ‘America First’ Actually Means for Defense Contractors,” American Conservative, December 27, 2021, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/what-america-first-actually-means-for-defense-contractors/

18 Gordon Lubold, “Congress, Boeing riled by huge defense contract for foreign firm,” The Christian Science Monitor, March 7, 2008, https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2008/0307/p02s01-usmi.html

19 Alexandra G. Neenan, “Department of Defense Contractors and Efforts to Mitigate Foreign Influence,” Congressional Research Service, June 24, 2024, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R48110

20 Daniel B. Pickard, “Navigating the Law: The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) and Foreign Ownership, Control or Influence (FOCI) Handbook,” International Trade & National Security Practice Group, September 2023, https://www.bipc.com/assets/PDFs/Insights/DCSA%20FOCI%20Handbook-International_Trade_National_Security-Navigating_the_Law_Foreign_Agents_Registration_Act_2023-LOW_RES%20-%20FINAL%20-%20Rev%209.27.23.pdf

21 Washington Tariff & Trade Letter, “DCSA Set to Expand Foreign Ownership Reviews to Unclassified Defense Contracts,” April 15, 2025, https://www.wttlonline.com/stories/dcsa-set-to-expand-foreign-ownership-reviews-to-unclassified-defense-contracts,13683

22 Jonathan Masters, James McBride, and Noah Berman, “What Happens When Foreign Investment Becomes a Security Risk?” January 2, 2023, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-happens-when-foreign-investment-becomes-security-risk#chapter-title-0-3.

23 Kurt Scherer and Faith Ozmen, “Maintaining the U.S. Defense Sector’s Competitive Edge,” War on the Rocks, July 18, 2023, https://warontherocks.com/2023/07/maintaining-the-u-s-defense-sectors-competitive-edge/

24 Kaush Arha, Peter Harrell, and Jorn Fleck, “Securing a Free and Open World: A US-EU Blueprint to Counter China and Russia,” Atlantic Council, January 15, 2025, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/securing-a-free-and-open-world-a-us-eu-blueprint-to-counter-china-and-russia/

25 Steven Mills, “Strengthening Defence Operations,” SecureCloud+, October 4, 2023, https://securecloudplus.co.uk/strengthening-defence-operations.

26 “First-ever European Defence Industrial Strategy to Enhance Europe’s Readiness and Security,” European Commission Directorate-General for Communication, March 5, 2024, https://commission.europa.eu/news/first-ever-european-defence-industrial-strategy-enhance-europes-readiness-and-security-2024-03-05_en

27 “Enhancing Interoperability: Train Together, Deploy Together,” European Defence Agency, European Defence Matters 19 (2020),https://eda.europa.eu/docs/default-source/eda-magazine/edm19_web.pdf

28 Luke A. Nicastro, “The U.S. Defense Industrial Base: Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, September 23, 2024, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47751

29 “Written Evidence Submitted by GE Aerospace,” Defense Committee, UK Parliament, January 17, 2025, https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/134814/html/.

30 “European and Ukrainian Parliamentarians Collaborate to Strengthen Defense Cooperation,” We Build Ukraine Fund, last visited August 27, 2025, https://www.webuildukrainefund.org/post/european-and-ukrainian-parliamentarians-collaborate-to-strengthen-defense-cooperation.

31 Louisa Brooke-Holland, “AUKUS Pillar 2: Advanced Capabilities,” House of Commons Library, UK Parliament, September 2, 2024, https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9842.

32 Charles A. Blanchard, et al., “FY24 NDAA: Navigating Expanded Restrictions on DoD Contracting, Buy American Provisions, and Other Key National Security Provisions,” Arnold & Porter, December 22, 2023, https://www.arnoldporter.com/en/perspectives/advisories/2023/12/fy24-ndaa-navigating-expanded-restrictions; “Section 889 Policies,” US General Services Administration, last visited August 27, 2025, https://www.acquisition.gov/Section-889-Policies.

33 “Supply Chain Illumination in the Department of Defense ‘Leveraging Private-Sector Best Practices to Enhance DoD Supply Chain Visibility and Decision Making,’” Defense Business Board, Office of the Secretary of Defense, January 13, 2025, https://dbb.defense.gov/Portals/35/Documents/Reports/2025/Final%20Stamped%20-%20DBB%20Supply%20Chain%20Illumination%20-%201-15-25%20-%20Report.pdf.

The post A strategic asset: Leveraging special security agreements for defense innovation appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Ukrainian defense tech companies must prepare for export opportunities

Michael Druckman — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 22:18:27 +0000

Ukrainian defense tech companies received the country’s first export permits in early February as Ukraine looks to capitalize on the dramatic recent expansion of the defense sector and boost the wartime economy. The news came days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the decision to allow international weapons sales and unveiled plans to establish ten export centers across Europe in 2026.

The move to permit Ukrainian arms exports has been a long time coming, with defense tech companies arguing that they have spare production capacity due to the Ukrainian state’s limited purchasing power. With foreign sales now on the agenda, potential participating companies must make sure they are in a position to make the most of the emerging opportunities.

Since the onset of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, Ukraine’s defense tech sector has proved itself in the most demanding conditions imaginable. Ukrainian companies, many of them young, resource-constrained, and operating under constant attack, have designed, adapted, and deployed weapons systems at a pace rarely seen in peacetime industries.

Crucially, these firms have been able to produce and refine innovative products in combat conditions based on real-time battlefield feedback. In practice, this has meant development cycles that can often be measured in days or weeks, rather than the multi-year acquisition cycles typical of traditional defense procurement.

The performance of Ukraine’s defense tech industry has generated significant international interest and a spate of early seed investments. As the war continues and the Ukrainian government moves to open up foreign markets, ambitious defense sector companies will need to focus on maximizing their export readiness.

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In the context of the Ukrainian defense tech industry, export readiness refers to a company’s ability to navigate the complex legal, regulatory, and compliance frameworks governing the international sale of defense and dual-use technologies. This includes securing the necessary export licenses from the Ukrainian authorities, understanding and complying with destination country import controls, adhering to multilateral export control regimes, implementing robust end-use monitoring and supply chain security, and demonstrating transparency in ownership and governance to satisfy due diligence requirements of foreign buyers and investors.

For Ukrainian companies, export readiness also means turning battlefield innovation into compliant, scalable products for global markets and converting their tactical advantage into strategic economic growth. The Ukrainian businesses building these weapons systems and the investors backing them must begin this work now, not after the first export opportunity appears. Waiting until a deal is on the table could result in losing momentum, credibility, and valuation.

International defense markets operate under strict and unforgiving rules. Compliance with frameworks such as the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), Export Administration Regulations (EAR), the EU’s Dual-Use Regulation, and related NATO-aligned regimes is not optional.

These rules apply not only to finished products, but also to components, software, technical data, and even the nationality of personnel involved in development. Under the incorporation principle, foreign-origin controlled parts integrated into Ukrainian products can subject the final system to external jurisdiction and re-export restrictions.

Some US export rules allow limited flexibility when controlled components are only a small part of a system. ITAR does not. Even minor integration of ITAR-controlled items can trigger full US export licensing obligations. Companies that treat export controls as an afterthought often discover too late that they have painted themselves into a regulatory corner.

A critical but often underestimated component of export readiness is supply chain integrity. Many modern defense and dual-use systems rely on electronics, sensors, chips, and subcomponents sourced through global markets.

Supply chains with hidden or poorly documented tails that run back to China or other high-risk jurisdictions can quietly disqualify an otherwise competitive product from Western export markets. In some cases, these dependencies can trigger outright prohibitions; in others, they impose licensing requirements so onerous that customers walk away.

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Export readiness also requires institutional maturity inside companies. This includes appointing dedicated export control and compliance officers; implementing comprehensive trade compliance policies and procedures that govern every stage of the product lifecycle from design and procurement to production, marketing, and after-sales support; and building internal capability to identify, classify, and manage controlled items and technologies.

Ukrainian companies need to understand which products fall under which regulatory regimes, which export markets are realistically accessible, and what licensing pathways exist. Filing for licenses proactively, engaging early with national authorities, conducting internal compliance audits, and mapping obligations in advance can prevent costly delays, enforcement actions, and reputational damage that investors, partners, and customers alike are increasingly unwilling to tolerate.

Mistakes can be costly, with the compliance failures or unauthorized exports of a single private company capable of triggering diplomatic incidents, sanctions, or restrictions that jeopardize market access and credibility for Ukraine’s entire defense industrial base. This makes institutional discipline a matter of national security, not merely corporate risk management.

The implications are equally clear for international investors. As capital becomes more selective and diligence more rigorous, shareholder value will increasingly favor Ukrainian defense companies that are compliant, transparent, and forward-looking. Funds that encourage early investment in governance, compliance infrastructure, and supply chain resilience are not being overly cautious; they are protecting downside risk and enhancing upside potential. In future funding rounds and exit scenarios, export readiness will be a differentiator that directly affects valuation.

There is also a broader strategic dimension. Ukraine’s integration into Western defense and industrial ecosystems will depend not only on political alignment, but also on regulatory compatibility. Companies that are export-ready today will be in a position to participate in joint development programs and contribute to trusted supply chains tomorrow.

Ukraine’s defense sector has already demonstrated enormous battlefield credibility. The next phase is commercial and institutional credibility. Companies and investors who act now by auditing supply chains, implementing compliance frameworks, and preparing for regulated exports will be the ones best placed to lead the global defense market.

Michael Druckman is the founder and managing director of Trident Forward.

After almost four years of full-scale war, Ukraine now leads in the development of inexpensive and highly accurate drones and cruise missiles. By fully embracing this revolution, Ukraine and its allies stand a good chance of regaining the battlefield initiative and obliging Russia to compromise on its objectives.

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Historians have long known that the development of warfare is not linear. For long periods of time, weaponry and tactics tend to develop only incrementally. European armies in 1780, for example, looked almost identical to those of 1680. Likewise, little distinguished the medieval forces of 1300 from the armies that fought two centuries earlier.

At specific junctures, however, a confluence of new weapons, tactics, and forms of organization can fundamentally transform how wars are waged. In the late medieval period, a military revolution saw disciplined, salaried infantry displace mounted knights. Then came the early modern military revolution characterized by cannons, star-shaped forts, and oceanic warships. Centuries later, the industrial revolution empowered those states able to master the new technologies of railways, steel artillery, and mass conscription.

Not all military revolutions are the same. Some have led to the introduction of new technologies that only the wealthiest states can afford, while others have seen new military capabilities become more readily available to a wider range of states.

These two trends can clearly be seen in the military history of early modern Europe. In the late fifteenth century, the emergence of bronze artillery and star-shaped fortresses fundamentally changed the nature of war. Bronze cannon meant that armies could demolish castles and city walls in a matter of days rather than mounting lengthy sieges. To counter these new cannons, defenders developed star-shaped fortresses. Both technologies were exceedingly costly and were initially only accessible to a handful of leading powers such as France, Spain, and the Ottoman Empire.

It was a small state that kicked off the next wave of military revolution. This began in 1568 when the Dutch revolted against Imperial Spain. By almost any measure, the rebellious Dutch provinces should have lost. Spain was flush with silver from the Americas and had a far larger population base. Spain was also the indisputable military superpower of the period, having humbled France in the 1551-59 Italian War and crushed the Ottoman navy in 1571.

Initially, the war went as expected, with the Spanish conquering key cities such as Antwerp. However, the Dutch then began innovating. They discovered that the expensive and complex masonry employed in the construction of star-shaped fortresses was superfluous in wartime. Once they realized this, they started mass producing star-shaped fortifications out of earth and timber. Paid laborers or conscripted peasants could now build fortresses, so long as a trained engineer was present to supervise.

Likewise, the Dutch also pioneered casting cannon from iron. In many respects, these iron cannon were inferior to bronze; they weighed more and were prone to bursting. Iron guns, however, cost only one-tenth as much to manufacture. The Dutch used these cheaper cannons to equip larger fleets than the Spanish and to supply their many earthen fortifications with plentiful guns.

Dutch innovation in the late sixteenth century enabled the Netherlands to record one of the greatest military upsets in history. By 1609, they had obliged Spain to sign a truce. In 1648, The Spanish granted the Netherlands full independence. This military revolution did not introduce intrinsically different technologies. Instead, the Dutch developed ways of accessing capabilities that had hitherto only be available to great powers. What we are seeing in Ukraine today is a modern iteration of this dynamic.

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In the modern era, the United States has led the way in another military revolution by pioneering the development and deployment of precision-guided long-range strike weapons. Once again, the cost and complexity of these new weapons meant that only the world’s wealthiest and most technologically capable states could initially embrace this revolution.

Ukraine now stands on the brink of replicating the success of the Dutch more than four centuries ago. As the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion approaches, Ukraine is manufacturing large quantities of attack drones and developing its own cruise missiles, with plans to expand domestic production further. This ambitious objective is realistic, particularly if Ukraine’s allies provide sufficient support.

The conditions that have enabled Ukraine to achieve such innovations are unique in modern history. The existential nature of the war for Ukraine has meant that a vast talent pool of individuals hitherto uninvolved in the arms industry such as software engineers, tech entrepreneurs, and physicists have all embraced the task of developing novel solutions for Ukraine’s defense.

The funding of Ukraine’s war effort, with multiple Ukrainian ministries and foreign partners all financing projects, has created a remarkably pluralistic environment. In other words, entrepreneurs with promising products and potential backers are perpetually in search of one another. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s wartime circumstances have swept away many of the bureaucratic barriers and regulations that typically impede the testing and evaluation of weapons. The upshot is an innovation ecosystem more akin to Silicon Valley that typical military-industrial complexes.

Ukraine’s unique defense sector ecosystem has made it possible to produce an extraordinary number of long-range strike systems with unprecedented cost effectiveness. This is democratizing the long-range weapons technologies first pioneered by the United States in the final decades of the twentieth century. Ukraine’s progress is reminiscent of Dutch achievements in the sixteenth century, when they developed cheaper versions of existing technologies that had shaped Renaissance Europe’s earlier military revolution.

By leaning into this progress, Ukraine’s allies can help the country regain the initiative in the war against Russia. Ukraine currently lacks the resources to fund the production of cruise missiles and drones at the necessary scale, but Ukrainian defense sector companies do have spare capacity to produce more. By financing additional output of drones and missiles in Ukraine, partner countries can help transform the military situation.

Increased volumes of long-range strike weapons can enable a strategically successful campaign with an operational depth stretching hundreds of kilometers behind the front lines. In conditions of modern warfare, infantry and armored units are comparatively brittle and ineffective if they are denied supplies and long-range fire support. Ukraine’s expanding arsenal of deep strike assets provides a plausible means of achieving this, especially if supported with real-time intelligence from the country’s partners.

Ukraine’s long-range strike systems can also be used effectively in tandem with Western sanctions measures to increase the pressure on Russia’s overstretched wartime economy. A combined policy of tightening sanctions on Russian energy exports and escalating Ukrainian strikes on refineries and pipelines can seriously damage the strategically crucial Russian oil and gas industry.

The military revolution that Ukraine is currently leading has already succeeded in democratizing the production of long-range strike systems. With sufficient support from Kyiv’s partners, this revolution offers a viable pathway to Russia’s battlefield defeat and can set the stage for an acceptable peace agreement.

Dr Marc De Vore is a senior lecturer at the School of International Relations at the University of St. Andrews.

When Russia’s full-scale invasion first began in February 2022, Ukraine was heavily reliant on Western military aid as the country fought for survival. Since those early days, the Ukrainian army has expanded dramatically and evolved into the largest and most experienced fighting force in Europe. As a result of this transformation, a country that many had previously dismissed as a minor military player is now widely regarded as indispensable for the future defense of Europe.

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Ukraine’s potential to shape Europe’s new security architecture is most immediately obvious in the field of drone warfare. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is widely acknowledged as the world’s first full-scale drone war, with huge quantities of drones dominating the battlefield and operating deep inside enemy territory. Over the past four years, Ukraine has established itself as a “drone superpower” with an annual output of around four million drones, Bloomberg reported in November 2025.

Western security experts are no doubt acutely aware that alongside Ukraine, the two other nations currently driving the international development of drone warfare are Russia and China. This underlines Kyiv’s strategic importance as the democratic world adjusts to the challenges posed by an emerging alliance of authoritarian powers centered on Moscow and Beijing.

A growing number of US and EU defense companies have already sought to establish a presence in Ukraine in order to capitalize on the country’s technological expertize. This approach is understandable but may be shortsighted. In reality, Ukraine’s value extends far beyond access to existing military drone technologies.

Since 2022, Ukrainian drone developers and military units specializing in unmanned operations have learned to solve problems and adapt to new battlefield realities at lightning speed. Out of necessity, they have become accustomed to upgrading individual drone models and counter-drone systems within ever-decreasing innovation cycles that can now be measured in weeks.

Ukrainian forces have pioneered the use of combat drones on the front lines of the war. The country has also led the way at sea, with Ukrainian naval drones sinking multiple Russian warships and forcing Putin to withdraw the bulk of his remaining fleet from occupied Crimea to the relative safety of Russia itself. Meanwhile, long-range Ukrainian drones now routinely strike targets deep inside Russia. This Ukrainian success can serve as the foundation for a wider European security strategy as the world moves into a new era of drone-based warfare.

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Ukraine’s most immediate contribution to European security is likely to be in terms of helping countries defend against the mounting threat posed by Russian drones. The Kremlin’s current harassing activities around airports and other strategic sites across Europe are essentially an annoyance, but even such small-scale drone operations have exposed an alarming lack of readiness. At present, it seems safe to say that the continent as a whole is utterly unprepared for the kind of large-scale Russian drone attacks that have become a routine feature of the war in Ukraine.

Europe has responded to escalating Russian drone activity by developing plans to establish a “drone wall” along the continent’s exposed eastern flank. So far, however, this initiative remains somewhat fragmented with no unified concept or central coordination. While a collective response could eventually prove effective, pursuing this goal without learning from Ukraine’s unique experience makes little sense. Only Kyiv has the data and insights necessary to build layered defensive networks capable of combating waves of Russian drones.

In recent months, a growing number of European countries have taken the practical step of seeking to tap into Ukraine’s drone warfare prowess by working with Ukrainian trainers or establishing joint production initiatives. “Ukraine’s experience is the most relevant in Europe right now. Our specialists and technologies can become a key element of the future European drone wall, a large-scale project that will ensure safety in the skies,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy commented in September 2025.

In addition to drone tactics and technologies, Ukraine can also offer its European partners an unrivaled environment for drone operator training and weapons development. The whole of Ukraine is now a vast drone warfare laboratory where novel threats are identified and addressed on a daily basis. As a result, new drone models and upgraded designs can move from the drawing board to the battlefield at a pace that is unheard of in peacetime Europe.

Drone warfare is just one of the many areas where Europe can learn from Ukraine. As European leaders explore new security strategies in a rapidly shifting geopolitical environment, it should be abundantly clear that Kyiv has a crucial role to play. No other European country has such a battle-hardened army or intimate knowledge of modern warfare. In an increasingly unpredictable world, that makes Ukraine a vital partner.

Lesia Orobets is the founder of the Price of Freedom air defense initiative and a former member of the Ukrainian parliament.

The core question now is not whether the state should intervene, but how to design intervention that protects national interests without suffocating private initiative or driving away international investors. This means finding the middle ground between security and economic freedom. Democratic Ukraine must seek to strike a better balance than its authoritarian adversary in order to enable the kind of continued defense tech innovation necessary to prevail on the battlefield and increase deterrence.

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There are currently concerns that Ukraine’s fast‑growing defense tech sector risks inheriting longstanding governance problems including opaque procedures, slow decision‑making, and uneven enforcement. Recent corruption scandals in Kyiv have already damaged trust, creating what some businesses have described as “negative expectations.”

From the Ukrainian government’s side, there is recognition that institutions are still adapting, with many of the available economic security tools still fragmented or not yet fully operational. This represents an opportunity for Ukraine if the country is able to build governance structures tailored to strategic sectors rather than retrofitting existing and outdated bureaucratic models. Creating a new generation of transparent institutions to address defense sector exports, investment screening, and procurement could become a competitive advantage for Ukraine if designed with private sector input from the outset.

Export licensing is one of the most acute potential bottlenecks. Ukraine’s defense tech businesses currently face a process requiring excessive approvals from multiple institutions, with little accountability or predictability. There is also a perception of unequal treatment, undermining confidence in the system. Ukrainian officials, meanwhile, tend to stress the necessity of strict controls to prevent leakage of sensitive technologies.

A risk‑based and tiered export control regime could address these concerns. By clearly defining a narrow list of highly sensitive technologies requiring strict oversight, the Ukrainian authorities could create faster and more predictable export pathways for less sensitive defense and dual‑use products. This would support economic growth while preserving core security interests.

Wartime currency controls and capital movement restrictions severely limit the ability of Ukrainian defense sector companies to expand internationally. Multiple investors have noted the paradox of profitable Ukrainian firms being unable to deploy their own capital abroad, forcing them to raise funds outside the country simply to operate globally.

From the perspective of Ukrainian policymakers, currency restrictions are viewed as necessary to preserve macro‑financial stability and to prevent capital flight. Targeted exemptions for vetted defense and dual‑use companies, particularly those pursuing foreign acquisitions or joint ventures aligned with national priorities, could unlock growth without undermining financial stability. Such a mechanism would signal trust in compliant firms and reward transparency.

Another key issue is intellectual property (IP). Standard IP processes are too slow for wartime innovation cycles. In the dynamic current environment, Ukrainian companies rely on trade secrets and know‑how rather than formal patents, but this increases risks when partnering internationally.

Ukrainian officials acknowledge the importance of innovation but have so far only been able to offer limited concrete solutions. Accelerated IP pathways for defense and dual‑use technologies, combined with support for joint research and development frameworks with trusted foreign partners, could help Ukrainian firms secure protection in allied jurisdictions while strengthening international integration.

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There is a degree of uncertainty in Ukraine’s expanding defense tech sector that can be seen in inconsistent terminology, unclear boundaries, and undefined red lines. A shared vocabulary and published strategic framework, co‑developed by the public and private sectors, could help reduce this uncertainty.

Different priorities lead to diverging visions. Defense tech industry executives and investors tend to view the issue of economic security primarily through the lens of scalability, competitiveness, and speed. Their key assumptions include the notion that innovation thrives in predictable, transparent environments.

Many also argue that Ukraine’s combat‑tested technologies represent a unique global opportunity, while cautioning that excessive controls risk pushing talent, capital, and IP abroad. With this in mind, industry representatives and investors generally support targeted security measures but fear blanket restrictions that treat all technologies and companies as equally sensitive.

Ukrainian officials tend to frame economic security primarily as a defensive necessity. They warn that adversaries actively use markets, investment, and technology transfer as weapons. Many are also concerned that under‑regulation could result in irreversible strategic losses. Naturally, their perspective prioritizes caution, monitoring, and alignment with allied security frameworks, even at the cost of slower growth.

The central tension here is time-based and risk‑based. Businesses operate on market timelines and accept calculated risk, while governments operate on security timelines and seek to minimize worst‑case scenarios. Without structured dialogue, these differences manifest as mistrust rather than complementary roles.

If managed effectively, wartime Ukraine’s approach to economic security in the defense tech and dual-use sectors could become a model for the country’s broader postwar reconstruction. Ukraine has the opportunity to redesign institutions in a strategic sector that already commands global attention. Success may depend on whether government policy is seen by businesses as a partnership or as an obstacle.

Constructive cooperation grounded in transparency, risk‑based policy, and continuous dialogue can transform economic security from a constraint into a catalyst for Ukraine’s long‑term strength and sovereignty, providing significant security benefits for allies and partners along the way. This is a realistic objective. After all, industry, investors, and government all ultimately seek the common goal of a resilient, innovative Ukrainian economy integrated with democratic allies and protected from adversarial exploitation.

Bridging the gap between perspectives is less a matter of ideology than of process, trust, and execution. Ukraine is currently in a period of transition that is marked by many significant challenges but no irreconcilable obstacles. Industry and investors are ready to scale globally while the government is racing to build safeguards against unprecedented threats. The task now is to synchronize these efforts.

Eric K. Hontz is director of the Accountable Investment Practice Area at the Center for International Private Enterprise.

On disinformation and influence operations, the deal is unlikely to be transformative. As we argued in a 2024 report examining TikTok’s national security implications, Beijing’s ability to conduct influence operations does not depend on ownership of a single platform. While the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could theoretically attempt to shape content via TikTok’s recommendation algorithm, it already engages in influence campaigns across US-based social media platforms and will continue to do so even with TikTok’s structural reorganization. Restricting TikTok does not dismantle the broader information ecosystem in which foreign influence campaigns operate.

The data security case is even more revealing. The type of data generated by TikTok is not fundamentally different from that collected across the digital advertising ecosystem, which over the past decade has evolved into a system capable of extremely granular micro-targeting. Data brokers routinely aggregate information from mobile advertising identifiers, cookies, location data, and online activity to build detailed dossiers on individuals. Although these identifiers are often described as “anonymized,” it is widely understood that combining multiple datasets makes re-identification fairly straightforward.

This ecosystem enables the creation of highly specific audience segments—such as military personnel with financial vulnerabilities, politically active voters, or individuals likely to participate in protests—drawing on data that includes location histories, credit card transactions, employment records, social media activity, and government filings. Investigations by civil society organizations and journalists have repeatedly demonstrated how easy it is to access such data, often with minimal vetting, and how readily it could be exploited by foreign intelligence services or malign actors.

Importantly, this data is not confined to fringe actors. Major US technology platforms continue to earn significant revenue from foreign advertisers, including Chinese firms, even as they attempt to place guardrails on data flows. While companies such as Google have introduced measures to limit the sharing of certain identifiers with Chinese entities, advertising experts note that these restrictions are often porous. Once an ad is served, advertisers can still infer sensitive information—such as IP addresses and device characteristics—and real-time bidding systems offer no technical guarantee that data will not be misused after it is received.

Compared to this sprawling and still inadequately regulated market, TikTok’s data practices are not uniquely dangerous. Focusing narrowly on this one app risks obscuring the far more consequential vulnerabilities embedded in the broader data economy.

Finally, it is worth underscoring how little ByteDance has conceded in the deal. If ByteDance has in fact licensed the algorithm, as subsequent reporting has indicated, the company has preserved control over its most valuable intellectual property. The principal concession—that is, the loss of majority ownership in the entity overseeing data security—imposes limited strategic costs.

In addition, depending on how the actual licensing deal is laid out, this structure could still hypothetically leave room for PRC influence over the algorithm—though it will likely be more difficult than it would be if ByteDance retained full ownership. The licensed algorithm is a continuously trained system shaped by design choices, training data, model updates, and operational parameters. If ByteDance is retaining control over that core intellectual property, in theory, the PRC government could exert some influence over how the system evolves, even if day-to-day content moderation or data security oversight is localized. Once further details of the licensing agreement are released, this risk will be better understood.

At the same time, it is important not to overstate what that influence could look like in practice. Rather than eliminate the risk of manipulation, this structure redistributes it among a different set of actors. Algorithmic manipulation is unlikely to take the form of overt, platform-wide promotion of pro-CCP content. Should manipulation occur, it would likely take the form of more subtle interventions that would be difficult to attribute to PRC influence or parse out from how the recommender system is working on US user data. This is especially the case now as the handover gets under way and the algorithm is being trained on US user data from scratch; in the short term, the app could exhibit high variability in terms of the content it surfaces while the system learns what users want and curates their “For You” page accordingly.

In essence, this structure largely shifts visible forms of control from Beijing to other actors without eliminating the underlying vulnerabilities inherent in the US social media ecosystem. While the deal may reduce political pressure in Washington and be framed as a decisive step to protect the US information environment from PRC interference, it does little to resolve the systemic challenges of information manipulation, foreign influence, and data exploitation. Those risks are embedded in the architecture of the digital ecosystem itself, and mitigating them will require far more than rearranging the ownership of a single platform.

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Time matters: Why Europe needs Ukrainian defense innovation

Oleksiy Honcharuk — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 18:06:42 +0000

KYIV—In an age of global instability, the most important dimension is time. In Davos and throughout the continent in recent weeks, European leaders have spoken of the need for a common defense strategy. As European nations work to make this a reality, building joint investment processes in defense technology between Ukraine and the European Union (EU) is not merely desirable—it is strategically indispensable.

Europe is undergoing the deepest security reappraisal in the history of the EU. Since 2022, the continent has shed its illusions about a “stable order” and shifted into a phase of rapid rearmament. Over the past year alone, the EU has approved multiyear defense funds worth tens of billions of euros, launched new mechanisms for joint procurement and, for the first time, begun a serious conversation about defense autonomy.

This is hardly surprising: the United States continues to remind Europeans that they must be able to shoulder the burden of their own defense and rely on their own capabilities rather than await salvation from across the Atlantic. The question now is how Europeans can best accomplish this.

Europe is accelerating its defense industry but running into structural problems

Europe continues to be one of the key technological centers of the global defense industry and is actively investing in military innovation. The continent hosts both traditional defense giants and a new generation of defense-tech companies and start-ups. European states are investing in unmanned systems, cybersecurity, air and missile defense, space and sensor technologies, and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven military applications. The European Union also remains one of the world’s largest arms exporters—reaching sixty billion euros in 2024—underscoring the bloc’s industrial capacity and technological depth.

At the same time, several structural problems continue to hinder the development of Europe’s defense industry and its ability to meet new challenges. Three stand out in particular:

Spending gaps. Against the backdrop of constrained credit and fiscal rules, EU member states together spend roughly half as much on defense as the United States does. At the same time, moving toward spending 5 percent of gross domestic product on defense would represent a genuinely revolutionary shift for Europe. A series of statements by European leaders in 2025 have made it increasingly clear that such a change in approach is becoming politically unavoidable. Securing funding is, in effect, Europe’s primary political homework assignment.
Fragmentation of production, technologies, standards, and procurement. In his 2024 report on European competitiveness, former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi highlighted one of the EU’s core strategic weaknesses: fragmentation. By preserving the sovereignty and autonomy of member states, the EU has produced a kaleidoscope of defense approaches. Member states operate under different procurement policies and lack unified standards. This problem can’t be solved by simply increasing spending. Without common policies and standardization, Europe risks achieving lower levels of efficiency compared with other major military powers even with nominally comparable levels of expenditure.
Heavy dependence on foreign suppliers, especially the United States. As Draghi noted in his report, “The choice to procure from the US may be justified in some cases because the EU does not have some products in its catalogue, but in many other cases a European equivalent exists, or could be rapidly made available by the European defence industry.” This dependence constrains Europe’s strategic autonomy, and it slows the development of its own industrial and technological base.

Europe’s rearmament will cost hundreds of billions of euros. Yet the critical question is not only how much money is spent or what is bought today or tomorrow. What matters most is the speed of the defense-industrial system whose development these funds are intended to support.

What is missing? Speed.

Europe still lacks an adequate answer to Russia’s drone technologies, honed through years of war. In September 2025, the intrusion of nineteen Russian drones into NATO airspace forced the scrambling of F-35 fighter jets to shoot them down, an absurdly expensive response. When unidentified drones disrupt air traffic around European capitals, nobody is certain how to react. Inevitably, attention turns east—to Ukraine, which has learned to survive in a modern drone war, repel incursions of more than seven hundred airborne targets in a single night, and strike back. All this has been achieved through military innovation. As Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in October 2025, “The only expert right now in the world when it comes to anti-drone capacities is Ukraine, because they are fighting the Russian drones almost every day.”

Many now argue that Ukrainian unmanned technologies are precisely what Europe needs—and could become the continent’s trump card in its hybrid confrontation with Russia. “Ukraine is already helping us and teaching us how to fight the wars of tomorrow. Ukrainian drones destroy 80 percent of targets on the ground,” said Andrius Kubilius, the EU’s defense commissioner, at the Conference on Ukraine’s European Future in November 2025.

Ukraine is often described as a drone superpower: It produces four million drones a year (the United States makes less than one hundred thousand a year), fields hundreds of systems and models, and has logged thousands of confirmed drone strikes on Russian targets. With drones, Ukraine has crippled Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, damaged its strategic aviation, and now threatens one of the foundations of Russia’s power: its oil infrastructure. The low cost of Ukrainian drone technology compared with conventional weaponry greatly impresses political leaders who must approve defense budgets. But the real issue runs deeper.

Defense technologies are constantly evolving: No matter what new weapons appear on the battlefield, none of them remains decisive for long. Within months, adversaries develop countermeasures—new tactics, new technologies. Wars are won not by those with the largest arsenals or the most soldiers but by those who win this race. Europe’s true strategic problem is slowness. The main thing Europe can learn from Ukraine’s defense sector is speed.

At the strategic level, Europe can win any war or technological race—if it buys itself a faster engine.

The Ukrainian precedent: Frontline research and development as a model

This is the first war in which dual-use products—such as agricultural drones and open-source software platforms—are often more lethal than conventional weapons. It has also made one thing clear: Preparation for war must involve not only professional armies, but the entire nation. During the war, millions of civilians joined in the defense of Ukraine, bringing their own approaches and fundamentally transforming the process of developing defense innovations.

Drone production in Ukraine resembles a vast open-source frontline research and development lab. Volunteers, private firms, military units and government agencies all test, iterate, and refine designs on a weekly basis. Strike videos circulate on social media; experts debate performance; thousands of chats buzz with feedback; ideas are exchanged in kitchens, workshops, and smoking areas. This may appear absurd from the perspective of traditional military rules and procedures, but it works.

There are almost no examples of drones built by defense giants remaining effective on the battlefield for long. The reason is the slow pace of adaptation and evolution. Ukrainian drones also do not last long on the battlefield—but the best of them evolve faster than the adversary can adapt to them.

No wonder NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte remarked in October 2025 that Ukraine is “a powerhouse when it comes to innovation, insights, for example, when it comes to anti-drone technology [and] anti-cyber threats.”

European militaries do not operate this way. Yet Europe possesses a strategic advantage of its own—one it can put to powerful use.

Europe’s slow money and Ukraine’s speed

Ukraine and Europe have opposite superpowers.

Europe is slow but has cheap, long-term capital. Slowness is, in fact, a form of trust: Investors know the rules will not change and their rights will be protected. This is precisely what Ukraine has long lacked.
Ukraine is fast and unpredictable, but its capital is always expensive. Speed means risk, which means a high cost of capital.

Combining Europe’s capital with Ukraine’s speed and innovation would create a unique dynamic.

Investment is not merely capital; it is a way to synchronize Europe’s pace with Ukraine’s school of fast-evolving combat systems.

Europe’s future hinges on integrating Ukraine into its defense ecosystem

Europe has entered an era of rapid military evolution. Ukraine is the country of the free world that best understands what modern war looks like. This is why European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen now speaks of a new drone alliance between Ukraine and Europe. “Before the war, Ukraine had no drones. Today, Ukrainian drones are responsible for over 23 percent of Russian equipment losses, highlighting the impact of human ingenuity in open societies,” she said in September 2025.

Europe is already entering a phase of practically implementing Ukrainian defense technologies and more closely cooperating with Ukrainian defense-tech companies. This is reflected both in joint manufacturing projects and in the integration of Ukrainian solutions into European rearmament programs—from cooperation on unmanned systems and counter-drone technologies to the creation of joint research and development teams. Notable examples include initiatives to establish joint ventures with Ukrainian manufacturers, as well as growing interest from European defense-tech players in Ukraine’s combat-tested experience with AI- and network-centric solutions.

The process has already begun. Many announcements have been made about joint investments and co-development of unmanned systems between European and Ukrainian firms. More will follow. It is part of a broader shared strategy.

If Europe and Ukraine carry this strategy through, the continent will at last acquire genuine defense autonomy, making it capable of withstanding any threat.

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To adapt to today’s security threats, NATO should prioritize the basics of defense innovation

jcookson — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 20:40:57 +0000

WASHINGTON—From the specter of US retrenchment to ongoing Russian revanchism, European NATO members must face up to a harsh reality: the Alliance lacks the industrial capabilities to meet today’s security challenges. Their recent promises to increase defense spending, while substantial and welcome, will not be enough alone to change this.

To adapt quickly enough to confront evolving threats, NATO allies must get the basics right. This means adopting functional and flexible financing mechanisms, streamlining regulatory frameworks, and building production foundations that prioritize scalable and sustainable innovation.

These challenges that NATO faces, as well as the need for the Alliance to get the basics right, are being actively discussed, including at the 2025 Netherlands-US Defense Industry Days conference in Washington, DC, this past October. At this event, organized by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Atlantic Council, policymakers, industry leaders, financiers, and experts discussed how transatlantic allies can accelerate defense innovation while strengthening their defense industrial bases. Below are a few of the authors’ major takeaways from this conference on how NATO can meet these challenges.

Don’t just spend more—spend smarter

Increasingly, the battlefields of the future will be won in the realm of innovation. Building ecosystems to support technology development will require allies to use newly unlocked defense dollars to fill immediate capability gaps and build flexible financing pathways to foster innovation. If done right, these defense ecosystems can allocate more resources directly to innovators, boosting returns on investment and generating cutting-edge capabilities in North America and Europe.

To do this, allies should take a two-pronged approach to financing innovation:

Accept risk to accelerate adoption. Many innovation initiatives—such as NATO’s Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) organization—too often fall short because they prioritize immediate return on investment or quick-turn results over long-term innovation development. This places a strain on innovators, limiting their access to seed money and signaling to the private sector that the Alliance does not prioritize lasting defense technology innovation. Instead, NATO should give these initiatives greater latitude to prioritize experimentation and iteration rather than meeting often arbitrary metrics and quotas.

Protect research and development budgets. From the rise of the space domain to electromagnetic warfare, NATO allies must win not just a single innovation race; they need to win many at once. Research and development (R&D) budgets are critical to this effort. Yet, far too often, as participants at the conference noted, R&D budgets for defense technologies are cannibalized in favor of immediate operational needs, particularly during periods of heightened security pressure. By prioritizing R&D budgets, governments can send a clear signal to defense industries, investment bankers, and venture capitalists that NATO members see investment in defense technology as a long-term and sustainable demand. These signals can help spur greater private-sector investment in these technologies.

To produce at scale, regulate at scale

Current regulatory environments on both sides of the Atlantic are not designed for the speed of innovation or adoption needed in today’s rapidly evolving security environment. Instead, NATO allies must strike a careful balance: NATO countries should impose regulations that protect sensitive technologies and intellectual property while also encouraging cooperation among allies on innovation development. Two main principles should inform this approach:

Break down barriers to transatlantic defense industrial cooperation. In the United States, having to navigate dense bureaucracy can stifle innovation, hamper collaborative partnerships, and stretch lead times for critical defense technologies. However, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recently made several announcements that show promise in this area—including loosening restrictions on defense contractors and emphasizing speed—indicating that the Pentagon will work to streamline defense cooperation for allies looking to buy US capabilities. Despite this positive momentum, meaningful changes to US foreign military sales and armaments cooperation will require sustained efforts to reform these overly burdensome bureaucratic processes.

Keep agile firms top of mind when writing regulations. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) will make or break the next era of warfare. Yet defense industrial and innovation regulations often impose disproportionate costs on SMEs because they are designed only for the largest defense companies. For example, the US Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification rightly protects sensitive data through third-party audit and monitoring requirements. But as written, the cost of compliance with these regulations is prohibitively expensive for SMEs, risking pushing many smaller defense firms out of the market altogether. Therefore, policymakers and military planners must establish more frequent, institutionalized relationships with SMEs to better understand how regulations affect these new players. A good step in the right direction would be for policymakers to apply regulations on a sliding scale, setting thresholds for how large a defense company must grow before it has to comply with certain requirements.

Build integrated innovation ecosystems

NATO should adopt a holistic approach to capability development that marries research, design, and production to turn industrial development into more than just the sum of its structural parts. Three ways to build this holistic approach are:

Champion defense industrial cooperation. To innovate at the necessary pace, the Alliance must build defense industrial co-development, co-production, and co-assembly pathways. Working industry-to-industry or industry-to-partner, such collaborative efforts can help enable allied industries to scale up production and develop cutting-edge defense technologies. This approach defrays risk for industry, builds stronger transatlantic bonds, and shortens lead times for capability delivery.

Advance a model that combines expertise across sectors. To build more resilient and sustainable defense innovation ecosystems, allies should foster a defense innovation model that integrates government, industry, and academia. With these three sectors working together, allies can coordinate experimentation, testing, and manufacturing efforts to accelerate development and deployment timelines. Applied across the Atlantic, such a model could replace isolated national pilot projects with a coordinated framework for sustained, interoperable innovation.

Establish a NATO Defense Innovation Unit to spur development. Modeled after the United States’ own Defense Innovation Unit, a NATO version of the institution would help the Alliance coordinate funding, regulation, and capability development. A NATO Defense Innovation Unit would maintain shared test facilities, align technical standards, and guide the transition of prototypes into fielded systems. It would serve as a permanent platform connecting NATO’s innovation initiatives—such as DIANA and the NATO Innovation Fund—with national and private-sector efforts.

Building transatlantic innovation ecosystems must begin with the basics: financing innovation wisely, regulating for speed and scalability, and building integrated defense innovation models across sectors and allied capitals. A roadmap grounded in smart investment, adaptive regulations, and collaborative production can transform innovation into readiness.

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Ukraine’s best security guarantee is the ability to strike back inside Russia

Serhii Kuzan — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 19:14:29 +0000

The issue of potential security guarantees for Ukraine has dominated US-led peace talks in recent months, but current proposals lack credibility. While everyone agrees that security guarantees are essential, is anybody actually prepared to risk war with Russia in order to enforce them? Based on the excessive caution displayed by Western leaders over the past four years, it is easy to see why many observers remain unconvinced.

With Ukraine’s Western partners unlikely to defend the country against a new Russian invasion, the most realistic option is to build up Kyiv’s own military capabilities. This process is already well underway. Since 2022, the Ukrainian army has expanded dramatically to become by far the largest fighting force in Europe and a world leader in drone warfare. Ukraine’s transformation into a major European military power has been supported by the country’s allies, who have provided large quantities of weapons and equipment along with the financial support needed to power the rapid expansion of the Ukrainian defense industry.

The growing strength of the Ukrainian military has been instrumental in stemming the tide of Russia’s invasion. Despite holding the battlefield initiative throughout 2025, Putin’s army was able to seize less than one percent of Ukrainian territory while suffering heavy losses. The priority now is to freeze the front lines further and reach a point where even minor Russian advances become increasingly unfeasible. However, effective defenses alone will not be enough to end the war or prevent a new Russian invasion. In order to deter Putin, Ukraine must also be able to strike back effectively at targets across Russia.

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Ukraine’s arsenal of long-range weapons has evolved significantly since 2022. Over the past four years, the country has managed to develop a variety of strike drones with the capacity to reach targets located well over a thousand kilometers from the Ukrainian border. Ukraine also now boasts an expanding selection of domestically produced cruise missiles. This enhanced long-range firepower has made it possible for Ukraine to conduct an escalating bombing campaign inside Russia that has already changed the geography of the war.

Since summer 2025, long-range Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory have reached record highs. Ukraine has struck dozens of military facilities and defense industry enterprises, while also paying special attention to the oil and gas infrastructure that fuels the Russian war economy. Ukraine has hit refineries, pipelines, oil rigs, ports, and a number of tankers belonging to the Kremlin’s so-called shadow fleet. These strikes have complicated the logistics of the invasion while contributing to a significant decline in Russia’s energy export revenues.

In addition to hampering the Kremlin war machine and causing economic damage, Ukraine’s mounting campaign of long-range strikes has also had a major psychological impact that is helping to bring home the reality of the war to the Russian public. Since the start of the full-scale invasion, the Kremlin has worked hard to shield ordinary Russians and contain the conflict within the borders of Ukraine. However, with air raid sirens becoming an increasingly routine feature of daily life in Russian towns and cities, the Putin regime is no longer able to control the narrative.

A recent survey conducted by Russia’s only remaining independent pollster, the Levada Center, has highlighted the impact Ukrainian strikes are having on Russian public sentiment. Asked to name the most notable event of the past year, 28 percent of respondents cited Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian cities and industrial facilities, making this the third most popular answer. Clearly, Ukraine’s long-range bombing campaign has succeeded in breaking through the Kremlin propaganda bubble and has made a strong impression on the Russian population.

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For Ukraine’s partners, the objective now should be to boost Ukraine’s long-range capabilities to the maximum in order to equip the country with the kind of strike power that can deter Russia. Numerous Western leaders have shied away from providing Kyiv with long-range missiles from their own arsenals due to escalation fears. The solution is simple: Western partners should focus their efforts on helping Ukraine produce sufficient quantities of drones and missiles domestically.

Ukrainian officials are well aware that the ability to hit targets across the Russian Federation may be their country’s most effective security guarantee against further Kremlin aggression. They are now appealing to Kyiv’s international partners for increased support as they seek to exploit the country’s considerable spare defense industry production capacity and crank up output.

“The modern arms race is not about nukes. It is about millions of cheap drones. Those who can scale up production quicker will secure peace,” commented Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha in late 2025. “This requires quick and sufficient funding for Ukraine’s defense industry, which is now the greatest source of defense innovation in the world. We can produce up to twenty million drones next year if we get sufficient funding.”

Throughout the past year of faltering US-led peace efforts, Vladimir Putin has repeatedly demonstrated that he has no intention of ending the invasion. As long as the war is being fought predominantly inside Ukraine, he is unlikely to change his position, regardless of Russian combat losses. However, if Ukrainian drone and missile strikes inside Russia continue to expand during 2026, the economic and social impact may become too serious to ignore. This could force Putin to abandon his stalling tactics and finally enter into genuine negotiations. It would also oblige him to think carefully before restarting his invasion in the years ahead.

Serhii Kuzan is chairman of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center (USCC). He formerly served as an adviser to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense (2022-2023) and as an advisor to the Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council (2014).

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Ukraine’s defensive strategy goes far beyond a reliance on traditional static barriers. Over the past year, there has also been a growing emphasis on dispersed, concealed, and flexible defensive networks. These small-scale fortified positions are often located underground or embedded in tree lines at strategic locations, and are supported by remote fires and decoys. Each individual node in these networks is designed to shape enemy movement rather than stop it outright, channeling attackers into deliberately prepared kill pockets without exposing defenders. By creating choke points for Russian troops, Ukraine aims to maximize Kremlin casualties and capitalize on its in-built advantages as the defending party in a war of attrition.

There are growing signs that this approach is working. Ukraine’s top military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi commented recently that the current strategy has proved particularly effective on the Pokrovsk front, which has witnessed some of the heaviest fighting of the entire war over the past year. According to Syrskyi, “timely and high-quality fortifications and engineering obstacles” enabled Ukrainian forces to inflict maximum losses on Russian units close to Pokrovsk and disrupt their plans, even when facing numerical superiority.

Where Ukrainian defenses have failed, the reasons are instructive. In areas such as Toretsk and parts of the Kharkiv front, troop rotations occurred without sufficient time or equipment to construct proper fortifications, leading to Russian gains. Constant Russian drone surveillance made the use of heavy engineering machinery dangerous, leaving units unprepared when assaults followed. These cases serve as confirmation that fortifications are not optional enhancements but foundational to battlefield survival under drone saturated conditions.

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Drones are at the heart of Ukraine’s defensive strategy, serving as a ubiquitous presence over kill zones and preventing localized Russian advances from consolidating into more substantial breakthroughs. Meanwhile, in some sectors of the front such as Pokrovsk, ground robotic systems are now being used to deliver the vast majority of supplies to troops. With this in mind, Ukrainian commanders argue that all future defensive lines should be optimized for both aerial and ground drones.

These technological advances do not eliminate the need for manpower. Even the most sophisticated fortifications require soldiers to react to emerging threats. When Russian units manage to infiltrate defensive lines or push into urban areas, infantry forces remain essential in order to clear and secure ground. While Ukraine’s improved fortifications are an encouraging development for the war-weary nation, no physical barrier can realistically stop Russia unless it is supported by sufficient quantities of well-trained troops.

Strengthening Ukraine’s fortifications and addressing manpower shortages will be among the top priorities for incoming Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who took up his post this week. Fedorov made his name in government as Minister of Digital Transformation. Since 2022, he has been one of the driving forces behind Ukraine’s rapidly expanding drone warfare capabilities.

Fedorov’s extensive defense tech background, along with his reputation as a modernizer who has countered institutional corruption through the digitalization of state services, has led to considerable optimism over his appointment. He is now faced with the twin challenges of improving Ukraine’s front line defenses while addressing the mobilization and desertion problems hindering the Ukrainian war effort. If he is able to make progress on these two fronts, Ukraine’s prospects for 2026 and beyond will begin to look a lot better.

David Kirichenko is an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

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The current emphasis on UGVs is part of a broader technological transformation taking place on the battlefields of Ukraine. This generational shift in military tech is redefining how modern wars are fought.

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, homegrown innovation has played a critical role in Ukraine’s defense. Early in the war, Ukrainian troops deployed cheap commercial drones to conduct reconnaissance. These platforms were soon being adapted to carry explosives, dramatically expanding their combat role. By the second year of the war, Ukraine had developed a powerful domestic drone industry capable of producing millions of units per year while rapidly adapting to the ever-changing requirements of the battlefield.

A similar process has also been underway at sea, with Ukraine deploying domestically produced naval drones to sink or damage more than a dozen Russian warships. This has forced Putin to withdraw the remainder of the Black Sea Fleet from occupied Crimea to Russia itself. Recent successes have included the downing of Russian helicopters over the Black Sea using naval drones armed with missiles, and an audacious strike on a Russian submarine by an underwater Ukrainian drone.

By late 2023, drones were dominating the skies over the Ukrainian battlefield, making it extremely dangerous to use vehicles or armor close to the front lines. In response to this changing dynamic, Ukrainian forces began experimenting with wheeled and tracked land drones to handle logistical tasks such as the delivery of food and ammunition to front line positions and the evacuation of wounded troops.

Over the past year, Russia’s expanding use of fiber-optic drones and tactical focus on disrupting Ukrainian supply lines has further underlined the importance of UGVs. Fiber-optic drones have expanded the kill zone deep into the Ukrainian rear, complicating the task of resupplying combat units and leading to shortages that weaken Ukraine’s defenses. Robotic systems help counter this threat.

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Remote controlled land drones offer a range of practical advantages. They are more difficult to jam electronically than aerial drones, and are far harder to spot than trucks or cars. These benefits are making them increasingly indispensable for the Ukrainian military. In November 2025, the BBC reported that up to 90 percent of all supplies to Ukrainian front line positions around Pokrovsk were being delivered by UGVs.

In addition to logistical functions, the Ukrainian military is also pioneering the use of land drones in combat roles. It is easy to see why this is appealing. After all, Ukrainian commanders are being asked to defend a front line stretching more than one thousand kilometers with limited numbers of troops against a far larger and better equipped enemy.

Experts caution that while UGVs can serve as a key element of Ukraine’s defenses, they are not a realistic alternative to boots on the ground. Former Ukrainian commander in chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi has acknowledged that robotic systems are already making it possible to remove personnel from the front lines and reduce casualties, but stressed that current technology remains insufficient to replace humans at scale.

Despite the advances of the past four years, Ukraine’s expanding robot army remains incapable of carrying out many military functions that require infantry. When small groups of Russian troops infiltrate Ukrainian positions and push into urban areas, for example, soldiers are needed to clear and hold terrain. Advocates of drone warfare need to recognize these limitations when making the case for greater reliance on unmanned systems.

UGVs will likely prove vital for Ukraine in 2026, but they are not wonder weapons and cannot serve as a miracle cure for Kyiv’s manpower challenges. Instead, Ukraine’s robot army should be viewed as an important part of the country’s constantly evolving defenses that can help save lives while raising the cost of Russia’s invasion.

David Kirichenko is an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

Unmanned systems of all kinds have emerged since 2022 as a fundamental element of modern military doctrine. This is radically changing everything from the structure of armies to the role of the individual soldier. Remotely controlled equipment no longer needs a large crew to support it, while individual models are becoming more compact and maneuverable. As a result, the power of unmanned weapons systems is increasing exponentially, while production is expanding to industrial scale and becoming significantly cheaper.

More and more soldiers now serve as unmanned systems operators. Those who remain in more traditional roles perform tasks such as special operations, guard duties, or logistical functions. The war being waged by Ukraine has demonstrated that the modern battlefield features a kill zone up to 25 miles deep and spanning the entire front line. This zone is controlled by drones that destroy any infantry or equipment. Combat operations are increasingly conducted by drone operators located deep in the rear or in underground bunkers.

In these conditions of drone dominance over the battlefield, any attempts to stage major breakthroughs are doomed to failure. Instead of tank columns and artillery duels, offensive operations require maximum dispersal of forces and the greatest possible camouflage. The main task of troops is to gradually shift the kill zone deeper into the enemy’s rear.

Success depends upon the ability to rapidly produce large quantities of inexpensive combat drones and continually update their control systems. Initial tactics involving single drones and individual targets are already becoming a thing of a past. Instead, operators can now use artificial intelligence to control entire fleets featuring large numbers of drones deployed simultaneously. This approach allows a single soldier to manage kilometers of front line space rather than just a few hundred meters. The result is a reduction in the need for mass mobilization and an emphasis on the professionalism and technical skills of each operator manning the front.

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Combat operations now boil down to two main scenarios: Either the collapse of an enemy who is not prepared for the new intensity of combat, or a positional struggle in the style of World War I. In a protracted positional war, it is crucial to ensure control over the kill zone and maintain sufficient supplies while depriving the enemy of similar capabilities. The protection of logistics networks and the infliction of maximum damage on the enemy’s rear areas is of decisive importance.

First and foremost, this means cutting off ground supply routes. To protect logistics, armies must develop fleets of maneuverable transport drones that are not dependent on road quality and can navigate minefields. Meanwhile, to ensure the steady supply of ammunition and spare parts to underground storage points along the front lines, a mobile air defense system featuring interceptor drones is necessary.

At the strategic level, key targets are now weapons factories, logistics centers, and command posts, which are often hidden deep in the rear or located inside underground bunkers close to the front lines. Destroying these high-value targets requires guided missiles or other air strike capabilities. Military planners are therefore faced with the challenge of moving away from expensive manned aircraft toward reusable strategic drones.

Testing of fully-fledged unmanned aircraft is already underway. The transition toward unmanned aviation will open up the mass deployment of guided aerial bombs, which are significantly cheaper than missiles. In addition, strategic drones will themselves be able to act as “aircraft carriers” for kamikaze drones.

The same principles apply equally to the maritime theater of operations. Ukrainian Sea Baby naval drones have already proven themselves by destroying numerous warships from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and carrying out attacks on Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers.

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To ensure their future national security, states must focus on the mass production of unmanned systems and their components. China currently accounts for the lion’s share of component parts. This is a challenge for any country that seeks to play a role in global affairs. China must be deprived of the strategic advantages it enjoys due to its status as the leading producer of components for unmanned systems.

Many NATO generals appear to think that recent technological advances are making war cheaper and creating a more level military playing field. This is a mistake. In reality, any reduction in the cost of weapons is more than offset by the need for increased quantities.

It is also important to stress that unmanned technologies alone are not enough. Another key factor is an army’s access to reliable digital communications similar to Starlink. Without this capability, it is impossible to coordinate combat operations, collect data, and maintain connections between individual units and command structures. It is no coincidence that China is already investing billions to address this issue.

The transformation currently underway in the military sphere also increases the role of cyber warfare. Disruption to logistics, power outages, and communications breakdowns can all provide the enemy with the opportunity to advance. A hacked cyber system can expose vital defenses or dramatically reduce the possibility of recovery.

Looking ahead, technological innovation in the military must be recognized as a national priority when allocating defense budgets. This applies to everything from unmanned systems to the development of artificial intelligence.

The most important revolution must take place within the minds of today’s military generals. A comprehensive rethink of existing military doctrines is currently needed. Armies must be completely re-equipped. It is time for the top brass to acknowledge that they should either change or give way to a new generation of military strategists.

Ukraine’s experience since 2022 has confirmed that in order to be successful in modern warfare, armies should model themselves on technological giants like Amazon and SpaceX. They must embrace flexible thinking and be capable of competing in terms of implementing new innovations.

In an era of accelerated military change, all countries face a simple choice of adapting or accepting the inevitability of defeat. The winners will be those who embrace the lessons from the technological revolution currently underway on the battlefields of Ukraine.

Oleg Dunda is a member of the Ukrainian Parliament from the Servant of the People party.

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As the bombardment of Kharkiv intensifies, events taking place one hundred kilometers to the east are reshaping the city’s broader security outlook. In recent months, advancing Russian troops have attempted to reoccupy Kupiansk. This strategically important city came under Russian occupation during the initial phase of the full-scale invasion before being liberated during Ukraine’s successful September 2022 counteroffensive. Renewed Russian gains in this direction would further strain Ukraine’s defenses and expand the aerial threat looming over Kharkiv.

As the front line creeps closer to Kharkiv, the main threat remains air strikes. Russian attacks focus on civilian targets including energy infrastructure, apartment blocks, schools, hospitals, and shopping malls. The overall intention is clear: Russia aims to degrade municipal infrastructure, disrupt essential services, and make the city unlivable for its inhabitants.

One of the most shocking attacks in recent months took place on October 22, when Russia carried out a targeted drone strike on a Kharkiv kindergarten. On that occasion, images of firefighters carrying young children from the burning building made global headlines. However, the vast majority of attacks targeting the Kharkiv population do not attract the attention of international audiences.

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Alongside drones, Kharkiv residents must also now contend with extended periods of darkness. In early November, a major Russian bombardment caused the city’s energy supply system to collapse, leaving entire districts without electricity, heating, and light. Local residents have had to adapt to the realities of life without power while navigating the city in the winter gloom. For the Kharkiv population, this has meant returning to familiar blackout routines developed during earlier Russian winter bombing campaigns.

Despite these pressures, Kharkiv continues to function and maintain an air of normality. Everyday life in the city is in many ways defined by a culture of resilience that is both practical and disciplined, reflecting years of adaptation under fire.

Utilities crews repair power lines within hours of each new Russian attack. Municipal workers immediately clear away debris from air strikes and make sure the city remains tidy, even in the most extreme of circumstances. Teachers hold classes in specially constructed underground schools or metro stations. Doctors treat patients behind boarded up windows. Each individual demonstration of resilience is a direct rejection of Russia’s efforts to depopulate Kharkiv.

In order to maintain this remarkable resilience, Kharkiv requires continued international support. Most of all, this means additional air defenses. Supporting Kharkiv is not just a matter of humanitarian assistance. It is a strategic investment in European security.

Today, Kharkiv serves as a vital bastion in eastern Ukraine. The city’s endurance makes it possible to reinforce Ukrainian front line units, bolster the country’s defenses, offer a safe haven to the region’s civilian population, and prevent the war from spreading further west. A secure Kharkiv means a stronger Ukraine and a safer Europe, but this will only be possible with help from the international community.

Maria Avdeeva is a Ukrainian security analyst. The views in this article are her own and are expressed in a personal capacity.

While the H200 far surpasses the capabilities of the H20, it’s still a generation behind Nvidia’s cutting-edge Blackwell chips and will soon be overshadowed by the forthcoming Rubin architecture. Prior to meeting with Xi in October, Trump floated the idea of allowing Blackwell exports. But following the meeting, Trump said that the topic did not come up. Notably, Monday’s announcement stops short of allowing the export of Blackwell chips.

The Trump administration’s rationale

The Trump administration’s calculus comes down primarily to economics and the belief that projecting US technology abroad strengthens national power. Allowing the export of H200s to China will provide Nvidia access to the world’s largest single market and likely ensures that the next generation of Chinese AI runs on US hardware.

Proponents of this approach claim this move could slow the development of China’s indigenous AI capabilities by cutting off revenue to companies such as Huawei as sales divert to Nvidia. Under Xi’s leadership, China has undertaken a concerted national strategy to build a domestic chip manufacturing capability and break free from dependence on Western technology.

The 25 percent cut from sales to the US government gives the administration another means to tout benefits to the taxpayer. Still, recent reports of a special security review that the chips will undergo before export raise questions about how processes will be structured to legally charge this fee. Expect more from the administration in the coming days on how it will navigate this novel approach.

By approving exports of H200 chips but not Blackwell chips, the administration is attempting to strike a compromise position between those who see the advantages of strengthening Nvidia’s global market share and those worried about eroding the United States’ AI advantage.

US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping talk as they leave after a bilateral meeting in Busan, South Korea, on October 30, 2025. (REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein)

The real implications

The United States and China are locked in an existential race for AI supremacy. Until now, the United States’ one true advantage has been access to cutting-edge compute.

In recent years, China has proven that it can build frontier models that rival the performance of the leading models in the United States. It produces top AI talent and has cultivated a vibrant AI start-up ecosystem. Chinese companies have access to the same data as their US counterparts while also benefiting from internal data, such as that stemming from China’s surveillance state and widespread AI deployment. China also has a leg up in terms of energy generation, producing more than twice the electricity that the United States did in 2024.

Where the United States maintains a definitive edge is on aggregate computing power. As of mid-2025, the US share of global AI computing power reached 74 percent, with China at only 14 percent. Aggregate computing power is critical for training new frontier models, supporting the widespread use of AI and new applications of the technology, and exploring new architectures and pathways toward more powerful systems. Recent reporting finds that much of the compute used by companies such as OpenAI is in service of research.

Allowing Chinese companies to purchase H200 chips will significantly degrade this advantage. Chinese companies will likely pursue a strategy of scale, networking H200 chips into clusters that could rival the performance of Blackwell chips, albeit with a higher price tag. This is a strategy already widely employed in China to maximize the performance of their domestically produced, lower-end chips. With access to H200 chips, Chinese firms will be positioned to train the next generation of models and provide cloud-computing services beyond their borders. This would put them into competition with US providers for international market share and fundamentally undermine the Trump administration’s goal of establishing the US AI tech stack as the global standard.

Estimates for how far China’s domestic chip manufacturing capability lags that of the United States range from five to fifteen years. Currently, China cannot produce at scale to meet domestic demand. The Trump administration has estimated, for example, that major Chinese tech giant Huawei can only produce 200,000 of its Ascent AI chips this year, which is only 1-2 percent of estimated US production. Access to H200s could bridge this gap, allowing Chinese AI companies to compete globally until domestic manufacturing capability has reached parity. At which point, they would almost certainly move away from Nvidia.

From a national security perspective, many fear that H200 chips will not only bolster Chinese industry but also the People’s Liberation Army’s defense capabilities. Given China’s civil-military fusion doctrine, restricting sales to approved corporate entities likely won’t prevent military use.

Finally, the question remains whether Nvidia has the capacity to serve the Chinese market without eroding its ability to meet demand from US companies. Already, surging demand from data center build-outs is putting stress on the supply chain, and research universities are struggling to procure chips to support crucial research and education efforts.

As China moves forward to aggressively integrate AI into every aspect of its economy and society, as outlined in its recent “AI plus” initiative, providing the computational fuel to realize this vision will supercharge the United States’ strongest AI competitor, significantly endangering the Trump administration’s own global AI ambitions.

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Ukraine’s wartime experience provides blueprint for infrastructure protection

Oleksandr Bakalinskyi, Maggie McDonough — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 15:36:56 +0000

When cyberattacks and missile strikes converge on the same targets, infrastructure resilience becomes more than a technical mandate; it becomes a matter of national survival. For Ukraine, this is not a hypothetical future scenario. On the contrary, it has been daily reality for more than a decade.

Since 2014, Ukraine’s power grid, banking system, telecommunications networks, and digital infrastructure have faced sustained and increasingly sophisticated attacks. Yet these systems continue to function, adapt, and evolve, offering the world one of the most comprehensive case studies for how national infrastructure can endure under unrelenting cyber-kinetic pressure.

Ukraine’s experience reveals clearly that defending critical infrastructure is no longer simply a matter of cybersecurity. It requires a fundamentally different approach grounded in cyber-physical resilience, decentralization, system redundancy, institutional autonomy, and the capacity to sustain essential services, even when networks fail.

Industrial control systems were not designed for modern cyber warfare. The systems that operate electrical substations, power distribution logistics, and grid balancing typically prioritize availability and uptime rather than cyber defense. Russia exploited this structural vulnerability in 2015 and 2016, when Ukraine became the first country in history to suffer a nationwide power outage triggered by a cyberattack.

The same attacks that exposed digital fragility also revealed Ukraine’s greatest source of strength: Analog resilience. Even as digital control systems were compromised, engineers were able to manually isolate impacted grid segments, reroute power, and restore transmission through mechanical overrides and localized network segmentation.

The lessons are clear. While digital modernization delivers efficiency, full digital dependency creates systemic brittleness. Meanwhile, resilience can be enhanced through layered systems that incorporate manual fallbacks, localized control, and the ability to physically outmaneuver a digital attack. And while the ability to manually connect electricity to an electrical substation was not by design, the lack of digitalization at the time of the attacks proved to be an advantage in terms of service restoration speed.

The global takeaway from Ukraine’s grid defense is not a rejection of modernization; it is a rejection of exclusively digital modernization. True resilience requires hybrid architectures in which digital innovation is paired with analog redundancy, segmented control, and last resort options when networks are taken down.

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If the Ukrainian power grid demonstrated the value of technical redundancy, Ukraine’s banking sector has shown the value of institutional autonomy. The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has emerged since the onset of Russian aggression as one of the most effective national actors in defending and sustaining critical infrastructure under attack. This has not only been due to advanced cybersecurity measures, but also thanks to operational freedom to act in line with the pace of the threat environment. The NBU has rapidly introduced mandatory security protocols, created a dedicated incident response unit, synchronized directly with law enforcement, and deployed real-time regulatory updates to address emerging vulnerabilities.

This capacity for decisiveness has helped ensure continuity in one of the country’s most essential sectors. Even under sustained digital attack, Ukrainians could still access their bank accounts, make electronic payments, and rely on national financial infrastructure without systemic interruption.

The most innovative aspect of this resilience came in the form of the Power Banking Initiative, a nationwide network of bank branches retrofitted for operational continuity during extended outages. Equipped with alternative energy sources, satellite communications, secure cash storage, and offline transaction capacities, these branches ensured uninterrupted access to currency, transfers, and basic banking services during power blackouts and infrastructure disruptions.

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Ukraine’s experience confirms that the boundary between cyberattacks and conventional warfare is often blurred. In many cases, the two elements are sequenced, synchronized, and structurally interdependent. Cyber operations can blind infrastructure sensors, disrupt communications, compromise operational decision-making, and erode trust in essential systems, often in direct coordination with physical strikes.

Resilience does not depend on preventing breaches, but on the ability to sustain essential services when breaches succeed. This requires a hybrid framework that integrates digital security, infrastructure continuity planning, and decentralized operational responses.

Alignment with EU and NATO standards will accelerate interoperability with allied infrastructure defense systems and enable long-term investment security. Compliance must move beyond voluntary adoption to formal certification, standardized auditing, and enforceable resilience benchmarks for infrastructure operators.

Ukraine’s national bank has shown the importance of sector-specific response units. This model should expand to the energy, telecommunications, transportation, healthcare, and regional government systems. In order to be effective, response units require independent monitoring authority, 24/7 threat detection, digital forensics, and integration into NATO and EU cyber fusion hubs.

Infrastructure resilience also demands institutionalized public-private intelligence sharing. A legally protected, mandatory, real-time intelligence exchange will shorten detection timelines and prevent cascading failures. Critical infrastructure owners must integrate into national security information-sharing with liability protections, rapid alert systems, and reciprocal intelligence flows.

Looking ahead, a national resilience investment fund should pool Ukrainian government resources, EU support, World Bank guarantees, EBRD/EIB financing, and private capital to enable infrastructure segmentation, micro-grid deployment, backup power systems, secure cloud environments, and hardened data centers. However, none of these technical investments will succeed without sufficient human capital. Ukraine should aim to develop a minimum of 10,000 new security specialists through university partnerships, military-civilian pipelines, veteran reskilling programs, and national cyber reserves.

Today, Ukraine possesses infrastructure resilience tested continuously under real cyber-kinetic attack. This unique experience should form the basis of international efforts to enhance critical infrastructure resilience. Ukraine can lead an international training center, host multinational resilience exercises, publish attack anatomy case files, and shape new NATO and EU doctrine. This would allow Kyiv to position itself not only as a defender, but as an architect of resilient infrastructure strategy.

Dr. Oleksandr Bakalinskyi is a Senior Researcher at the G. E. Pukhov Institute for Modeling in Energy Engineering at the National Academy of Sciences in Ukraine. Maggie McDonough is the Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at the Baltimore Development Corporation. She was previously affiliated with the Purdue Applied Research Institute (PARI) and Purdue’s Center for Education & Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS), where she served as a technical advisor on global cyber security resilience programming.

At the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s vibrant tech sector represented an important asset that the authorities in Kyiv were quick to mobilize. This tech prowess helped cement the country’s strategic focus on drones, which could be designed and produced domestically to compensate for a lack of more conventional weapons.

Since 2022, the number of Ukrainian companies developing drones has skyrocketed, while annual output has risen to millions of units. This has allowed Ukraine to establish a “drone wall” along the front lines of the conflict, making any buildup of enemy forces extremely challenging. Over the past year, around three-quarters of all Russian casualties have been as a result of Ukrainian drones.

At sea, Ukraine has used drones to sink multiple warships and break the Russian navy’s Black Sea blockade, forcing Putin to withdraw the bulk of his remaining fleet from Russian-occupied Crimea. Ukraine’s growing drone capabilities have also made it possible to bring Putin’s invasion home to Russia with an escalating campaign of deep strikes on military and industrial targets across the Russian Federation.

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Russia has responded to Kyiv’s groundbreaking use of drone warfare by studying Ukrainian tactics and technologies, while also dramatically expanding its own domestic drone manufacturing base. The Kremlin has been aided in this by allies including China and Iran, who have provided vital components along with the blueprints for key drone designs.

The Kremlin strategy has focused on mass producing a limited range of models for use on the battlefield and in the bombardment of Ukrainian cities. This methodical approach has paid dividends. By the end of 2024, it was already becoming clear that the drone war was turning in Russia’s favor. This trend has only intensified over the past year.

One of Russia’s most important innovations has been the widespread use of fiber-optic drones. These drones are controlled by a wire connected directly to the operator, making them immune to jamming technologies and extremely difficult to intercept.

Russian commanders first began using large quantities of fiber-optic drones during fighting in late 2024 to push Ukrainian troops out of Russia’s Kursk region. The drones proved highly effective at disrupting Ukrainian logistics by targeting supply vehicles. This was widely seen as a crucial factor behind the success of the operation.

Russia has now replicated and scaled up these tactics throughout southern and eastern Ukraine, creating a drone wall of its own while reaching deeper and deeper into Ukrainian-controlled territory. Fiber-optic drones are being used to ambush supply vehicles far behind the front lines, forcing Ukraine to become increasingly reliant on ground robotics to supply combat units and evacuate the wounded.

In addition to striking Ukrainian logistics, Russian drone forces are also prioritising attacks on their Ukrainian counterparts, forcing Ukrainian drone crews to pull further back from the line of contact to ensure safety. This distance gives Russian operators room to move their own teams forward, increasing their ability to dominate the battlefield.

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Russia’s Rubicon drone unit has emerged during 2025 as a prominent symbol of the Kremlin’s rapidly evolving and increasingly effective drone warfare strategy. Highly trained and well funded Rubicon teams are leading the campaign to cut Ukraine’s supply lines and widen the kill zone.

Crucially, Rubicon pilots pass their experience on to newcomers and provide extensive training that is helping to improve the effectiveness of other Russian army drone units. According to Ukrainian drone commander Yurii Fedorenko, Rubicon can rapidly scale up drone units using manpower and financial advantages that Ukraine cannot replicate.

In the drone war between Russia and Ukraine, the Kremlin is betting on mass and hoping that a combination of smart choices, specialised production, extensive training, and sheer numbers will eventually overwhelm Ukraine’s technological edge. In contrast, Kyiv continues to rely on a highly decentralised ecosystem of volunteer groups, startups, and military workshops producing a wide variety of different drone models. This diversity helps to drive innovation but also creates coordination challenges.

The current effectiveness of Russia’s drone units does not mean the drone war has shifted decisively in Moscow’s favor, but recent trends do expose a gap that Ukraine must urgently close. In order to counter Russia’s increasingly centralised and well-resourced drone formations, Kyiv needs to adopt key elements of the Rubicon model. This means scaling up training pipelines, sharing front line experience more systematically, and ensuring Ukrainian drone units have all the resources they need to hunt down Russian operators and regain the initiative.

Since 2022, the Russian military has been widely mocked for its primitive “human wave” tactics and generally poor performance in Ukraine. However, the progress made by Russia in drone warfare indicates an army that is fully capable of learning, adapting, and innovating. Moscow has not been able to achieve any major technological breakthroughs, but Russian military strategists have significantly strengthened their country’s position by concentrating on scale, training, and relentless battlefield experimentation.

This progress should be a major wake-up call for European leaders. Small numbers of suspected Russian drones are already causing chaos and disruption across Europe. The longer the war in Ukraine lasts, the more advanced Russia’s drone capabilities will become.

David Kirichenko is an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

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Punaro quoted in Air & Space Forces magazine on acquisition reform

Atlantic Council — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 19:00:00 +0000

On November 18, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow MajGen Arnold Punaro, USMC (ret.) was quoted in an Air & Space Forces Magazine article entitled “What Experts Will Watch as the Pentagon Implements Acquisition Reform.” Punaro argued that Golden Dome’s sweeping, multi-domain missile-defense ambitions make it an ideal test case for implementing Secretary Hegseth’s recently announced acquisition reforms.

Advisory Council member

Arnold Punaro

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

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Building the digital front line: Understanding big tech decision-making in Ukraine

Emma Schroeder — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 15:35:11 +0000

Executive summary
Introduction
Pull factors
- Clarity of conflict
- Business alignment
Push factors
- Difficulty of coordination
- Risk of retaliation
Key takeaways and conclusion
Author and acknowledgements

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Executive summary

The war in Ukraine has seen Russia launch and sustain a full-scale invasion across the information and physical domains against a country that has embraced technological development and increased technological and geopolitical connections to the United States, Canada, and Europe. Private technology companies have provided essential and often irreplaceable support to Ukraine following Russia’s invasion in 2022 and—especially in the early months of the conflict—did so largely without a request from an allied state or payment from Ukraine.

However, more than three years on, although the private sector’s assistance in Ukraine has been well-documented, the policymaking community at large is still largely unaware of how companies decided whether and how to provide technological support to and in Ukraine. Through open research as well as interviews and roundtable discussions with various private sector and government representatives, this report posits that companies were primarily motivated by a complex combination of factors in tandem, which pulled them toward or pushed them away from support. The factors pulling companies toward cooperation were the moral clarity of the conflict, and alignment with existing business opportunities. At the same time however, among factors pushing companies away from involvement in Ukraine was the difficulty of coordinating assistance in-country, as well as the risk of Russian retaliation. Meanwhile, both sets of factors were either enhanced—or mitigated—due to various actions taken by Ukraine, allied states, and international bodies. This includes Ukrainian tech diplomacy; the development of Ukraine’s technical capabilities; aid facilitations and coordination efforts by both various groups and entities; and risk mitigation efforts undertaken by both states and private companies.

Dependency on the private sector in the cyber domain has become a somewhat frequent refrain in domestic cybersecurity conversations. However, prior to the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, no one—not supranational bodies, states, or even companies themselves—was prepared for the role they would assume once the tanks rolled and the missiles fired. The Russia-Ukraine conflict’s cyber dimension has revealed an underlying dependency on products, services, and infrastructure owned and operated by private companies. This has proved to be both a source of opportunity to enhance Ukraine’s defenses, while at the same time revealing fundamental risks and vulnerabilities. Given the heft and impact of technology companies in today’s digital infrastructure, let alone in conflict, it is essential that policymakers grasp this complex interplay of factors that influenced companies‘ decision-making as they headed in Ukraine, to inform planning or preparedness for future conflicts where the private sector will inevitably play a key role.

Introduction

Amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the private sector was and is a crucial line of defense and source of cyber resilience to a greater extent than any conflict previously observed. As the first case study of this phenomenon in an overt, conventional war, the past three years in Ukraine have clearly demonstrated how crucial the cyber and informational domain, and the private companies at its forefront, will be in competition, conflict, and war to come.

More than three years following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in the early morning of February 24, 2022, the war—and the crucial role of the international community in it—continues, but not unchanged. The war that Putin expected to end in Russian victory within a handful of days is now well into the third year of the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II.

This study examines the characteristics of this conflict that influenced companies’ decision-making regarding the type and degree of their involvement in Ukraine. Which factors and actions taken by states shaped tech companies’ decisions throughout the conflict as to whether and how to lend their support to Ukraine? These include both pull factors, those that increased the likeliness and degree of technology company involvement in Ukraine, and push factors, those that decreased the likeliness or degree of the same. Additionally, a key element influencing this space was the response by the Ukrainian government, allied governments, and international bodies to either build on the effects of the pull factors or mitigate the effects of the push factors throughout the conflict.

These factors and reactions are explored through open research, individual interviews with executives from tech companies active in Ukraine,¹ and workshop discussions including private sector, civil society, and representatives from various governments. It puts forward the private sector’s perspective on its own involvement in Ukraine since the 2022 invasion, reflecting on opinions and actions as they stood at the time of initial decision but also on the lessons learned since. The intention is to contribute to a baseline of understanding of public-private cooperation in Ukraine so that future policy decisions, whether in the Ukraine context or beyond, are built upon a full evaluation of experience.

Pull factors

Clarity of conflict

Clarity of conflict refers to the perception of the “right” and “wrong” or “victim” and “perpetrator” in a conflict, among one or more set audiences, whose support has the potential to provide materiel aid. In examining the role of this factor in the provision of tech aid to Ukraine, these audiences are primarily state policymakers, general populations, and technology leaders in Europe and North America. Overwhelmingly, in both public reporting and private interviews, the central reason given by companies themselves for why private companies provide aid and services supporting Ukraine is the moral clarity that these companies, their employees, and a large portion of their customers saw in the conflict and its conduct. Many interviewed commented on how the Russo-Ukrainian War, distinct from most other conflicts, has a clear and binary “right” and “wrong” side in the perspective of at least most of the Western world, from governments to individuals.

Russia engaged in continuous overt and covert aggressive action through a wide variety of coercive, though largely nonescalatory, tools in an attempt to exert control on Ukraine and its population. On February 24, 2022, however, Russia unleashed coordinated missile strikes on Ukrainian cities, airborne deployments of soldiers to key locations beyond the border region, conventional advancement across the border, and coordinated cyber aggression.

In March 2022, Amnesty International released a statement saying, in part, that “In less than a week, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered a massive human rights, humanitarian, and displacement crisis that has the makings of the worst such catastrophe in recent European history.”² Photos and videos poured out of Ukraine, documenting Russian violence and war crimes against the people of that country. Reports on Russian atrocities and Ukrainian resistance dominated the headlines and news discussions in the West for months. A Monmouth University survey conducted in March 2022 found that 89 percent of Americans believed that Russia’s actions in Ukraine were not justified.³ Similarly, a poll of public perceptions of responsibility for war, taken across ten European countries showed that a clear majority in all countries attribute the primary responsibility to Russia.⁴

During these early months of 2022 the private sector quickly became an essential pillar of support for the Ukrainian war effort. As one expert put it, “If you had ordered a generic villain, you would have gotten Putin. From a moral standpoint, it was really easy for companies to take a stand, you have a moral highpoint.”⁵ Russia’s long decade of slowly escalating violence toward Ukraine, culminating in a brutal conventional assault and now, yearslong war, created an unusually stark geopolitical environment in which both Western states and the majority of their populations not only supported the defense of Ukraine but did so enthusiastically.

Across interviews and roundtable discussions, industry experts demonstrated an appreciation of the clarity of the “right” and “wrong” in the case of Ukraine. Nearly every private sector individual interviewed highlighted the importance of this factor in determining whether and how their company decided to begin or deepen its involvement in Ukraine following the invasion. One expert from a leading tech company said that “This was the easiest of all scenarios I could imagine for the private sector to seek to help an entity like Ukraine. The clarity on the conflict made the decision to assist Ukraine clear.”⁶ As several experts attested, much of the cyber aid provided to Ukraine required technical expertise that was not only limited to a few companies but also limited to a relatively small population of skilled individuals. At this level of analysis, the degree of available assistance had to take into account the bandwidth and possible burnout risk for these individuals as well as a strong, prevalent reluctance to work with a government or, especially, a military. The perceived clarity of the war in Ukraine, however, was critical to overcoming these concerns—at least for a while.⁷

Reaction – Ukrainian tech diplomacy

Tech diplomacy is the engagement between state authorities and tech companies, civil society organizations, other states, and multilateral fora to influence the development of both technology itself and the policy that surrounds it.⁸ Within the early days of the conflict, members of the Ukrainian government and especially the Minister for Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov, rallied for aid across the technology sector. These calls, and the generally positive reception to them, built on arguments regarding the clarity of the conflict. Although this tech diplomacy has been the project of various Ukrainian officials and offices, both before the 2022 invasion and in the years since, a focus in on Fedorov is illustrative of the Ukrainian approach to cultivating and extracting mutual benefit from relationships with international technology companies.

In 2019, Fedorov was tapped as deputy prime minister and minister of digital transformation and was subsequently named deputy prime minister for innovation, education, science and technology and minister for digital transformation and most recently first deputy prime minister of Ukraine—minister of digital transformation of Ukraine.⁹ Fedorov and his team have been adept, according to government affairs executive from a US-based multinational technology corporation, at creating and using “carrots and sticks” to influence company leadership and employees to more favorably view Ukraine and to augment their willingness to contribute to its defense.¹⁰

Fedorov cultivated a strong social media presence with an audience both within Ukraine and across Europe and North America. He emphasized the importance of social media platforms—using primarily English to connect with an international audience—to bring awareness to the dire situation in Ukraine. He pointed to the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), saying it “has become an efficient tool that we are using to counter Russian military aggression.”¹¹ In efforts like United24, the Ukrainian government’s official fundraising platform, which began with Fedorov tweeting the government’s crypto wallet addresses with an ask for donations,¹² he saw it not just as a fundraising tool, but as a tool that is “keeping people around the world aware of what is going on in Ukraine.”¹³ Crowdfunding efforts, even if donations are small, make people feel that their contributions are making a difference and fosters a closer relationship between that person and the Ukraine regardless of the distance.

Fedorov leveraged this engaged global audience to incentivize company action, effectively mobilizing his audience’s attention. A look at Fedorov’s social media presence shows a clear pattern of this strategy in action. Between March 2022 and July 2024, Fedorov posted fifty-two requests for aid from specific companies, celebrated companies and individuals taking positive action, and called out companies engaging in business practices that he deemed detrimental to Ukrainian defense efforts. These posts served as additional public acknowledgement of the contributions of specific companies to Ukraine in a global public forum that other states were watching, as were individuals, aid organizations, and companies. One tech executive explained that not only did these callouts serve as thanks, they also leveraged the competitive nature of these companies that “one up” each other with aid as an additional driver.¹⁴

The Starlink case provides an interesting example of this strategy in action. Fedorov tagged Elon Musk in an X post and asked him directly to instruct SpaceX to provide Ukraine with Starlink stations, calling him out for trying to “colonize Mars” instead of helping civilians on Earth.¹⁵ Musk responded publicly on X less than twelve hours later that, “Starlink Service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals en route.” Two days later these stations, which would come to serve critical functions for civilians, government entities, and even military personnel, arrived. Fedorov again publicly responded on X with a photo of a truck full of terminals saying, “Starlink – here. Thanks, @elonmusk.”¹⁶

According to Fedorov’s deputy minister, Alex Bornyakov, in the months leading up to the Russian invasion, Fedorov’s office was unable to secure a meeting with Elon Musk. However, SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell indicated in March of 2022 that the company had been coordinating with Ukraine as part of its European expansion effort for several weeks before the invasion and were awaiting final approval from the Ukrainian government. According to Shotwell, “they tweeted at Elon and so we turned it on … that was our permission. That was the letter from the minister. It was a tweet.¹⁷ These early interactions show that at the very least, Fedorov’s social media engagement functioned as a nontraditional method to accelerate the provision and delivery of essential technical equipment that would enable connectivity for civilians, government entities, and even military units.¹⁸

Six months before the February 2022 invasion, Fedorov went on a tech diplomacy tour to Silicon Valley, intent on building stronger relationships with key technology companies with Ukraine’s digital transformation on the agenda. Fedorov‘s tech diplomacy work laid a solid foundation for coordination between the Ukrainian government and these technology companies by the time the war began. These relationships and Fedorov and his ministry’s direct approach with private companies meant that his office could seek solutions in the private sector directly and more swiftly than in traditional government acquisition. For example, in less than a month, a new and improved air raid alert system was implemented across the country as a result of a direct and informal conversation between Ajax Systems Chief Marketing Officer Valentine Hrytsenko, Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation Valeriya Ionan, and a team of digital transformation officers.¹⁹

Therefore, Ukraine’s approach to tech diplomacy represents a significant shift in how states, especially small or mid-power states, should conceptualize and shape their relationships with technology companies. Given that global technology companies’ (“big tech”) yearly revenue continually overshadows the gross domestic product (GDP) of many states,²⁰ this evolution in states’ relationships with big corporations suggests that corporate ties are sometimes more important than a state’s relationship with another state. This was echoed in a statement from the Danish government, recognizing the extent to which technological disruption affects societal and geopolitical change, nothing that the companies driving that innovation “have become extremely influential; to the extent that their economic and political power match—or even surpass—that of our traditional partners, the nation states.”²¹ Fedorov’s actions therefore proved the importance of tech diplomacy as a key government priority to secure the cooperation of the tech sector in a crisis, aided by the moral clarity that many companies saw in assisting Ukraine in a time of war.

Business alignment

For companies examining whether and how to provide tech-based support to Ukraine in its defense, business alignment can take a variety of forms, but typically refers to some combination of benefits that the company receives from these activities. Although the primary driver cited publicly for tech companies’ involvement has been the desire to aid Ukraine, their customers, and employees in Ukraine against blatant Russian aggression, another factor in companies’ decision-making was in fact how the provision of assistance to Ukraine fit into and supported the overall health and security of their organizations. This included the character of preexisting relationships with both Ukraine and Russia, direct financial profit, and indirect benefits such as instructive experience, field-testing products, and reputational benefits.

Preexisting relationships

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was not the start of the conflict between the two nations, nor was it the beginning of technology companies’ relationships with Ukraine and Russia. The nature and tone of these relationships provided a key foundation for these companies’ decisions throughout the post-2022 conflict. Ukraine and Russia, both as partners and as markets, had different starting points and were also on different active trajectories that informed the types and depth of engagement that tech companies wished to have with each country, both individually and comparatively.

One of the primary motivations cited for company involvement in Ukraine after the Russian invasion was the simple fact that many of these companies were already active in Ukraine to some extent and their leadership felt a responsibility to protect its employees and continue to serve its customers within Ukraine. For example, threat intelligence companies like Mandiant and CrowdStrike had been engaged in Ukraine since at least 2014, actively tracking cyber espionage, influence, and attack operations, while companies like Microsoft and Google were actively building capacity in the country despite Ukraine’s prohibitions on cloud services. In 2020, Google opened its second research and development center in Ukraine and Microsoft signed a memorandum of understanding with Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation to include a $500 million investment to build two data centers.²²

Several private sector and government representatives conveyed in private interviews that one of companies’ greatest concerns in the first few weeks of the conflict was the safety of their employees in Ukraine.²³ Many companies set up or contributed to programs intended to help employees leave the country, if they wished, or to provide protection measures for those who remained.²⁴ Additionally, companies with existing customers in Ukraine saw their mission as largely unchanged, seeking to serve their customers regardless of their location.²⁵ Companies with these preexisting relationships had more reason to continue or expand their work in the country due to these long-term connections.

By contrast, many of these companies also had preexisting, albeit weaker, ties with and in Russia. According to a 2024 report from the Center for Security and Emerging Technology, however, of the eighteen US tech companies that provided “direct assistance on the battlefield and/or services to maintain critical infrastructure or government functions,” none had “significant economic or financial linkages to Russia.”²⁶ While Ukraine had undertaken concerted steps to foster mutually beneficial relationships, Russia had been largely coercive. The Kremlin in the years before the 2022 reinvasion sought to tighten control over the Russian information space and exert influence over international tech companies’ activities in Russia. For example, in 2021 Russia passed a law requiring large technology companies with a presence in the Russian market to establish Russian offices registered with the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media, commonly known as Roskomnadzor, or risk severe punitive measures.²⁷ Some in the industry viewed the move as an attempt to blackmail tech companies into complying with Russian censorship.²⁸ Google was one such target of these coercive measures—in a push to force Google to censor the content available on its platforms within Russia, Russian authorities seized the company’s bank accounts. In response, Google’s Russian subsidiary declared bankruptcy and ceased all but its free services within Russia.²⁹

Amplified by the clarity of conflict discussed above, and Ukrainian tech diplomacy efforts for companies to sever financial ties with Russia and the Russian market, the decision calculus for these companies was less complex than it may have been otherwise.

Not all companies chose to leave the Russian market completely. Despite the coercion that Google faced, the company chose to keep YouTube available in Russia; however, without ads for users in Russia and without the ability to monetize content that would “exploit, dismiss, or condone Russia’s war in Ukraine.”^“³⁰ As discussed previously, many companies decided to continue services in Ukraine out of an obligation to existing customers. Depending on the company and the type of product sold or service provided, this same motivation was seen with respect to Russia as well. One tech executive explained that some of these products and services remained active because they provided a benefit to the Russian public, as opposed to the Russian government. For example, YouTube remained partially active, with restrictions, so that the platform could continue to serve as an alternate source of information for Russians.³¹

Direct profit

For companies, both those with an existing presence in Ukraine and those without, providing technical services in and to Ukraine could also serve more clear-cut business interests. Some were at least partially motivated by direct financial gain like new paid contracts and revenue potential such as additional value generated through the delivery of services and the possibility of positive publicity for the company or their products.

Although much of private companies’ work in Ukraine was (or started as) free of charge, many others were acquired in a more traditional contractual manner, with either Ukraine or an allied government footing the bill. Company representatives said in several interviews and roundtables that while they wish to continue their work in the country, as the war continues, they will require financial support to do so.³²

Indirect benefit

Some of the tech companies active in Ukraine derived value from the very act of providing a service itself, with indirect gains that included instructive experience with Russian cyber operations, the ability to field-test products, and reputational benefits.

For more than a decade, many multinational threat intelligence companies have been tracking Russian cyber aggression in Ukraine as part of their core function. These services helped to drive the development of Ukrainian cyber infrastructure, but it was not solely a charitable effort. It was in these companies own interests to gain the closest possible insights into areas like Ukraine that experience a high degree and sophistication of cyberattacks. As a result, these companies sowed valuable intelligence from their experience, and improved their business offerings across the board. As one executive in threat intelligence at a US cybersecurity nonprofit put it: “for threat intelligence companies, having this depth of access is a gold mine, the details delivered out of Ukraine on Russian tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) are quite amazing.”³³

These benefits are not only limited to threat intelligence companies. Companies that run active platforms used by and in Ukraine, such as cloud platforms, also gained greater direct experience against Russian cyber operations. As one executive put it, “while acting as a shield, [these] companies are collecting vast intelligence that can be used to improve their products and protect all their customers.”³⁴ The experience of defending against Russian activity at that scale and volume served as training of sorts for companies’ cybersecurity teams.

Both representatives from private companies and the Ukrainian government cited an additional benefit to working in Ukraine during the current war: it served as a testing ground for technology. As Fedorov stated, Ukraine “is the best test ground for all the newest tech … because here you can test them in real-life conditions.”³⁵ Several company executives privately seconded this notion, saying that alongside their company’s desire to do the right thing, their work in Ukraine provided proof of concept for their capabilities.³⁶ Ukraine also offered a means to demonstrate to potential customers the effectiveness of their offerings. Founding partner of Green Flag Ventures Deborah Fairlamb said at a European defense conference that “no one would even look at a product unless it had ‘Tested in Ukraine’ stamped on it.”³⁷ During a roundtable conversation, a company executive said that governments were more likely, having seen a company’s work in Ukraine, to purchase their products and trust that they are secure.³⁸

Finally, companies working actively in Ukraine were also motivated by the benefits to public perception and reputation. Popular support of Ukraine meant that companies’ support may have improved their reputation by association. In a TIME article from early 2024, author Vera Bergengruen argued that this reputational concern was part of Palantir’s decision calculus for its work in Ukraine, by helping to dispel characterization of the company’s work as a tool to support intrusive government surveillance. This would situate Palantir’s work in Ukraine among its similar efforts to “shed its reputation as a shadowy data-mining spy contractor.”³⁹ Clearview AI’s reputational concerns also likely motivated its assistance to Ukraine. The company was sanctioned multiple times throughout Europe for privacy violations and was lambasted in a 2020 New York Times article for its controversial use by law enforcement and private companies to track people through AI-enabled facial recognition.⁴⁰ Nevertheless, the company received an outpouring of positive press following public announcements that Ukraine was using this same AI-enabled facial recognition software to identify Russian soldiers, including deceased soldiers and those suspected of committing war crimes in Ukraine.⁴¹ Whether trying to capitalize on a positive reputation or counter negative perceptions, companies benefit from their association with a cause popular across their customer base.

Reaction – Ukrainian technical capability and posture

In both the buildup to war and the conduct of it, some companies with interest in setting up operations in or with Ukraine were reluctant to do so out of concern regarding Ukraine’s ability to act as a capable and trustworthy recipient of goods and services. Executives working in threat intelligence and information security at US-based multinational technology companies have pointed to corruption in Ukraine as a barrier to engagement prior to the invasion and a factor that was carefully considered when deciding how to provide aid in Ukraine.⁴² This challenge is openly acknowledged in Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2021-25, which states that “corruption prevalence and distrust in the judiciary are the key obstacles to attracting foreign investment to Ukraine.”⁴³

To mitigate these factors, Ukraine and its partners have invested heavily over the past decade to take on corruption and build out legal, economic, and technical frameworks to transform Ukraine so as to make it a more appealing target for assistance and cooperation from the public and private sectors. According to Alex Bornyakov, Ukraine’s deputy minister of digital transformation, Ukraine’s sought to develop “the largest IT hub in Eastern Europe with the fastest growing GDP, industrial parks, and its own security-focused ‘Silicon Valley.’”⁴⁴

Anti-corruption efforts

The Ukrainian government’s commitment to anti-corruption efforts has been an important factor for the success of the process, which began well before the buildup of Russian tanks on its border. According to the 2025 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Integrity and Anti-Corruption Review of Ukraine, since 2013 Ukraine “significantly reformed its anti-corruption framework to fight what were then historically high corruption levels in the country.”⁴⁵

Ukraine’s public and private IT sectors have long been a breeding ground for software acquisition-related fraud, a scheme in which an individual reports the purchase of a legitimate software license but actually buys a pirated or outdated version of that software and pockets the difference. Before 2014, approximately 80 percent of Ukrainian government and private entities were using network software that had either never been or was no longer supported by the associated software vendor,⁴⁶ making Ukraine a difficult and unappealing market for software vendors.

In 2014, anti-corruption activists started the ProZorro project, which over the past decade moved public sector procurement, including that of IT infrastructure, to a central platform built around the tenets of transparency, efficiency, and cross-sector collaboration and competition.⁴⁷ According to a report by Dr. Robert Peacock, through the use of ProZorro and other anti-corruption efforts, senior officials at Ukraine’s State Special Communications Service estimated that “the share of pirated and unsupported software on the country’s networks had dropped from more than 80 percent in 2014 to only 20 percent in 2020.”⁴⁸

As the conflict in Ukraine escalated into a full-scale war, Ukraine’s anti-corruption efforts became even more urgent and essential. For example, UNITED24, the country’s official fundraising platform to fund the Ukrainian war effort that has raised approximately $350 million since the beginning of the war, sends money directly into transparent national accounting systems depending on the choice of the donor, with the leading global accounting firm Deloitte auditing platform.⁴⁹ In addition, in the first year of the war Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his government dismissed several high-ranking government officials based on allegations of corruption. This included two of the top Ukrainian cyber officials after they were accused of participated in corrupt procurement practices. According to the country’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau, the accused allegedly embezzled $1.7 million between 2020 and 2022 through fraudulent software acquisition.⁵⁰ The Ukrainian government’s efforts largely mitigated companies’ concerns regarding corruption, and those companies that cited corruption as a barrier to working with Ukraine have since commenced programming previously denied to Ukraine on those grounds.⁵¹

For a private company to make the decision to invest more heavily in Ukraine, the benefits—financial or otherwise—must outweigh the risks. By addressing corruption within the government, and especially tech-related corruption, the Ukrainian government effectively diminished the weight of this factor in companies’ overall decision calculus. Crucially, such efforts take time to implement and yet more time to create meaningful change. Had these anti-corruption programs not been well underway before 2022, the question of corruption may have significantly deterred companies from deeper involvement in Ukraine.

Ukraine turns toward tech

Instead of sowing distrust in the idea of cyberspace as a safe space for economic and even government services, the past decade of Russian aggression against Ukraine in cyberspace motivated Ukraine to invest heavily in that space and turn its former weakness into a newfound strength. It could even be said that the continuous Russian aggression against Ukraine, through cyberspace and otherwise, helped Ukraine to better defend itself against Russia. Before the 2022 Russian invasion and even more so since, the Ukrainian government sees a flourishing technology sector within Ukraine as a key component to the economic strength of the country.⁵² However, to foster such a flourishing tech environment, Ukraine needed to first invest in its legal and economic foundations.

As a response to escalating Russian aggression in 2014, Ukraine began what would be an intensive decade of government reform and policy advancement on cyber issues. The figure below highlights various investment and development programs aimed at enhancing Ukrainian technological capacity, including efforts of the Ukrainian government itself and in partnership with various international entities such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

These, among other efforts, were essential steps to creating and expanding a technologically capable and developed Ukraine. Especially important was the increased relative cybersecurity of the Ukrainian digital environment, the development of Ukraine’s cyber workforce and general cyber literacy, and an influx of capital enabling increased investment in private sector tools and services.

On the economic front, the Ukrainian government made strides to create an attractive environment for investment. The government’s mission has been to shift the conversation from purely one of donations and aid to a direct appeal to the companies’ more pecuniary concerns. According to Bornyakov, “The best way to help Ukraine is to invest in Ukraine.”⁵³ This call is both international and domestic. The Ukrainian government has implemented a number of projects and programs dedicated to fostering the local tech ecosystem. As of December 2024, the IT sector accounted for 4.4 percent of Ukraine’s GDP and 38 percent of the country’s total service exports. Much of this technological energy is being dedicated back to the war effort—according to a report compiled in cooperation with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, 97 percent of Ukrainian IT companies are “actively supporting projects that contribute” to Ukrainian defense.⁵⁴

Diia City in particular, launched just two weeks before the invasion, is a tool intentionally designed to make it easier and more appealing for foreign companies to set up and run operations within Ukraine. Diia City is a “virtual free economic zone for tech companies in Ukraine” that offers a variety of legal and tax benefits.⁵⁵ The connected Brave1 initiative launched in early 2023 to “create a fast track for innovation in the defense and security sectors,” especially those projects of high importance to Ukrainian military leadership, such as “drones, robotic systems, electronic warfare, artificial intelligence tools, cybersecurity, communications, and information security management systems.”⁵⁶

These efforts, both domestic and international, bolstered the defense of Ukraine by building and demonstrating trustworthiness, capability, and economic value for the private sector. In other words, the political and economic engine driving technological development in Ukraine was composed of more than a decade of concentrated action from Ukraine and its international partners, and was in place well before tanks began rolling across the borders. This vital work ultimately helped to bring about conducive conditions for private sector investment or provision of services, as long-term structural factors indirectly shaping company decision-making to aid Ukraine.

Push factors

Difficulty of coordination

Difficulty of coordination refers to the friction that private companies experienced along the lifecycle of technical assistance to Ukraine—from understanding which products or services would be impactful, knowing who to coordinate with and how, or the logistics of providing that assistance. Friction, as in all domains of warfare, is the imposition of the constraints of reality upon one’s plans and impulses, and therefore each additional complexity that stands between a certain technology and its use in Ukraine increases the likelihood that that desired provision will not occur, will take longer, or will be provided in a less helpful form.

One of the most persistent hindrances to the provision of tech-related assistance from private companies in Ukraine was the difficulties that all parties involved faced, which was to effectively coordinate the assistance available with the assistance that Ukraine needed most in a fast-moving and high-pressure environment, particular as more Ukrainian organizations expressed a need for more threat intelligence, licenses, or training for tools. In almost every conversation with industry representatives about their experience in this space raised this coordination problem. The factors that most significantly impacted coordination effectiveness included whether a company had a preexisting presence in or relationship with Ukraine, the clarity with which Ukraine communicated its technical needs, and the ability to assess the effectiveness and impact of products or services provided.⁵⁷

Especially in the early months of the full-scale Russian war, much of the assistance that private tech companies provided was coordinated by companies themselves and in a largely ad hoc manner. In addition, Ukraine experienced communications challenges such as a lack of secure channels or limited visibility into networks and infrastructure on the ground.⁵⁸ Companies that did not have a strong relationship with the Ukrainian public sector prior to the conflict found that direct coordination was difficult to establish once the conflict had begun.⁵⁹ For some, not having a direct relationship with or in Ukraine had been an intentional choice, due to regulation complexity or corruption concerns.⁶⁰ Initially, companies without a preexisting presence often struggled to pinpoint the correct office or person with which to speak. They bridged this gap most often with some combination of brand recognition driving direct outreach from the Ukrainian government and facilitation by Ukrainian private companies that had established relationships with international tech companies and could act as middlemen.⁶¹

Even in cases of existing relationships within Ukraine, complexities abound for companies. A threat intel executive indicated that, for many, there is a tension between what companies thought they could provide and what the Ukrainian government knew about its own needs. While Ukraine was effective in communicating its technical needs at the tactical level, according to various company representatives, effective coordination was somewhat hampered by their ability to effectively communicate and coordinate technical assistance needs across government at a strategic level lagged behind.⁶²

An additional point of friction was the high degree of difficulty in deconflicting the assistance provided to Ukraine from different companies. Understandably, the Ukrainian government—and various individuals and agencies working within it—were responding to imminent threats and thus would send out the same or similar requests to various companies in the hope that one would respond.⁶³ This meant that at times various companies were devoting time and resources to developing an assistance measure that was not actually needed and would not be implemented, or if it was in part, had a lesser relative impact on Ukrainian defense because of duplicative measures. This inability to understand and plan around the impact of assistance was broader than just the duplication issue; dozens of company representatives reported difficulties in getting a clear view as to whether their assistance was actually effective once provided.⁶⁴

Without this data, future requests for and fulfillments of technical aid will continue to be based on theory rather than evidence from their growing experiences together. A 2024 paper from the Cyber Defense Assistance Collaborative (CDAC) and Columbia School of International and Public Affairs, made strides in its effort to collate and assess the effectiveness of those companies and organizations that provided cyber defense assistance to Ukraine through their program. The report identified both direct indicators, where effectiveness can be assessed via concrete measures, and proxy indicators, where possible contributing factors are assessed on a scale of perceived impact.⁶⁵

Reaction – Ukrainian coordination and adaptation

On top of domestic development efforts, Ukrainian government officials spent concerted time and effort to build relationships that would serve as the foundation for future cooperation. Fedorov‘s tech diplomacy work forged new connections with these companies, as well as their leadership and employee bases, that in many ways enabled the speed of company response following Russia’s February 2022 invasion. “When the invasion began, we had personal connections to these companies,” Fedorov said. “They knew who we are, what we look like, what our values are and our mission is.”⁶⁶

According to Fedorov, in the first month of the war he sent “more than4,000 requests to companies, governments, and other organizations, each one personally signed.”⁶⁷ Some of these connections built on existing relationships, but companies without preestablished links either initiated conversations directly with or received direct requests from the Ukrainian Government. Beyond the Ministry of Digital Transformation, various Ukrainian offices like the State Special Communications Service of Ukraine, Security Service of Ukraine, National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, and Ukrainian National Cybersecurity Coordination Center were engaging in relationship building and outreach efforts in order to coordinate the provision of tech assistance.⁶⁸ According to Bornyakov, the early days of coordination with the international private sector were chaos.⁶⁹ Various offices and employees sent out messages and requests without internal coordination, and products or services were provided without sufficient due diligence to ensure that they were truly useful to the Ukrainian war effort.

The Ukrainian government quickly updated its practices to facilitate more efficient cooperation. Among the first of these moves was a Ukrainian policy change to directly enable increased private sector participation. In February 2022, prior to the invasion, the Ukrainian parliament Verkhovna Rada amended the laws that had barred government use of Cloud services. This change meant that just days before the Russian invasion, companies including Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Cloudflare were able the aid the Ukrainian government and several critical sector entities in migrating their critical data to their cloud servers—a critical move, as Russia’s attacks during the first few weeks of the war specifically targeted physical data centers.⁷⁰ In addition, due to the imposition of martial law, Ukraine adopted two resolutions to streamline public procurement. Resolution 169, adopted on February 28, 2022, enabled government contracting authorities to ignore, when necessary, the procurement procedures required by the laws on public and defense procurement.⁷¹ Resolution 723, passed four months later, added new, more efficient requirements to the procurement process, amending both resolution 169 and resolution 822, most important of which was the introduction of the ProZorro platform as the mandatory electronic procurement system.⁷² As previously discussed, this platform was both a tool to facilitate procurement and to counter corruption in the procurement process at large.

Despite improvements to coordinate more effectively with private tech companies, and even as international coordination mechanisms emerged, a significant contingent of companies has maintained a preference for direct coordination. One government affairs executive noted that their company, like many others, preferred direct coordination with the Ukrainian government since it enabled more immediate and relevant support, and they were skeptical that third-party mechanisms would be as effective.⁷³

Reaction – International aid facilitation

Since the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and even before that, international entities—states, supranational bodies, and non-state groups— played an important role in coordinating technical-focused aid in support of Ukraine.

However, states’ coordination efforts were notably inconsistent. In the first year and a half after the Russian reinvasion, the United States allocated $113 billion in response to the war in Ukraine—largely allocated to the Department of Defense at 54.7 percent, USAID at 32.3 percent, and the Department of State at 8.8 percent.⁷⁴ This money should not be viewed like a check signed over to the Ukrainian government, but rather as money allocated to respond to the Russian invasion through a combination of forms and recipients, primarily the defense industrial base in the United States.⁷⁵ By contrast, private companies publicly announced and celebrated their digital and tech aid to Ukraine. In an interview, one leading tech executive observed a clear dearth of focus from the US government toward digital and tech aid, instead opting for significant humanitarian and more traditional military assistance.⁷⁶ This prioritization was likely an intentional choice—the US government’s perspective seems to have been that it was leading conventional aid by a significant margin and wanted others, like European governments and the private sector, to take the lead on digital and tech matters.⁷⁷Though not speaking specifically on cyber and tech elements, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in February 2025 called publicly for European states to provide the “overwhelming” majority of defense funding for Ukraine, bemoaning what he saw as an “imbalanced relationship.”⁷⁸ Hegseth specifically pushed for the expansion of existing Europe-led coalitions—discussed below—dedicated to coordinating technological aid.⁷⁹

By contrast, industry experts agreed that the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) was a very effective facilitator of private sector aid.⁸⁰ The UK’s efficiency on this issue was due in part to fewer restrictions on aid money between distinct civilian- and military-designated buckets.⁸¹ According to an assessment from the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, which scrutinizes UK aid spending, this flexibility enabled the FCDO to respond and adapt to the constant evolutions of the war and geopolitical environment—thereby acting as an effective channel for private sector assistance into Ukraine.⁸²

The ad hoc nature of many of the early digital assistance programs provided by private companies was in some ways a double-edged sword. In many cases they were present and able to move more quickly than government programs, and in some places they stepped into de facto political roles—shaping the conflict and public understanding of it. However, this efficiency and effectiveness became difficult to sustain in the long run as governments and government-sponsored mechanisms were slow or insufficient to step in to support these efforts.⁸³ US government entities were instrumental in facilitating support from private companies to Ukraine through purchase agreements, such as that of hundreds of Starlink devices and subscriptions in coordination with other governments⁸⁴ and partnerships. US government entities also participated in intelligence sharing and collaboration efforts regarding Russian cyber capabilities and activities⁸⁵ and even conducted hunt forward operations to assist in Ukrainian defense against Russian cyber aggression both before and after the February 2022 Russian invasion.⁸⁶

In various conversations, both industry and government representatives confirmed the lack of effective governmental and supranational coordination and its impact on the private sector, and on Ukrainian defense.⁸⁷ Company representatives across the United States and Europe shared the same refrain: “we can’t keep supporting Ukraine ourselves forever without government assistance.⁸⁸

In addition to bilateral assistance efforts, various entities emerged across the conflict focused on cooperation organization and facilitation of digital and tech aid. The first of these was the CDAC, not a government entity, but a nonprofit organization that brought together a number of cybersecurity and technology organizations to better coordinate assistance efforts. The organization was founded by Gregory Rattray and a coalition of cyber executives to address the impediments and complications that accompanied the early days of digital and tech assistance provision from the private sector. A CDAC representative said in May 2024 that the group had facilitated $20-30 million in tech-related assistance for Ukraine since its inception.⁸⁹ As Ukrainian and CDAC representatives noted, CDAC’s facilitation efforts have since slowed for a variety of reasons: decreased ability to act as an intermediary as requests have become more specific, a stabilization among companies that no longer require a coordinator after their relationships in Ukraine were established, and a lack of sufficient financial support for both CDAC and the companies willing to provide assistance.⁹⁰

The vacuum noted by industry representatives and CDAC founders in the shape of a true digital and tech aid coordination body with the resources and remit to execute that mission is the planned role of the IT Coalition and the Tallinn mechanism. The IT Coalition, part of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG; also known as the Ramstein Group), was established in September 2023 as “a dedicated group of donor nations led by Estonia and Luxembourg within the UDCG framework, focused on delivering support to Ukraine’s Defense Forces in the area of IT, communications, and cyber security.”⁹¹ The group consists of eighteen member countries, with the European Union, NATO, the United States, and France acting as observers.⁹² In 2024 and 2025, the coalition had raised “€1,1 billion in both financial and material assistance.”⁹³ The coalition aims to support Ukraine cyber defense capability and command and control integration while also delivering on more long-term goals such as fostering innovation and cloud adoption. The United States is currently an observing member of the IT Coalition and have thus far has declined taking a more active role. Those familiar with the inner workings of the mechanism have emphasized the clear benefit of a more active US role in the mechanism, as most of the tech companies with whom the organization would like to coordinate are headquartered out of the United States.⁹⁴

The Tallinn Mechanism was established in December 2023 with 11 states to “coordinate and facilitate civilian cyber capacity building” within Ukraine, and is intended to be complementary to military-focused cyber aid facilitation bodies like the IT Coalition.⁹⁵ The Tallinn Mechanism is focused on “amplifying the cyber support of donors to Ukraine in the civilian domain.”⁹⁶ The mechanism raised approximately $210 million by the end of 2024 and has focused on bolstering cyber defense capabilities, especially that of critical national infrastructure, through the public and private provision of hardware and software, incident response, satellite communication provision, and cybersecurity training for government officials.⁹⁷

The international community has certainly made strides to better facilitate technology aid to Ukraine, to counteract the pushing effect that complicates such coordination for technology companies. However, it is yet unclear whether these programs and practices will meet the demands of this conflict, or those of conflicts to come. The most effective element of the tech sector at large’s efforts in Ukraine has been its speed, both in its response to the invasion itself and to individual challenges that have arisen over the course of this war. Meanwhile, government and supranational coordination—aside from those programs already in place—were much slower to implement.

Risk of retaliation

A significant factor shaping the behavior of companies’ work in and with Ukraine is the heightened threat state created by active warfare. Various technology company officials cited their concern about potential backlash—whether financial, cyber, or physical violence—from Russia against their infrastructure, products, and people.⁹⁸ The real risk that these companies took on was informed by a number of factors, such as the application of their products or services by and for military ends, the required physical presence of personnel, products, or infrastructure, and also the degree to which increased Russian aggression against these companies might be a meaningful increase from prewar conditions.

Defense application

An undeniable yet complex risk that companies face as a result of providing support to Ukraine is the threat of Russian retaliatory action. Private sector behavior in Ukraine is shaped by the degree to which the goods and services provided are connected to the conduct of the conflict itself. Products and services provided to civilian groups for purely humanitarian purposes come with a different risk profile than goods that underpin government functions. Though not discrete or exhaustive, cyber and technical aid to Ukraine can be understood in four categories: humanitarian aid, critical infrastructure protection, government support, and military application. In practice, this division exists on a continuum, from purely humanitarian support to products or services that the state itself has come to rely on for the continued provision of government services, with particular importance placed on whether the good is for military use and whether that use is in direct support of combat operations.

By and large, companies have made their own determinations as to how to amend their work in Ukraine, looking not only at the direct military application of their product or service but also examining existing and potential products or services to determine potential applicability for offensive operations—and where to avoid their abuse. A clear example of this is Google’s cessation of the live traffic display functionality within Google Maps. A team of open source researchers at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, under the leadership of Professor Jeffrey Lewis, were allegedly able to infer the early movements of the February 2022 Russian invasion before official reporting by analyzing Google Maps traffic data in combination with radar imagery.⁹⁹ Following these reports, Google announced that it would temporarily disable live traffic data so that it would not be used to plan military operations.¹⁰⁰ An internal task force at Google largely coordinated these and similar decisions to coordinate aid to Ukraine and, most importantly, to examine their actions and decisions in order to identify and address programs that had a potential to cause harm.¹⁰¹ However, even after these amendments were made, Google Maps was again the subject of controversy. In November 2024, Ukrainian defense chiefs accused Google of revealing the location of key military positions following an earlier Google Maps update. According to Russian military bloggers, among these revelations was the position of new air defense systems, including US-made Patriot anti-aircraft missiles, surrounding an airport near Kyiv. According to the head of Ukraine’s counter-disinformation unit Andriy Kovalenko, Google representatives reached out to Ukrainian government officials to address the issue shortly thereafter.¹⁰²

Similar in many ways was the SpaceX effort to restrict use of the Starlink satellite network close to the active front of the war. Though controversial in the public eye, and significant for military operators and planners, the SpaceX decision to restrict the use of Starlink devices near the front was an intentional one—to limit escalation directly supported by their devices. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell explained “our intent was never to have them use it for offensive purposes.”¹⁰³ The Starlink network, despite these imposed limitations, has undeniably been an extremely useful tool for the Ukrainian military,¹⁰⁴ but its network also supports a much wider geography of users, from individuals to government entities. The inherent dual-use nature of the Starlink network poses a much greater risk should its network be considered a military object. This risk framework is likely a significant part of the drive behind Space X’s creation of Starshield, announced in early December 2022. A partner project to Starlink, Starshield operates on a separate network and is specifically and exclusively for government—rather than consumer and commercial—use.¹⁰⁵ With this application in mind, reports still vary as to whether such a contract, like the $1.8 billion deal with the National Reconnaissance Office, would be operated by the contractee, in this case the NRO, or whether, like Starlink, the service would remain operated by SpaceX.¹⁰⁶ It is possible that this case will follow, in practice, the principle that the closer that the operation of a technology sits to strategic and sensitive national priorities, the higher the risk for both state and company of that technology being operated by said company, and the more likely that technology will come to be operated from within a government body.

Physicality

Products and services that require the physical presence of personnel, products, or infrastructure within Ukraine are the riskiest to undertake. Providing support in this way carries a level of risk that most companies did not have either the willingness or the infrastructure to take on.¹⁰⁷ While some companies, for certain products, chose to partner with government entities to deliver products or services where physical presence was necessary, as in the preceding example, others chose instead to eschew options with such a requirement. In an interview, one expert said, “there were some products that you wanted to go forward with, but you couldn’t. Your informational security can only be as good as your physical security, so projects requiring new physical infrastructure development, or new infrastructure dependencies, was a major stumbling block.”¹⁰⁸

Russia’s cyber-offensive impact

To some degree, most of the technology companies in question—especially those with a preexisting presence in Ukraine—were already a target of a significant volume of Russian cyber intrusion attempts as well as other coercive actions. As one industry executive put it when asked about the role of risk assessment in decisions to deepen their work in Ukraine following the invasion, “we knew the risk, we were already targeted on a daily basis.”¹⁰⁹ The risk of Russian aggression and retaliation remains, but for many large tech companies, their work already took them into spaces where they were in direct or indirect conflict with Russian or Russian-affiliated groups. However, the risk of Russian cyber intrusions against their networks was already a built-in calculation for their existing cybersecurity plans.

In addition to the experience and expectations of many of these private companies, Russian cyber operations accompanying and following its February 2022 invasion were less disruptive than previously anticipated. The most prominent case of coordinated disruption in the information space remains the ViaSat satellite communications system hack during the invasion. As cyber scholar Jon Bateman writes, this intrusion demonstrated clear “timing (one hour before Russian troops crossed the border), clear military purpose (to degrade Ukrainian communications), and international spillover (disrupting connectivity in several European countries).”¹¹⁰ However, the incident appeared to be limited in duration and unclear in impact—senior Ukrainian official Victor Zhora acknowledged the loss to communications during the early hours of the invasion, but later stated that the incident was less disruptive than it could have been because of redundancies in Ukrainian communication methods.¹¹¹

As nonresident senior fellow Justin Sherman explored in May 2025 Atlantic Council report, Unpacking Russia’s cyber nesting doll,¹¹² the comparably muted effectiveness of Russian cyber operations during the war is the result of a multitude of factors including:

Cross-domain coordination difficulties
Resource constraints
Interagency competition
Intentional strategic prioritization
Ukrainian defensive strength

Sherman goes on to explain that while cyber operations against Ukraine did not have that catastrophic impact expected by some—the promised cyber Pearl Harbor—Russian cyber capabilities should not be underestimated.¹¹³

In just the first year of the war, Russia and—importantly—non-state actors in Russia’s orbit, launched a multitude of cyberattacks and intrusions against the public and private sector in Ukraine—including those entities relying on products, platforms, or infrastructure owned and operated by Western tech companies.¹¹⁴ In May 2025, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released a joint cybersecurity advisory highlighting this threat, and explicitly calling out Russian targeting of “those involved in the coordination, transport, and delivery of foreign assistance to Ukraine.”¹¹⁵ The question at hand, then, is not what level of risk is associated with these actions but how prepared the company is to encounter such risks.

Reaction – Risk definition and mitigation

In response to the risk of Russian retaliatory action, either through cyber or kinetic means, states and intranational bodies had a role to play in helping companies to navigate and mitigate these risks. The first method by which this was attempted was in an increased clarity on the types of actions that may be considered military or escalatory in nature. Additionally, in many cases states were necessary partners in securing any element of product delivery or operation required new physical presence in or movement into and across Ukraine.

Definition

Throughout the conflict, industry executives and civil society displayed a great deal of concern about where the line falls between civilian actors and military objectives, and how to ensure that their activities fall squarely on the civilian side of this line. Individuals and companies reiterated a desire for increased clarity on this question from Western governments and international legal bodies.¹¹⁶ Current humanitarian law requires the country at war to target only military objects, defined as objects “whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage” in a manner proportional to the military gain foreseen by the operation.¹¹⁷

In a 2023 report, the International Red Cross posited that, “tech companies that operate in situations of armed conflict should understand and monitor whether the services they provide may amount to a direct participation in hostilities by their employees and whether the company might qualify as a military objective.”¹¹⁸ Essentially, the line between civilian and military object is determined by Russia in its assessment of the battlespace, as well as the broader question of whether the Kremlin is concerned about staying within the bounds of international humanitarian law. The subjectivity of this divide allows for some range in interpretation.¹¹⁹ Indeed some, like Lindsay Freeman at UC Berkeley School of Law, argue that “civilian objects have been intentional, direct targets and not simply collateral damage.”¹²⁰ Ukraine and its allies cannot simply dictate where such a line exists. However, greater clarity from national and supranational entities would provide some measure of cover to these companies and help solidify their ability to make more accurate risk calculations.¹²¹

Mitigation

For products and services that require physical presence, either of people or products, many companies view some kind of partnership with government, local or otherwise, as a virtual necessity to bridge the risk imposed.¹²²

Cisco’s Project PowerUp, led by Senior Security Strategist Joe Marshall of Cisco Talos Intelligence Group,¹²³ is a clear demonstration of this. The project innovated and delivered a new industrial ethernet switch that could ensure continued effective power grid management even when Russian GPS jamming blocked Ukrenergo substation synchronization, and avoid the resulting forced outages across the Ukrainian power grid.¹²⁴ The delivery of these devices into Ukraine was coordinated via a phone call to a US government official who coordinated the first shipment on an upcoming cargo shipment to Poland and then onto a train into Ukraine to be installed by Ukrenergo engineers.¹²⁵ While this project was conceived of and executed by Cisco employees, those involved in the project emphasized the importance of Cisco’s partnership with the US government on this, as well as other private assistance programs.¹²⁶

Several governments and international organizations have established insurance programs, particularly political risk insurance to help shield companies from the financial risk of investment into Ukraine. In 2023, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency of the World Bank issued guarantees of $9.1 million to support the construction and operation in the M10 Industrial Park in Lviv.¹²⁷ Additionally, the US International Development Finance Corporation has established several financial packages guaranteeing millions in political risk insurance for a variety of projects.¹²⁸ Within Ukraine, war and political risk insurance is offered by the Export Credit Agency, which insure loans for qualifying Ukrainian businesses against such risks, as well as for direct investment from or into Ukraine.¹²⁹ The Ukrainian Ministry of Economy also drafted a law, in cooperation with the National Bank of Ukraine, which would create a unified framework for political or war risk insurance, with a focus on mitigating risks that may deter foreign investments.¹³⁰

The physical element of presence in Ukraine and especially near the battlefield remains a clear demarcation between activities that are the realm of the public sector and those that are the realm of the private sector. In this area, cooperation and coordination between companies and governments could largely follow established practices and procedures. But, for technology whose infrastructure does not touch the territory of Ukraine, the question of where the line is between civilian product and military object, and where bodies like NATO, the European Union, and the United Nations would define that line to be, resembles a gradual gradient rather than a stark line.

Key takeaways and conclusion

Behind much of the discussions and debates among various groups on the role of the private sector in in the war in Ukraine is a deeper anxiety about the evolving character of warfare as we reach the quarter marker of the twenty-first century. The integration and implementation of new technologies and its effect on the practice of war is familiar territory for theoreticians and practitioners alike, from Douhet’s theories on the supremacy of air power to the revolution of military affairs (RMA) school of thought, to those today that focus on the effect of evolving drone tactics on the operation and strategy of war. Less comfortable, however, is the analysis of what changes in technology may mean in practice not just for the conduct of war itself, but more fundamentally for the very nature of actors whose abilities and choices shape the conduct of war.

Over the past few years, private companies, especially technology companies based in North America and Western Europe have made decisions as to whether and how to contribute to the Ukrainian war effort in ways that have greatly impacted the ability of the Ukrainian government to direct and effectuate its own defense. In other words, they have moved beyond the status of resource providers in this conflict toward something more resembling actors in and of themselves, at times approaching the importance of states in their contributions.

Clarity of conflict

The war in Ukraine—especially in the first months and years of the war— was notably less divisive in the court of public opinion in the West than many other contemporary conflicts. The historical context of the Russia-Ukraine relationship, along with the sustained aggression launched against Ukraine for more than a decade prior to this invasion and the nature of the invasion itself, combined with myriad factors including those discussed throughout this report, created conditions conducive to widespread sympathy and support across much of Western Europe and North America. The efforts of the Ukrainian government proactively built on these conditions both before and after the invasion. Ukrainian leaders, Zelenskyy in particular, both publicly and in private conversations with government and private sector representatives, clearly communicated the effects of Russian aggression against Ukraine and the actions undertaken by the Ukrainian government and its people.

Clarity of conflict, as a motivating factor for tech companies’ decision-making over the course of this conflict, was important in creating favorable conditions for such choices, but is not determinative. Most important as a lesson applicable in potential future conflicts, is that the seeds that grew these conditions into place were planted well before Russian forces rolled across the Ukrainian borders in February 2022.

Business alignment

Many firms had preexisting operations, employees, or customers in Ukraine—generating both a sense of duty and a pragmatic incentive to safeguard assets and personnel. Firms that were already active in Ukraine, or whose services directly contributed to protecting their employees and customers, were the most proactive and consistent contributors. Additionally, companies could derive direct or indirect benefits from their engagement. Several firms leveraged their involvement as an opportunity for product testing, cybersecurity innovation, and real-world validation of technologies under extreme conditions. In doing so, companies not only supported Ukraine’s defense but also advanced their own technical capabilities and reputational standing.

Ukraine’s long-term digital transformation further enhanced this alignment. Over the past decade, the government has implemented legal and technical reforms aimed at combating corruption and promoting digital industry growth, positioning the country as a prospective regional tech hub and a credible, innovation-friendly partner. This proactive transformation reassured corporate partners that their investments and assistance could be practicable and impactful.

For future conflicts, states will need to account for business alignment factors as an important driving factor in private sector’s decision-making. This includes the uncomfortable, yet important finding that this includes companies’ ability to profit, or at a minimum, sustain their operations in a conflict in a way that maintains their organizational health, noting that companies’ motivations will not always align with that of the states in which they are headquartered. While moral conviction catalyzed early engagement, sustained corporate involvement in Ukraine depended on alignment between ethical action and business strategy.

Difficulty of coordination

Even amid broad goodwill, the initial months of the war revealed the challenge of coordination. Companies often struggled to identify appropriate Ukrainian counterparts, assess needs accurately, or ensure that their offerings were deployed effectively. Early efforts were marked by confusion—with multiple government offices issuing overlapping requests and little centralized control. As Bornyakov later acknowledged, the early days of outreach “were chaos.”

Many of the most significant factors that shaped company involvement were already in place and being acted upon before the February 2022 Russian invasion. Preexisting relationships were key, both as a motivating factor and a facilitating factor, effectively minimizing coordination friction. Additionally, the technological and policy developments well underway before the February 2022 invasion created the appealing Ukrainian tech landscape and improved coordination necessary once the conflict was underway.

While private companies excelled in speed and agility, governments brought scale, reliability, and regulatory legitimacy. The war illustrated how preparedness for potential future conflicts will depend on preestablished coordination frameworks that merge these strengths—enabling rapid mobilization of technological capabilities, matching private capabilities with public needs in real time.

Risk of retaliation

Providing assistance to Ukraine exposed technology companies to new security risks from cyberattacks, sanctions, or kinetic threats against personnel or infrastructure. The degree of perceived risk—and retaliation—varied depending on each company’s exposure, particularly for firms whose technologies had direct military applications or some kind of physical presence.

Ambiguity around international law, cyber norms, and export controls can delay or discourage private assistance. Companies must understand whether providing certain technologies or services could be construed as escalatory, illegal, or sanctionable. Private firms are increasingly targeted in state-level cyber operations. The possibility of retaliation, in any of a myriad of forms, was a serious risk for companies aiding Ukraine; managing and sharing that risk is essential to sustaining long-term cooperation.

To mitigate these risks, Ukraine and allied governments played an essential supportive role, clarifying the boundaries between civilian and military assistance, helping companies avoid escalatory missteps and, in some cases, underwrote contracts or insurance to shield firms from loss. Such measures demonstrate the emerging need for risk-sharing frameworks between states and corporations. In cases where physical operations within Ukraine were necessary, governments provided logistical and security coordination to protect personnel and assets. Such collaboration underscores an emerging model of public-private security cooperation, wherein states and corporations jointly navigate the blurred boundaries between national defense and digital resilience.

If private technology companies’ decisions and actions are so impactful to the conduct of war, as they have shown themselves to be, then the character of warfare has evolved in such a way as to require states to likewise evolve in the ways that they provide military assistance and plan for potential future conflicts. The foundation for this evolution needs to be a greater understanding of the factors in the case of Ukraine that most greatly impacted company decision-making regarding their participation, or not, in the conflict space, starting with the four factors identified in this report: those that pulled companies toward cooperation, and those that pushed companies away. By assessing the factors that drove companies’ decision-making in Ukraine, states can better plan and prepare for future crises and conflicts—and not leave such critical capabilities, once again, to chance.

About the author

Emma Schroeder is an associate director with the Cyber Statecraft Initiative, part of the Atlantic Council Tech Programs. Her focus in this role is on developing statecraft and strategy for cyberspace useful for both policymakers and practitioners. Her work focuses on the role of cyber and cyber-enabled technology in conflict and crime.

Originally from Massachusetts, Schroeder holds an MA in History of War from King’s College London’s War Studies Department. She also attained her BA in International Relations & History, with a concentration in Security Studies, from the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.

Acknowledgements

This report was made possible by the participation of dozens of scholars and practitioners who shared their expertise and experiences with the author.

Thank you to the Cyber Statecraft Initiative team for their support, particularly Nikita Shah and Trey Herr for their guidance. Particular thanks to Emerson Johnston, Grace Menna, and Zhenwei Gao for their research assistance, as well as to Nancy Messieh, Samia Yakub, and Donald Partyka for the creation and review of language and digital assets. All errors are the author’s own.

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The Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative, part of the Atlantic Council Technology Programs, works at the nexus of geopolitics and cybersecurity to craft strategies to help shape the conduct of statecraft and to better inform and secure users of technology.

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1 All unattributed interviews were conducted in confidentiality with the author, and the names of interviewees are withheld by mutual agreement.

2 “Russia/Ukraine: Invasion of Ukraine Is an Act of Aggression and Human Rights Catastrophe,” Amnesty International, March 1, 2022, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/03/russia-ukraine-invasion-of-ukraine-is-an-act-of-aggression-and-human-rights-catastrophe/.

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25 Interview with threat intelligence executive at US cybersecurity nonprofit, April 2, 2024.

26 Sam Bresnick, Ngor Luong, and Kathleen Curlee, Which Ties Will Bind: Big Tech, Lessons from Ukraine, and Implications for Taiwan, Center for Security and Emerging Technology (Georgetown University), February 2024, https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/which-ties-will-bind/.

27 “Putin signs law forcing foreign social media giants to open Russian offices,” Reuters, July 1, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/technology/putin-signs-law-forcing-foreign-it-firms-open-offices-russia-2021-07-01/; Human Rights Watch, Russia: Growing Internet Isolation, Control, Censorship, June 18, 2020, https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/06/18/russia-growing-internet-isolation-control-censorship.

28 Interview with government affairs executive at US multinational technology corporation, August 28, 2024.

29 “Google’s Russian Subsidiary Files Bankruptcy Document,” Reuters, May 18, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/googles-russian-subsidiary-files-bankruptcy-document-2022-05-18/; “Google’s Russian Subsidiary Recognised Bankrupt by Court—RIA,” Reuters, October 18, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/googles-russian-subsidiary-recognised-bankrupt-by-court-ria-2023-10-18/.

30 Google Wins UK Injunction over YouTube Block on Russian Broadcasters,” Reuters, January 22, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-wins-uk-injunction-over-youtube-block-russian-broadcasters-2025-01-22/.

31 Interview with executive at US multinational technology corporation, date withheld.

32 Industry executive, “Public-Private Cyber Support” Workshop, Royal United Services Institute, May 29, 2025.

33 Interview with threat intelligence executive at US cybersecurity nonprofit, May 2, 2024.

34 Interview with business development executive at US information and communications technology corporation, July 18, 2024.

35 Vera Bergengruen, “How Tech Giants Turned Ukraine into an AI War Lab,” TIME, February 8, 2024, https://time.com/6691662/ai-ukraine-war-palantir/.

36 Interview with information security executive at US intelligence and data analysis software technology corporation, May 8, 2024.

37 Bergengruen, “How Tech Giants Turned.”

38 Industry Executive, “Supporting Ukraine’s Warfighting Efforts with Digital Capabilities” Roundtable, Embassy of Estonia and the Estonian Ministry of Defense, September 13, 2024.

39 Bergengruen, “How Tech Giants Turned.”

40 Robert Hart, “Clearview AI: Controversial Facial-Recognition Firm Fined $33 Million for Illegal Database,” Forbes, September 3, 2024, https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2024/09/03/clearview-ai-controversial-facial-recognition-firm-fined-33-million-for-illegal-database/; Kashmir Hill, “The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It,” New York Times, January 18, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/technology/clearview-privacy-facial-recognition.html.

41 Paresh Dave and Jeffrey Dastin, “Exclusive: Ukraine Has Started Using Clearview AI’s Facial Recognition during War,” Reuters, March 13, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-ukraine-has-started-using-clearview-ais-facial-recognition-during-war-2022-03-13/; Kashmir Hill, “Facial Recognition Goes to War,” New York Times, April 7, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/07/technology/facial-recognition-ukraine-clearview.html; Vera Bergengruen, “Ukraine’s ‘Secret Weapon’ Against Russia Is a Controversial U.S. Tech Company,” TIME, November 14, 2023, https://time.com/6334176/ukraine-clearview-ai-russia/; Drew Harwell, “Ukraine is scanning faces of dead Russians, then contacting the mothers,” Washington Post, April 15, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/15/ukraine-facial-recognition-warfare/.

42 Interview with government affairs executive at US multinational digital communications technology corporation, May 2, 2024; Interview with information security executives at US intelligence and data analysis software technology corporation, May 8, 2024.

43 “Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2021–2025,” National Agency on Corruption Prevention (Ukraine), 2021, https://nazk.gov.ua/en/anti-corruption-strategy/.

44 Oleksandr Bornyakov, “Why Ukraine is Going All In on Tech to Rebuild Economy,” Fortune, August 24, 2022, https://fortune.com/2022/08/24/ukraine-going-all-in-tech-rebuild-economy-international-oleksandr-bornyakov/.

45 Integrity and Anti-Corruption Review of Ukraine, OECD Public Governance Reviews, OECD Publishing, May 2025, https://doi.org/10.1787/7dbe965b-en.

46 Robert Peacock, The Impact of Corruption on Cybersecurity: Rethinking National Strategies Across the Global South, Atlantic Council, July 1, 2024, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/the-impact-of-corruption-on-cybersecurity-rethinking-national-strategies-across-the-global-south/; Software Management: Security Imperative, Business Opportunity, Business Software Alliance, June 2018, https://www.bsa.org/files/2019-02/2018_BSA_GSS_Report_en_.pdf.

47 Alona Savishchenko, “How Open Source E-procurement System Prozorro Helps to Sustain Ukrainian Economy,” Open Source Observatory, European Commission, November 19, 2024, https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-source-observatory-osor/news/e-procurement-prozorro-support-ukrainian-economy; “EProcurement System ProZorro,” Observatory of Public Sector Innovation, https://oecd-opsi.org/innovations/eprocurement-system-prozorro/.

48 Robert Peacock, The Impact of corruption; Software Management, Business Software Alliance.

49 “About UNITED24,” UNITED24 – The Initiative of the President of Ukraine, accessed October 20, 2025, https://u24.gov.ua/about; Guest, “Mykhailo Fedorov is Running.”

50 Daryna Antoniuk, “Two Ukraine Cyber Officials Dismissed amid Embezzlement Probe,” The Record, November 20, 2023, https://therecord.media/two-ukraine-cyber-officials-dismissed-amid-embezzlement-probe; “Misappropriation of UAH 62 million during the purchase of software: the leadership of the State Special Communications Service is suspected,” National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, news release (in Ukrainian), November 20, 2023, https://nabu.gov.ua/news/zavolod-nnia-62-mln-grn-pri-zakup-vl-programnogo-zabezpechennia-p-dozriu-t-sia-ker-vnitctvo-derzhspetczviazku/.

51 Interview with government affairs executive at US multinational digital communications technology corporation, May 2, 2024; Interview with information security executives at US intelligence and data analysis software technology corporation, May 8, 2024; Industry executive, “Public-Private Cyber Support” Workshop, Royal United Services Institute, May 29, 2024.

52 Bergengruen, “How Tech Giants Turned.”

53 Bergengruen, “How Tech Giants Turned.”

54 “Ukrainian Tech Industry Shows Resilience in the Face of War — IT Research Ukraine 2024,” techukraine.org, December 5, 2024, https://techukraine.org/2024/12/05/ukrainian-tech-industry-shows-resilience-in-the-face-of-war-it-research-ukraine-2024/.

55 “Diia City,” Diia, accessed October 20, 2025, https://city.diia.gov.ua/en.

56 Mykhailo Fedorov, “Ukraine’s Vibrant Tech Ecosystem Is a Secret Weapon in the War with Russia,” UkraineAlert (Atlantic Council), August 17, 2023, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraines-vibrant-tech-ecosystem-is-a-secret-weapon-in-the-war-with-russia/.

57 Greg Rattray, Geoff Brown, and Robert Taj Moore, The Cyber Defense Assistance Imperative: Lessons from Ukraine, Aspen Digital, May 2025, https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Aspen-Digital_The-Cyber-Defense-Assistance-Imperative-Lessons-from-Ukraine.pdf.

58 “CDAC: “The Scale of What We Can Do is Severely Hampered by not Having Funding for Dedicated Staff or to Fulfill Requirements Directly,” Common Good Cyber, May 29, 2025, https://commongoodcyber.org/news/interview-cdac-funding/.

59 Industry executive, “Public-Private Cyber Support” Workshop, Royal United Services Institute, May 29, 2024.

60 Interview with business development executive at US information and communications technology corporation, July 18, 2024; Interview with government affairs executive at US multinational digital communications technology corporation, May 2, 2024; Interview with information security executives at US intelligence and data analysis software technology corporation, May 8, 2024.

61 Interview with business development executive at US information and communications technology corporation, July 18, 2024.

62 Interview with threat intelligence executive at US cybersecurity nonprofit, April 2, 2024; Industry executive, “Supporting Ukraine’s Warfighting Efforts with Digital Capabilities” Roundtable, Embassy of Estonia and the Estonian Ministry of Defense, September 13, 2024.

63 Industry executive, “IT Coalition” Roundtable, Atlantic Council, February 21, 2024.

64 Industry executive, “Public-Private Cyber Support” Workshop, Royal United Services Institute, May 29, 2024; Industry executive, “Supporting Ukraine’s Warfighting Efforts with Digital Capabilities” Roundtable, Embassy of Estonia and the Estonian Ministry of Defense, September 13, 2024.

65 “Cyber Defense Assistance Evaluation Framework,” Cyber Defense Assistance Collaborative, June 18, 2024, https://crdfglobal-cdac.org/cda-evaluation-framework/.

66 Peter Guest, “Mykhailo Fedorov is Running,” WIRED, July 25, 2023, https://www.wired.com/story/ukraine-runs-war-startup/.

67 Cat Zakrzewski, “4,000 letters and four hours of sleep: Ukrainian leader wages digital war,” Washington Post, March 30, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/mykhailo-fedorov-ukraine-digital-front/.

68 Interview with tech assistance coordination executive, US nonprofit organization, July 17, 2025.

69 Bergengruen, “How Tech Giants Turned.”

70 Colin Demarest, “Data Centers Are Physical and Digital Targets, Says Pentagon’s Eoyang,” C4ISRNET, November 17, 2022, https://www.c4isrnet.com/cyber/2022/11/17/data-centers-are-physical-and-digital-targets-says-pentagons-eoyang/.

71 Oleh Ivanov, “Procurement During the Full-Scale War,” Vox Ukraine, October 14, 2022, https://voxukraine.org/en/procurement-during-the-full-scale-war.

72 “On Amendments to the Resolutions of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 822 of September 14, 2020 and No.169 of February 28, 2022,” Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, June 24, 2022, https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/723-2022-%D0%BF#n2.

73 Interview with government affairs executive at US multinational technology corporation, August 28, 2024.

74 Elizabeth Hoffman, Jaehyun Han, and Shivani Vakharia, Past, Present, and Future of US Assistance to Ukraine: A Deep Dive into the Data, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), September 26, 2023, https://www.csis.org/analysis/past-present-and-future-us-assistance-ukraine-deep-dive-data.

75 The difficulty, for the purposes of this paper, is understanding the breakdown of this assistance as it applies to digital and tech-focused aid to Ukraine. The author found examples breaking down US government assistance by general category (i.e., humanitarian, military, financial) and breakdowns of weapons systems aid (e.g., tanks and air defense systems) but little enumeration of the kind and amount of digital and tech aid provided by the US government. See “Ukraine Support Tracker,” Kiel Institute for the World Economy, updated October 14, 2025, https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker.

76 Interview with government affairs executive at US multinational technology corporation, August 28, 2024.

77 Industry executive, “Supporting Ukraine’s Warfighting Efforts with Digital Capabilities” Roundtable, Embassy of Estonia and the Estonian Ministry of Defense, September 13, 2024; Interview with information security executive at US multinational technology corporation, August 28, 2024; Interview with threat intelligence executive and government affairs executive at US multinational digital communications technology corporation, October 2, 2024.

78 Alex Therrien and Frank Gardner, “Hegseth Sets Out Hard Line on European Defense and NATO,” BBC News, February 12, 2025, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0pz3er37jo.

79 Jon Harper,“Hegseth Puts Onus on Allies to Provide ‘Overwhelming Share’ of Weapons to Ukraine,” DefenseScoop, February 12, 2025, https://defensescoop.com/2025/02/12/hegseth-ukraine-defense-contact-group-allies-military-aid-trump/.

80 Industry executive, “Supporting Ukraine’s Warfighting Efforts with Digital Capabilities” Roundtable, Embassy of Estonia and the Estonian Ministry of Defense, September 13, 2024; Interview with threat intelligence executive and government affairs executive at US multinational digital communications technology corporation, October 2, 2024.

81 Industry executive, “Supporting Ukraine’s Warfighting Efforts with Digital Capabilities” Roundtable, Embassy of Estonia and the Estonian Ministry of Defense, September 13, 2024.

82 “UK aid to Ukraine,” Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI), April 30, 2024, https://icai.independent.gov.uk/html-version/uk-aid-to-ukraine-2/.

83 Industry executive, “Public-Private Cyber Support” Workshop, Royal United Services Institute, May 29, 2024.

84 “SpaceX, USAID Deliver 5,000 Satellite Internet Terminals to Ukraine,” Reuters, April 6, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/technology/spacex-usaid-deliver-5000-satellite-internet-terminals-ukraine-2022-04-06/; Alex Marquardt, “Exclusive: Musk’s SpaceX Says it Can No Longer Pay for Critical Satellite Services in Ukraine, Asks Pentagon to Pick Up the Tab,” CNN, October 13, 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/elon-musk-spacex-starlink-ukraine; Michael Sheetz, “Pentagon Awards SpaceX with Ukraine Contract for Starlink Satellite Internet,” CNBC, June 1, 2023, https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/01/pentagon-awards-spacex-with-ukraine-contract-for-starlink-satellite-internet.html.

85 “United States and Ukraine Expand Cooperation on Cybersecurity,” Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, July 27, 2022, https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/united-states-and-ukraine-expand-cooperation-cybersecurity; David Jones, “White House Warns of US of Possible Russian Cyberattack Linked to Ukraine Invasion,” Cybersecurity Dive, March 22, 2022, https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/white-house-warns-russian-cyberattack-ukraine/620755/; Egle Murauskaite, “U.S. Assistance to Ukraine in the Information Space: Intelligence, Cyber, and Signaling,” Asymmetric Threats Analysis Center (University of Maryland), February 2023, https://www.start.umd.edu/publication/us-assistance-ukraine-information-space-intelligence-cyber-and-signaling.

86 Maj. Sharon Rollins, “Defensive Cyber Warfare: Lessons from Inside Ukraine,” US Naval Institute Proceedings, June 2023, https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2023/june/defensive-cyber-warfare-lessons-inside-ukraine; “Before the Invasion: Hunt Forward Operations in Ukraine,” US Cyber Command (declassified briefing), November 28, 2022, https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/documents/rmsj3h-751×3/2022-11-28-CNMF-Before-the-Invasion-Hunt-Forward-Operations-in-Ukraine.pdf; Dina Temple-Raston, Sean Powers, and Daryna Antoniuk, “Ukraine Hunt Forward Teams,” The Record, October 18, 2023, https://therecord.media/ukraine-hunt-forward-teams-us-cyber-command.

87 Interview with tech assistance coordination executive at US nonprofit organization, July 17, 2025; Interview with government affairs executive at US multinational technology corporation, August 28, 2024.

88 “Interview with threat intelligence executive at US multinational technology corporation, April 22, 2024; Industry executive, “IT Coalition” Roundtable, Atlantic Council, February 21, 2024; Industry executive, “Public-Private Cyber Support” Workshop, Royal United Services Institute, May 29, 2024; Interview with threat intelligence executive and government affairs executive at US multinational digital communications technology corporation, October 2, 2024.

89 Industry executive, “Public-Private Cyber Support” Workshop, Royal United Services Institute, May 29, 2024.

90 Industry executive, “Public-Private Cyber Support” Workshop, Royal United Services Institute, May 29, 2024.

91 “Luxembourg, Estonia, and Ukraine Have Launched the IT Coalition,” Government of Luxembourg, September 19, 2023, https://gouvernement.lu/en/actualites/toutes_actualites/communiques/2023/09-septembre/19-bausch-itcoalition.html.

92 “Ukraine Defence Contact Group: Estonia and Luxembourg Announce New Contributions to IT Coalition,” European Pravda, April 8, 2024, https://www.eurointegration.com.ua/eng/news/2024/04/8/7183316/; “IT Coalition Established by Estonia and Luxembourg … Has Raised about 500 Million Euros in Its First Year,” Republic of Estonia Ministry of Defense, December 12, 2024, https://www.kaitseministeerium.ee/en/news/it-coalition-established-estonia-and-luxembourg-help-ukraine-has-raised-about-500-million-euros.

93 “IT Coalition Led by Estonia and Luxembourg Has Raised over One Billion Euros to Support Ukraine,” Republic of Estonia Ministry of Defense, May 28, 2025, https://kaitseministeerium.ee/en/news/it-coalition-led-estonia-and-luxembourg-has-raised-over-one-billion-euros-support-ukraine.

94 Industry executive, “Supporting Ukraine’s Warfighting Efforts with Digital Capabilities” Roundtable, Embassy of Estonia and the Estonian Ministry of Defense, September 13, 2024.

95 “Formalization of the Tallinn Mechanism to Coordinate Civilian Cyber Assistance to Ukraine,” US Department of State (Office of the Spokesperson), December 20, 2023, https://2021-2025.state.gov/formalization-of-the-tallinn-mechanism-to-coordinate-civilian-cyber-assistance-to-ukraine/.

96 “Tallinn Mechanism Raises €200 Million to Support Ukraine’s Resilience in Cyberspace,” Republic of Estonia Ministry of Foreign Affairs, December 20, 2024, https://www.vm.ee/en/news/tallinn-mechanism-raises-eu200-million-support-ukraines-resilience-cyberspace.

97 “Joint Statement Marking the First Anniversary of the Tallinn Mechanism,” US Department of State (Office of the Spokesperson), December 20, 2024, https://2021-2025.state.gov/joint-statement-marking-the-first-anniversary-of-the-tallinn-mechanism/.

98 Interview with government affairs executive at US multinational technology corporation, August 28, 2024; Industry executive, “Supporting Ukraine’s Warfighting Efforts with Digital Capabilities” Roundtable, Embassy of Estonia and the Estonian Ministry of Defense, September 13, 2024.

99 Rachel Lerman, “On Google Maps, Tracking the Invasion of Ukraine,” The Washington Post, February 25, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/02/25/google-maps-ukraine-invasion/.

100 Marc Cieslak and Tom Gerken, “Ukraine Crisis: Google Maps Live Traffic Data Turned Off in Country,” BBC News, February 28, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60561089.

101 Interview with government affairs executive at US multinational technology corporation, date withheld.

102 Seb Starcevic, “Ukraine Slams Google for Revealing Location of Military Sites,” Politico, November 4, 2024, https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-google-reveal-location-military-site/; James Kilner, “Google Maps ‘reveals location’ of Ukrainian military positions,” The Telegraph, November 4, 2024, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/11/04/ukraine-angry-google-maps-reveal-location-military-position/.

103 Alex Marquardt and Kristin Fisher, “SpaceX Admits Blocking Ukrainian Troops from Using Satellite Technology,” CNN, February 9, https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/09/politics/spacex-ukrainian-troops-satellite-technology/index.html.

104 “Russia Using Thousands of SpaceX Starlink Terminals in Ukraine, WSJ says,” Reuters, February 15, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-using-thousands-spacex-starlink-terminals-ukraine-wsj-says-2024-02-15/.

105 “Starshield,” SpaceX, accessed October 20, 2025, https://www.spacex.com/starshield/; Joey Roulette and Marisa Taylor, “Exclusive: Musk’s SpaceX Is Building Spy Satellite Network for US Intelligence Agency, Sources Say,” Reuters, March 16, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/musks-spacex-is-building-spy-satellite-network-us-intelligence-agency-sources-2024-03-16/.

106 Tim Fernholz, “The Big Questions About Starshield: SpaceX’s Classified EO Project,” Payload, March 22, 2024, https://payloadspace.com/the-big-questions-about-starshield-spacexs-classified-eo-project/; Brian Everstine, “SpaceX: DoD Has Requested Taking Over Starship Individual Missions,” Aviation Week Network, January 30, 2024, https://aviationweek.com/space/spacex-dod-has-requested-taking-over-starship-individual-missions; Sandra Erwin, “Pentagon Embracing SpaceX’s Starshield for Future Military SATCOM,” SpaceNews, June 11, 2024, https://spacenews.com/pentagon-embracing-spacexs-starshield-for-future-military-satcom/.

107 Interview with information security executive at US intelligence and data analysis software technology corporation, May 8, 2024; Interview with government affairs executive at US multinational technology corporation, March 1, 2024; Industry executive, “Supporting Ukraine’s Warfighting Efforts with Digital Capabilities” Roundtable, Embassy of Estonia and the Estonian Ministry of Defense, September 13, 2024.

108 Interview with information security executive at US intelligence and data analysis software technology corporation, May 8, 2024.

109 Industry executive, “Supporting Ukraine’s Warfighting Efforts with Digital Capabilities” Roundtable, Embassy of Estonia and the Estonian Ministry of Defense, September 13, 2024.

110 Jon Bateman, Russia’s Wartime Cyber Operations in Ukraine: Military Impacts, Influences, and Implications, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, December 16, 2022, https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2022/12/russias-wartime-cyber-operations-in-ukraine-military-impacts-influences-and-implications?lang=en.

111 Rafael Satter, “Satellite Outage Caused ‘Huge Loss in Communications’ at War’s Outset—Ukrainian Official,” Reuters, March 15, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/satellite-outage-caused-huge-loss-communications-wars-outset-ukrainian-official-2022-03-15/; Kim Zetter, “ViaSat Hack ‘Did Not’ Have Huge Impact on Ukrainian Military Communications, Official Says,” Zero Day (Substack), September 26, 2022, https://www.zetter-zeroday.com/viasat-hack-did-not-have-huge-impact/; Emma Schroeder with Sean Dack, A Parallel Terrain: Public‑Private Defense of the Ukrainian Information Environment, Atlantic Council, February 27, 2023, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/a-parallel-terrain-public-private-defense-of-the-ukrainian-information-environment/.

112 Justin Sherman, Unpacking Russia’s Cyber Nesting Doll, Atlantic Council, May 20, 2025, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/russia-tomorrow/unpacking-russias-cyber-nesting-doll/.

113 Justin Sherman, Unpacking Russia’s Cyber.”

114 Shane Huntley, “Fog of War: How the Ukraine Conflict Transformed the Cyber Threat Landscape,” Threat Analysis Group blog (Google), February 16, 2023, https://blog.google/threat-analysis-group/fog-of-war-how-the-ukraine-conflict-transformed-the-cyber-threat-landscape/.

115 “Russian GRU Targeting Western Logistics Entities and Technology Companies,” Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, May 21, 2025, https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa25-141a.

116 Industry executive, “IT Coalition” Roundtable, Atlantic Council, February 21, 2024; Interview with government affairs executive at US multinational technology corporation, March 1, 2024; Industry executive, “Supporting Ukraine’s Warfighting Efforts with Digital Capabilities” Roundtable, Embassy of Estonia and the Estonian Ministry of Defense, September 13, 2024; Interview with information security executive at US intelligence and data analysis software technology corporation; Interview with threat intelligence executive at US multinational digital communications technology corporation, July 26, 2024.

117 International Committee of the Red Cross, Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), (June 8, 1977), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b36b4.html.

118 Protecting Civilians Against Digital Threats During Armed Conflict: Recommendations to States, Belligerents, Tech Companies, and Humanitarian Organizations, ICRC Global Advisory Board on Digital Threats during Armed Conflict, October 19, 2023, https://www.icrc.org/en/document/protecting-civilians-against-digital-threats-during-armed-conflict, 15.

119 Zhanna L. Malekos Smith, “No ‘Bright‑Line Rule’ Shines on Targeting Commercial Satellites,” The Hill, November 28, 2022, https://thehill.com/opinion/cybersecurity/3747182-no-bright-line-rule-shines-on-targeting-commercial-satellites/; Emma Schroeder and Sean Dack, A Parallel Terrain: Public‑Private Defense of the Ukrainian Information Environment, Atlantic Council, February 27, 2023, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/a-parallel-terrain-public-private-defense-of-the-ukrainian-information-environment/.

120 Lindsay Freeman, “Evidence of Russian Cyber Operations Could Bolster New ICC Arrest Warrants,” Lawfare, March 13, 2024, https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/evidence-of-russian-cyber-operations-could-bolster-new-icc-arrest-warrants.

121 Industry executive, “Supporting Ukraine’s Warfighting Efforts with Digital Capabilities” Roundtable, Embassy of Estonia and the Estonian Ministry of Defense, September 13, 2024.

122 Industry executive, “Supporting Ukraine’s Warfighting Efforts with Digital Capabilities” Roundtable, Embassy of Estonia and the Estonian Ministry of Defense, September 13, 2024.

123 Joe Marshall, “Project PowerUp – Helping to Keep the Lights on in Ukraine in the Face of Electronic Warfare,” Cisco Talos Intelligence blog, December 4, 2023, https://blog.talosintelligence.com/project-powerup-ukraine-grid/.

124 Joe Marshall, “Project PowerUp;” Interview with threat intelligence executive at US multinational digital communications technology corporation, July 26, 2024.

125 Sean Lyngass, “Exclusive: This Pizza Box-sized Equipment Could Be Key to Ukraine Keeping the Lights on This Winter,” CNN, November 21, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/21/politics/ukraine-power-grid-equipment-cisco/index.html; Industry executive, “Tales from Ukraine” Roundtable, Embassy of Estonia and the Estonian Ministry of Defense, November 20, 2024; Industry executive, “Supporting Ukraine’s Warfighting Efforts with Digital Capabilities” Roundtable, Embassy of Estonia and the Estonian Ministry of Defense, September 13, 2024.

126 Industry executive, “Tales from Ukraine” Roundtable, Embassy of Estonia and the Estonian Ministry of Defense, November 20, 2024

127 World Bank Group, “MIGA Backs Industrial Park in Ukraine,” news release, September 28, 2023, https://www.miga.org/press-release/miga-backs-industrial-park-ukraine.

128 US International Development Finance Corporation, “DFC Announces $357 Million in New Political Risk Insurance for Ukraine,” news release, June 12, 2024, https://www.dfc.gov/media/press-releases/dfc-announces-357-million-new-political-risk-insurance-ukraine-russias.

129 “Your Business in Ukraine 2025,” KPMG Ukraine, March 2025, https://kpmg.com/ua/en/home/insights/2025/03/your-business-in-ukraine.html.

130 “Developments in War‑Risk Insurance Products for Investments in Ukraine,” Dentons, December 5, 2024, https://www.dentons.com/en/insights/articles/2024/december/5/developments-in-war-risk-insurance-products-for-investments-in-ukraine.

The post Building the digital front line: Understanding big tech decision-making in Ukraine appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Cole discusses the future of the Navy in National Defense magazine

ajohnson — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 16:42:28 +0000

On November 10, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow August Cole was featured in a compendium article in the National Defense magazine titled “The Navy and Marine Corps at 250: A Look to the Future as the Sea Services Celebrate Their Quarter Millennial Anniversary.” Cole’s contribution, “A Navy Driven by Both Software and Steel,” discusses how the Navy will continue to evolve with automation, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies.

Fellow

August Cole

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

The post Cole discusses the future of the Navy in National Defense magazine appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Hammes publishes issue brief on containerized weapons with Stimson Center

ajohnson — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 19:24:23 +0000

On November 6, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Thomas X. Hammes published an issue brief with the Stimson Center titled “We Can’t Buy Our Way Out: It’s Time to Think Differently.” Hammes urges the Pentagon to focus on a new generation of containerized weapons that can be mass produced in order to field capabilities to deter or succeed in a conflict against China.

Fellow

Thomas X. Hammes

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Conflict Defense Industry

The post Hammes publishes issue brief on containerized weapons with Stimson Center appeared first on Atlantic Council.

It’s time to reckon with the geopolitics of artificial intelligence

Frederick Kempe — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 12:57:47 +0000

The headlines from Donald Trump’s recent meeting with Xi Jinping were all about the US and Chinese presidents reaching a trade truce. But what was lost in the news is a far more significant matter that will shape the high-stakes competition unfolding between the world’s two most significant powers: the contest for the commanding heights of artificial intelligence (AI).

The world has entered the most consequential tech race since the dawn of the nuclear age, but this time the weapons are algorithms instead of atoms. Rather than a race to obtain a single superweapon, this is one to determine how societies think, work, and make decisions. AI is transforming not only the distribution of power around the globe but also the very nature of that power and how it will be exercised.

A race with generational consequences

The Chinese government sees AI as a crucial driver for what it calls “comprehensive national power.” That’s why it is so focused on the rapid integration of AI into surveillance, consumer products and services, advanced manufacturing, military modernization, and even scientific discovery under a unified state strategy. As Tess deBlanc-Knowles, senior director with Atlantic Council Technology Programs, tells me, “One of the notable aspects of China’s approach is the prioritization of application, or what is called ‘AI-plus.’ China has an advantage over the US in terms of providing direction and incentives for the integration of AI across all sectors of the economy.”

When it comes to AI development and deployment, China’s private sector must be subservient to the will of the Communist Party. The cycle of innovation that results is distinct from Western conceptions of more loosely connected relationships among policymakers, industry, and academia.

The United States, by contrast, relies much more heavily on the singular dynamism of its private sector, open research culture, and international alliances. The US government struggles to coordinate its private stakeholders and universities at any national scale. The country remains hamstrung by weakening legal protections for privacy and intellectual property that tend to introduce ambiguity rather than clear running lanes.

And run the United States must. Failure to maintain US leadership on AI could have generational consequences. The outcome of this contest will determine which values—authoritarian efficiency or democratic dynamism—set global norms on everything from digital commerce to autonomous warfare.

“The escalating AI race is drawing comparisons with the Cold War, and the great scientific and technological clashes that characterized it,” write Josh Chin and Raffaele Huang in the Wall Street Journal today. “It is likely to be at least as consequential.” They write that both China and the United States “are driven as much by fear as by hope of progress.”

Helping the US and its allies mobilize, iterate, and deliver

There’s little doubt that who wins this race will depend on who can produce the most advanced chips, the best models, the most potent computers, and the cheapest and most sustainable energy for a proliferation of purposes.

More significantly, the emerging AI contest is about defining the world’s future standards in areas such as freedom, privacy, and even human dignity. The design of the internet—its core protocols and standards—reflected a bias toward openness, self-organization, and free speech that have shaped two generations of lives online and trillions of dollars in consumer technology. This moment in the AI era offers the same pivotal opportunity for influence. If the United States and its allies lose this race, that could produce a world in which AI becomes more of an instrument for political and autocratic control than one for individual and democratic empowerment.

With so much at stake, the Atlantic Council last week launched its GeoTech Commission on Artificial Intelligence as our flagship initiative to address this historic moment. It will bring together congressional leaders, top industry executives, and innovators across the AI ecosystem to ensure that the United States maintains its technological preeminence in an AI-defined world. Our aim is to help the United States and its allies mobilize more stakeholders, iterate faster, and deliver actionable strategies to ensure US and allied leadership—and a more enlightened, prosperous, secure, and democratic future.

The GeoTech Commission, of which I’m a member, will focus on overall competitiveness across six critical realms: AI innovation, supply chains, energy sources, government adoption and oversight, talent development, and international alliances. Rather than prioritizing some of these realms over others, it will integrate these pieces to address what asserting US leadership and winning the AI race should look like. The race for AI doesn’t boil down to one single measure or factor.

Los Alamos this isn’t

I began by writing that the current tech race is the most consequential for humanity since the beginning of the nuclear era. Some have gone further, drawing a direct comparison between the race for AI preeminence and the Manhattan Project that produced the first nuclear weapon. What’s true is that the AI race, like the Manhattan Project before it, will be decided to some extent by scientific breakthroughs. Both also share the potential for great good and catastrophic harm.

Yet this is also a misleading analogy. The Manhattan Project was a clandestine, centralized, US government-led sprint at a time of world war. The US government did have an important role in enabling the AI revolution through the development of technical foundations for deep learning and other advancements. But it has been private industry, not the government, that has leveraged and innovated to get to today’s capabilities.

To win this race, governments know they must work effectively with private companies such as Anthropic, Google, Nvidia, Microsoft, and OpenAI in the United States and Alibaba, DJI, High-Flyer, and Huawei in China. Such companies wield budgets and global reach that would make most defense ministries blush.

‘China is going to win the AI race’

The American edge is in its democratic, free market, innovative ecosystem, which at its best is an unmatched magnet for talent and capital. Yet that ecosystem is also a vulnerability in that Washington can’t control or leverage its tech champions for any overriding national security purpose in the manner Beijing does routinely.

“China is going to win the AI race,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told the Financial Times this past week, pointing to Beijing’s looser regulations, new energy subsidies, and direct intervention to assist its champions. Industry leaders worry that the Trump administration focuses more on restricting what US firms can sell to China than on energetically helping its companies win the race. “We need more optimism,” Huang said a week after Trump announced that he would stop China from gaining access to both Nvidia’s cutting-edge Blackwell chips and a less advanced chip designed explicitly for the Chinese market, and just a few days after the company reached an unprecedented market capitalization of five trillion dollars.

China’s system fuses state and private ambition in a manner that could be decisive, mobilizing government, private capital, and leading-edge science around common cause dictated by Xi and the Communist Party. The system intentionally aligns national goals with corporate incentives. While US companies focus on winning markets, competing with each other, and turning profits, Chinese companies that fail to serve the state and the party do so at their own peril.

In the United States, by contrast, the messiness of the free market could prove an enduring strength in directing capital, talent, and attention to cutting-edge technologies. Winning the race to adopt AI will require newly integrated thinking across the development, use, and consequences of the technology, rather than a narrow focus on how to build more chips or run faster models.

The Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Commission on Artificial Intelligence will grapple with this integrated question and identify how best to counter China’s capacity to leverage its entire society toward technological ends. The Manhattan Project changed history with an explosion. The demonstrations of success won’t be as dramatic with AI, but they will affect every person on the globe. And the outcome may be just as far-reaching in determining what group of countries and which set of values determine the future.

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on X @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points newsletter, a column of dispatches from a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

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Enabling US and allied leadership in the age of AI

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Ukraine’s drone war lesson for Europe: Technology is nothing without training

David Kirichenko — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 00:47:02 +0000

As Europe races to strengthen its defenses against the mounting threat posed by Russian drones, more and more countries are looking to learn from Ukraine’s experience. Speaking in October, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen acknowledged that Ukraine is currently a world leader in drone warfare and called on her European colleagues to “take all the experiences, all the new technology, all the innovation from Ukraine, and put it into our own rearming.”

It is clear that Europe has much to learn. A spate of suspected Russian drone incursions during the second half of 2025 have highlighted the continent’s vulnerability to drone-based aggression and raised fundamental questions over whether European armies are currently preparing for the wrong kind of war. While Europe’s rearmament efforts continue to gain ground, even big spenders like Poland remain focused primarily on traditional weapons systems. This is fueling concerns that European defense policymakers may not fully appreciate the growing dominance of drones on the battlefields of Ukraine.

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Ukraine’s embrace of drone warfare since 2022 can provide Kyiv’s partners with a wide range of important insights. Following the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion almost four years ago, Ukraine has turned to relatively cheap drone technologies in order to offset Moscow’s often overwhelming advantages in conventional firepower and reduce the country’s dependence on Western weapons supplies. As a result, the number of Ukrainian drone producers has skyrocketed from a handful of companies to hundreds, while overall drone output has shot up to millions of units per year.

Ukraine’s vibrant prewar tech sector has proved a major asset, serving as fertile ground for the dynamic expansion of the country’s defense sector. Meanwhile, Ukrainian initiatives like the government-backed Brave1 defense tech cluster have helped to empower innovators and optimize cooperation between the army, the state, and individual drone producers. In summer 2024, Ukraine became the first country to establish a separate branch of the military dedicated to drones with the launch of the Unmanned Systems Forces.

The results speak for themselves. Drones are now thought to be responsible for up to three-quarters of Russian battlefield casualties, with Ukrainian army units creating a “drone wall” around ten kilometers in depth along the front lines of the war. At sea, Ukraine has used naval drones to break the Russian blockade of the country’s ports and force Putin to withdraw the bulk of his fleet away from occupied Crimea to the relative safety of Novorossiysk on Russia’s Black Sea coast. Kyiv has also deployed an expanding arsenal of long-range drones to strike high-value targets with increasing frequency deep inside Russia.

In addition to these offensive roles, drones have become a vital element in Ukraine’s air defenses. Since 2024, Russia has dramatically increased the production of kamikaze bomber drones, making it possible to launch hundreds of drones at targets across Ukraine in a single night. The sheer scale of these attacks has meant that traditional missile-based air defenses are no longer practical due to the high cost and limited availability of interceptor missiles. Instead, Ukrainian defense companies have focused on developing and producing interceptor drones in large quantities.

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So far, European efforts to learn from Ukraine’s drone warfare experience have concentrated primarily on securing access to the latest Ukrainian drone innovations. This approach certainly makes sense. However, many Ukrainian specialists have stressed that as their European partners look to develop drone capabilities of their own, effective training programs will be just as important as advanced technologies.

Maria Berlinska, who heads Ukraine’s Victory Drones project, has argued that up to 90 percent of success in drone warfare depends on the training of the team behind the drone rather than the technology involved. “A drone on its own, without the coordinated work of the team, delivers nothing,” she commented in an October 2025 article addressing the need for skilled drone crews.

Training an effective drone pilot is a complex task that can take at least three months. Many categories of drone operators must also be able to act as engineers and mechanics with the ability to repair and reconfigure their systems in the field. To help meet this challenge, Ukraine has developed a strong network of volunteer organizations dedicated to training new drone pilots and preparing them for combat operations. By late 2024, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense had certified over thirty training centers for drone operators. Novel innovations include a mobile drone school located inside a converted bus.

Speaking to Euronews in October, Ukrainian drone warfare expert Fedir Serdiuk warned that Europe was currently focusing too much on drone technologies while overlooking the need to train operators and commanders in the effective battlefield use of drones. “I don’t see as many training centers being built as factories. It’s a major mistake. Not only for technical skills but also for tactical skills,” he commented.

Ukraine appears poised to play a central part in the training of Europe’s drone forces. Ukrainian trainers have already reportedly begun sharing their expertise with a number of countries including Britain, Denmark, and Poland. This trend reflects an important eastward shift in Europe’s defense landscape, with Ukraine emerging as a key contributor to the continent’s future security. This contribution will draw heavily on technological innovations developed during the war with Russia, but it will also emphasize the importance of effective training.

David Kirichenko is an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

The Eurofighter Typhoon is one of Europe’s three principal combat aircraft options alongside the French Dassault Rafale and Sweden’s Saab Gripen. US dominance in the continent’s weapons markets is becoming more pronounced, as evidenced by the F-35’s consecutive wins in European tactical combat aircraft tenders. Nevertheless, the Eurofighter forms the backbone of various countries’ airwings, where it operates as a bridge between legacy capabilities and future air warfare concepts. Telltale indicators suggest that the baseline will keep flying until the 2060s, though some nations will likely phase it out sooner. The four-nation program, involving the British, German, Italian, and Spanish defense industries, also supports the production of military aerial engines in Europe.

To provide the Turkish Air Force with the Eurofighter Typhoons, Britain’s BAE Systems will lead major airframe manufacturing and weapons integration, primarily in Lancashire and other production pipelines. The British government estimates that the deal will create twenty thousand new jobs throughout the United Kingdom. The Turkish order will likely involve a comprehensive weapons systems package, including Meteor beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles and Brimstone air-ground munitions. Unlike the AMRAAM missile’s solid-propellant power pack, the Meteor, with a range of some 124 miles, uses a rocket-ramjet combination that enables it to endure longer flight paths. As a major munitions producer in NATO, ranging from aero-ballistic missiles to cruise missiles and beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles, Turkey will likely ask the Eurofighter Typhoon’s European consortium to certify its indigenous weapons systems to the Turkish Air Force’s forthcoming tactical airwing. Doing so will offer Ankara more freedom of movement in operational planning without being desperately reliant on the Eurofighter Typhoon’s European weapon systems configurations. As the war in Ukraine has demonstrated, a strong national munitions portfolio is essential when fighting prolonged showdowns via high-tempo combat operations.

From Britain to the Gulf: Scaling the Typhoon fleet to meet Turkish air-warfare demand

The British aircraft will be new, hailing from the latest Tranche-4 variant of the Eurofighter Typhoon baseline. However, the delivery timeline will extend to 2030. Turkey needs the Eurofighter Typhoons as a stopgap capability between its aging F-16 fleet and its forthcoming, fifth-generation airpower asset, KAAN. Recognizing this five-year gap, the Turkish government is eying Gulf Arab Eurofighter arsenals. Turkish defense outlets suggest that Ankara is looking to procure a twelve-platform Eurofighter Typhoon package from the Qatari Tranche-3A AESA radar-equipped pool. Oman’s small Typhoon arsenal could also be a modest source for the Turkish Air Force, though Turkey has closer ties to Qatar and more diplomatic capital in Doha than it does in Muscat. Buying immediately from Qatar or Oman would allow Turkey to develop its pilot pool’s and ground crews’ understandings of the Eurofighter Typhoon and achieve operational capability within a few years. Such a move would make the Turkish Air Force a Eurofighter-flying branch before the British Tranche-4 deliveries kick in. At this juncture, it is important to monitor if Ankara will pursue a parallel track to finalize F-16V modernization amid price disputes and negotiations with the US defense giant Lockheed Martin. Given the United States’ decades-long dominance in the Turkish tactical aircraft market, this dispute with Lockheed Martin, at a time when Turkish and European defense cooperation is expanding, could lead to further defense trade reshuffles.

A fourth-generation answer to a fifth-generation problem

Strategically, Turkey’s Eurofighter deal with Britain is far more than an off-the-shelf purchase. It anchors deeper Turkish-British defense ties and preserves a key European production line. For Ankara, the deal modernizes its fleet, improves allied interoperability, and positions Turkey in a stronger air warfare posture within NATO. The Eurofighter can also provide the industrial bridge that Turkey needs while facing shortfalls in fifth-generation capabilities caused by its exclusion from the United States’ F-35 program and the lengthy development runway of its indigenous KAAN multirole platform. If realized, shared maintenance, logistics, avionics, and weapons integration for the Eurofighter Typhoon can even lay some groundwork to help KAAN’s co-development, allowing Turkey to evolve from being merely a buyer to a defense partner, although there is little, if any, chance that Ankara will join the European consortium behind the Eurofighter baseline.

Turkey’s Eurofighter Typhoon procurement delivers an immediate NATO-standard boost to its airpower, offering credible air superiority and standoff strike capacity across the nation’s troubled neighborhood, which has been shaped by wars. High-end weapons, such as the Meteor and the Brimstone, will enhance the Turkish aerial deterrent’s firepower, while the Eurofighter’s agility, twin-engine reliability, and modern sensors will offer more advantages.

Still, the Eurofighter Typhoon is not the F-35. The combat aircraft lacks low observability. Thus, combat-deploying the Eurofighters in heavily defended airspace would require very careful planning, intensive electronic warfare support, and coalition enablers. It is not the legacy F-16, either: keeping highly combat-ready Eurofighter Typhoon squadrons will require allocating more resources and money. They are more demanding and expensive beasts to operate. Moreover, flying a dual tactical airwing, consisting of the F-16s and the Eurofighter Typhoons, would inevitably lead to swollen defense expenditures for Ankara and Turkish taxpayers: it will be sustainable but surely costlier.

Nonetheless, amid political fluctuations, this diversification of suppliers is an insurance policy for Turkey in a world that has been losing its once-predictable diplomatic patterns. The Eurofighter Typhoon deal does not mean that the Turkish Air Force would no longer need the F-16V modernization, nor would it end the nation’s quest for achieving the fifth-generation tactical combat aircraft capability. In practical terms, the twenty-piece Eurofighter Typhoon package for the Turkish Air Force, one of the largest operators of the F-16s around the globe, is like a good protein bar for an Olympic athlete. It would not compensate for a full meal, but would still offer a feasible, interim solution under time pressure.

Can Kasapoğlu is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a co-editor of the Atlantic Council Turkey Program’s Defense Journal.

The views expressed in TURKEYSource are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

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Rich Outzen interview with i24 on UK assistance to Belgium’s counter-drone defenses

aozen — Sun, 09 Nov 2025 13:55:12 +0000

ORIGINAL SOURCE

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Learning the lessons from Ukraine’s fight against Russian cyber warfare

Oleksandr Bakalynskyi, Maggie McDonough — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 19:36:30 +0000

The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine is among the most technologically advanced wars the world has ever seen. But while the rapid developments taking place in drone warfare tend to attract most attention, the cyber front of the conflict also offers important lessons for international audiences.

The Russian state and affiliated groups have been refining their cyber warfare tactics in Ukraine ever since the initial onset of Russian aggression in 2014. In January 2022, Ukrainian government sites and other critical elements of the country’s digital infrastructure experienced a series of major cyber attacks in a precursor to the full-scale invasion, which began weeks later.

This escalating cyber war has made Ukraine both a critical source of intelligence on Russia’s evolving cyber capabilities and a front line arena for cyber defense strategies. Cyber operations have become integral to Russia’s campaign of aggression, with cyber attacks and kinetic strikes frequently coordinated. Today’s Russian cyber strategy involves continuous, adaptive, and multi-vector operations encompassing malware, phishing, and disinformation.

Ukraine’s cyber defense is critical to international security and the stability of the global digital environment. As a testing ground for Russian cyber tools, Ukraine faces attacks that, once refined, can be directed against allied governments, critical infrastructure, and private sector entities. The question is not whether such attacks will occur, but when this will happen, how costly these attacks will be, and how quickly recovery can be achieved.

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Unlike conventional warfare, cyberspace has no borders. A criminal or adversary can strike targets in Kyiv, Washington, or New York with equal ease. Sustained collaboration between Ukrainian, United States, and allied cyber specialists is therefore critical, especially given the escalating cyber threat posed by China, North Korea, Iran, Belarus, and their state-backed proxy groups.

Despite the growing threat, institutional capabilities for a coordinated response by Ukraine, Europe, the US, and other allies are still underdeveloped. The NIS2 Directive, the legal framework that sets minimum cyber security standards across the EU, was an important step toward increasing coordination around risk management, threat sharing, and supply chain security. However, the process of building a dynamic cyber defense coalition has been slow, given the large number of jurisdictions in Europe.

To compound these challenges, Western governments have often been hesitant to share sensitive information with Ukrainian counterparts, or even with each other. Thankfully, there are measures that can be adopted to offer more effective support to Ukraine while still safeguarding classified information. These include sharing tiered or sanitized intelligence reports, conducting joint cyber security operations, and expanding advisory access to expertise. Sustained knowledge exchange, international assistance, and cooperative engagement remain essential to countering the breadth and sophistication of Russian cyber operations.

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Ukraine’s experience highlights the importance of increased investment in critical infrastructure protection. Since 2014, Russia has repeatedly targeted Ukraine’s critical infrastructure with cyber offensives designed to disrupt vital services. The cyber defense of these assets is highly specialized and requires specific strategies.

Cooperation between the public and private sectors is crucial in the fight against Russian cyber warfare. Civilian engagement and private sector partnerships have played important roles in Ukraine’s cyber defense, with both groups filling gaps that government and military structures cannot fully cover, especially under conditions of relentless hybrid warfare. However, there are a number of problematic related issues that need to be resolved.

One of the most difficult topics in terms of legislation is the issue of cyber volunteers. Ukrainian initiatives such as the IT Army have shown that civilians are prepared to work long hours to protect their country. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s private sector and international companies have provided a multi-layered defense by combining technical expertise, rapid incident response, and coordination with state authorities and civilian volunteers.

These contributions have proved vital in the struggle to preserve Ukraine’s digital sovereignty, protect citizens, and support the broader war effort. But many questions remain. How can large numbers of volunteers be effectively vetted? How should they be organized, when in many cases they are not cyber security specialists? Who should lead? Do volunteer cyber defenders become legitimate military targets? One solution could be to formalize a framework for civil-military-tech collaboration integrating vetted civilian volunteers with appropriate oversight.

There is a strong case for strengthening sanctions against Russia’s IT sector. Sanctions already play a critical role in constraining the Kremlin’s offensive cyber capabilities, but additional measures could further limit access to advanced technologies and signal the risks of collaboration with sanctioned entities, thereby reducing opportunities for knowledge transfer.

Potential measures include technology export bans, targeted entity designations, secondary sanctions, restrictions on software and cloud services, limitations on talent pipelines, and the financial isolation of IT firms. Implemented multilaterally, these steps could weaken Russia’s ability to innovate in cyber warfare, increase the Kremlin’s reliance on less advanced domestic technologies, and raise the cost of sustaining long-term cyber operations against Ukraine and its allies.

Finally, it is important to underscore that people remain the central element of effective cyber defense. Even with regular training designed to strengthen the skills of cyber defenders, individuals remain vulnerable to cyber fraud and social engineering techniques. Addressing these risks requires not only technical safeguards but also robust organizational policies and a sustained commitment to individual vigilance. Continuous awareness, preparedness, and adaptability are therefore essential components of a comprehensive cyber security posture.

Dr. Oleksandr Bakalinskyi is a Senior Researcher at the G. E. Pukhov Institute for Modeling in Energy Engineering at the National Academy of Sciences in Ukraine. Maggie McDonough is currently affiliated with the Center for Education & Research in Information Assurance and Security at Purdue University, where she serves as a technical advisor on global cyber security resilience programming.

The UN investigation identified numerous instances on Russian attacks on first responders, including the bombing of ambulances and fire brigade crews attempting to provide emergency aid following earlier strikes. With sudden death from above now an everyday fact of life for the local population, residents of southern Ukraine say they feel hunted and refer to the relentless Russian drone attacks as a “human safari.”

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The drones deployed by the Russian military in this bombing campaign feature video cameras allowing operators to carefully select and track victims, confirming the deliberate and calculated nature of the killings. “All the types of short-range drones used in these attacks are equipped with live streaming cameras that focus on particular targets, leaving no doubt about the knowledge and intent of the perpetrators,” the UN report confirmed.

Russian intent it further underlined by the widespread practice of posting ghoulish video footage online celebrating drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians. These posts are often accompanied by menacing language and warnings for remaining Ukrainian residents to flee the area. “Russian military units often release videos of drone-eye views of civilians being killed, to be posted online by the units or groups affiliated with the Russian army, apparently as a means of amplifying the threat,” reports the New York Times.

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This new UN report underscores the industrial scale and systematic nature of Russian war crimes in Ukraine. Moscow’s efforts to displace the civilian population in the Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Mykolaiv provinces are only one part of a broader Kremlin campaign to render much of Ukraine unlivable. This depopulation strategy is designed to fuel anti-government sentiment within Ukrainian society and increase the pressure on the Kyiv authorities to capitulate, while also generating fresh waves of Ukrainian refugees and setting the stage for further Russian advances.

In addition to the human safari tactics employed in regions of southern Ukraine located close to the front lines, Russia is engaged in a nationwide bombing campaign of civilian infrastructure that aims to deny Ukrainians access to basic amenities such as heating, electricity, and running water. These attacks are part of a long-running airstrike offensive that escalates each year on the eve of the winter season as Russia seeks to weaponize subzero temperatures and freeze the Ukrainian population into submission.

Since the beginning of the current year, Moscow has also increased the terror bombing of residential districts and other civilian targets such as hospitals and kindergartens in cities across Ukraine. This is fueling a climate of fear and has resulted in a series of mass casualty attacks including a ballistic missile strike targeting Palm Sunday churchgoers in Sumy and the bombing of a park and children’s playground in Kryvyi Rih. Ukrainian civilian casualties surged by 31 percent year-on-year during the first nine months of 2025 due to this intensification of Russian drone and missile strikes.

In a separate probe conducted earlier this year, UN human rights investigators determined that Russia is also guilty of committing crimes against humanity targeting the civilian population in occupied regions of Ukraine. A report released in March 2025 found that Moscow’s large-scale program of illegal detentions and mass deportations throughout areas of Ukraine currently under Kremlin control was “perpetrated pursuant to a coordinated state policy and amounts to crimes against humanity.”

These United Nations findings make a complete mockery of Russia’s attempts to deny targeting Ukrainian civilians. While Kremlin officials frequently assert that the Russian army never deliberately conducts strikes on non-military objects and respects the human rights of noncombatants, overwhelming evidence identified by United Nations investigators demonstrates that Russia is in fact engaged in systematic and centrally coordinated efforts to attack Ukraine’s civilian population.

Russia’s use of drones to conduct a “human safari” in southern Ukraine marks a grim new milestone in the long history of Kremlin war crimes against civilians. UN investigators have now recognized this lethal drone campaign as a crime against humanity. Putin’s decision to target the Ukrainian civilian population in this coordinated manner is a reminder that the current Russian invasion is not only an attempt to destroy Ukraine as a state and as a nation; it is also an attack on the fundamental principles of international law.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

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Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

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US voices concern over Chinese support for Russia’s Ukraine invasion

Katherine Spencer — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 14:20:49 +0000

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has raised concerns over Chinese components in Russian military drones amid fresh allegations of Beijing’s mounting support for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Speaking in mid-October, Bessent announced that the US would soon release photo evidence supplied by the Ukrainian government indicating China’s growing involvement in the war.

China has claimed neutrality throughout Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and denies providing lethal weapons to either party in the conflict. However, evidence including publicly available trade data, satellite activity, and indications of drone development between Russian and Chinese companies tell a different story.

A Washington Post report published on October 13 claimed that China has dramatically increased shipments to Russia of critical parts required to build fiber-optic drones used extensively by Putin’s army on the battlefields of Ukraine. In particular, the quantity of exported fiber-optic cables and lithium-ion batteries has skyrocketed in recent months. In August 2025, China exported a record 328,000 miles of fiber optic cable to Russia. In the same month, China supplied the Russians with approximately $47 million of lithium-ion batteries.

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Both Russia and Ukraine have been heavily reliant on Chinese drone components throughout the past three and a half years of full-scale war. However, export volumes to Russia now dwarf deliveries of key component categories to Ukraine. Many Ukrainians have come to view their dependence on Chinese suppliers as a strategic liability. This vulnerability has been highlighted by restrictions imposed by China on drone component exports to Ukraine including motors, navigation cameras, and flight controllers.

Beijing’s support for the Russian war effort allegedly goes far beyond the provision of drone components. At the end of September, Reuters reported that Chinese experts were traveling to Russia to develop military drones at a state-owned weapons manufacturer currently under Western sanctions. The Russian arms maker in question was accused of producing a new drone, the Garpiya-3, in collaboration with Chinese experts.

Garpiya-3 strike drones are said to feature Chinese technologies and have an operational range extending hundreds of kilometers. Kyiv claims around five hundred of these drones are now being launched at targets inside Ukraine every month. China has denied the reports. If confirmed, this and other instances of collaboration between Russian arms producers and Chinese companies would represent a flagrant violation of Beijing’s stated neutrality.

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Chinese support for the Russian military has also extended to assisting Moscow with the provision of satellite imagery in order to help Russian forces identify potential Ukrainian targets. In October, a senior Ukrainian intelligence official stated that China was supplying satellite intelligence to Russia to facilitate missile strikes inside Ukraine.

Such accusations are not new. In 2023, the US Treasury Department sanctioned seven Chinese firms for providing high-resolution satellite imagery to support Russia’s war in Ukraine. In 2024, a Financial Times report citing senior US officials asserted that China was assisting in the development of Russia’s satellite and space-based capabilities, while also sharing current satellite imagery in support of the Russian war effort.

Claims of deepening military collaboration between China and Russia are complicating efforts by the Trump administration to broker a peace deal and end the largest European invasion since World War II. Despite multiple rounds of sanctions on Russian and Chinese companies, the US and EU do not appear to have made any progress toward reducing the stream of dual use Chinese components heading to Russia.

In recent months, US State Department officials have estimated that China is now providing “nearly 80 percent” of the sanctioned dual use items Russia requires to continue the war in Ukraine. The significance of this Chinese contribution cannot be overstated. Without a steady supply of cheap Chinese drone components, for example, it is unlikely that Russia would be able to maintain the bombardment of Ukrainian cities and the country’s civilian infrastructure at anything like the current intensity.

Bessent’s recent remarks are an encouraging sign that the US authorities recognize China’s integral role in enabling Russia’s invasion. However, further steps are needed. Cooperation between Beijing and Moscow in areas including the development of new military technologies and the sharing of satellite information for bombing raids cannot be ignored. This problematic collaboration will continue to undercut efforts to end the war in Ukraine until it is addressed.

Katherine Spencer is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Elliot Ackerman

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Afghanistan Defense Policy

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Tomahawk missiles are Russia’s latest red line. Will Trump call Putin’s bluff?

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 21:44:05 +0000

As the United States moves closer to a decision on supplying Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles, the Kremlin is cranking up the rhetoric in a bid to deter US President Donald Trump. Commenting on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged that the issue of Tomahawks was causing “extreme concern” in Moscow and said the war was now entering a “dramatic moment” with tensions escalating on all sides.

Others were even more outspoken. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev led the way with a thinly-veiled nuclear threat directed personally at Trump. “It’s been said a hundred times, in a manner understandable even to the star-spangled man, that it’s impossible to distinguish a nuclear Tomahawk missile from a conventional one in flight,” Medvedev noted. “The delivery of these missiles could end badly for everyone. And most of all, for Trump himself.”

Medvedev’s nuclear saber-rattling has been echoed by Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Long seen as Putin’s closest international ally and a junior partner in the Kremlin’s Ukraine invasion, Lukashenka warned this week that any decision to provide Kyiv with the US-made long-range missiles could have disastrous ramifications for international security. “Tomahawks will not solve the problem. They will escalate the situation to a nuclear war,” he told colleagues in Minsk.

It is easy to understand why Moscow so adamantly opposes the idea of sending Tomahawks to Ukraine. With a potential range of up to 2500 kilometers, these powerful missiles would make it possible for the Ukrainian army to radical expand their current campaign of long-range strikes against military and industrial targets deep inside Russia. Kyiv has already been able to significantly damage Putin’s war machine using domestically produced drones and missiles. There is now clearly a growing sense of alarm in Moscow that the additional firepower provided by American Tomahawks could tip the balance further in Ukraine’s favor.

The real question is whether Russia’s latest threats deserve to be taken seriously. After all, Kremlin officials have frequently used similarly apocalyptic language throughout the past three and a half years of full-scale war, but have consistently failed to back their words up with actions. Time and again, Moscow has declared a new red line while warning the West of potential Russian reprisals, only to then do nothing when these red lines are subsequently crossed.

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Russia’s attempts to impose red lines on Ukraine’s Western allies are a key part of the intimidation tactics employed by Putin since the start of the war. During his address announcing the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin threatened the West with “such consequences that you have never faced in your history” if they dared to intervene. This rather obvious reference to nuclear war set the tone for the relentless nuclear blackmail that has followed. When it became apparent last year that Putin’s nuclear bluster was losing its potency, he ostentatiously revised Russia’s nuclear doctrine to lower the threshold for nuclear strikes and heighten the fear factor throughout the democratic world.

Russia’s nuclear threats have certainly not been subtle, but they have proved surprisingly effective against risk-averse Western leaders. From the eve of the invasion onward, every single debate over the delivery of new weapons to Ukraine has been dragged out and delayed by overblown fears of possible escalation and craven talk of the need to avoid provoking Putin.

The timidity of the West has only served to embolden the Kremlin dictator and prolong the war, enabling Russia to punch well above its geopolitical weight against far wealthier and better armed opponents. Indeed, while his armies have struggled to advance on the battlefields of Ukraine, Putin’s ability to intimidate the West has been arguably his single biggest success of the entire invasion.

This success is all the more remarkable given how many times Putin’s threats have been exposed as empty. Russia’s unilaterally declared red lines over the supply of everything from Javelin anti-tank weapons and Patriot air defense systems to F-16 fighter jets and Leopard tanks have all eventually been violated without consequence. Likewise, the Ukrainian army has repeatedly demonstrated its complete disregard for Putin’s red lines by liberating large swathes of the country from Russian occupation, chasing the Russian Black Sea Fleet out of Crimea, and invading Russia itself.

None of this has sparked World War III. On the contrary, Putin has responded to each fresh military setback by attempting to downplay the significance of his latest humiliation. Russian retreats have been rebranded in Orwellian fashion as “goodwill gestures,” while earlier protests over the planned delivery of new weapons systems have been replaced by expressions of defiant indifference.

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Based on the wartime experience of the past three and a half years, there is no reason whatsoever to believe that Russia’s red lines are credible. Instead, the only logical conclusion is that Putin has been bluffing all along. Trump must now decide whether he will call Putin’s bluff and arm Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles.

There are mounting indications that he may be inclined to do so. Since the end of summer, the US leader’s rhetoric toward Russia and Ukraine has changed markedly, with Trump mocking the Russian army as a “paper tiger” and stating that Ukraine is now in a position to win the war. Meanwhile, reports have emerged in recent days that the US is already providing vital intelligence support for Ukraine’s long-range strikes against Russia’s oil and gas industries.

Trump’s apparent change of heart can be partially explained by his loss of patience with Putin, who has rejected the US leader’s generous peace terms and has proven himself to be completely untrustworthy during the past eight months of faltering negotiations. The new US stance is also due to Trump’s evolving understanding of the war in Ukraine. Knowledge of Russia’s failed summer offensive and the country’s escalating economic woes appear to have helped persuade Trump that the time has come to rethink his earlier assumptions regarding the inevitability of Russian victory.

There is some speculation, based in part on Trump’s own comments, that the current US strategy is to raise the prospect of arming Ukraine with Tomahawks without actually supplying them in order to bring Putin to the negotiating table. Even if the missiles are delivered, they are not wonder weapons and will not win the war for Ukraine overnight. Nevertheless, the current debate over Tomahawks represents a potentially important turning point in the biggest European war since World War II.

From the onset of the invasion, Putin has managed to limit support for Ukraine by skillfully exploiting the West’s collective fear of escalation. Trump now has an opportunity to convince his Russian counterpart that he is not as easily intimidated as other Western leaders and is more than ready to increase the pressure on Moscow until Putin agrees to pursue peace. Many of Trump’s detractors will no doubt scoff at the idea of the US president adopting such a uncompromising stance toward Putin, but few objective observers would question that this approach is the only way to end the war.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Final report of the Hypersonic Capabilities Task Force

Lead author: Michael E. White

Co-chairs: Deborah Lee James and Ryan McCarthy

Task force director: Stephen Rodriguez

Program director: Clementine G. Starling-Daniels*

Task force staff: Mark J. Massa and Jonathan Rosenstein

* Starling-Daniels’s contributions were completed prior to her departure from a fulltime role at the Atlantic Council in September 2025.

Task force members

Deborah Lee James, board director, Atlantic Council; twenty-third secretary of the Air Force; co-chair of the Hypersonic Capabilities Task Force, Atlantic Council

Ryan McCarthy, twenty-fourth secretary of the Army; co-chair of the Hypersonic Capabilities Task Force, Atlantic Council

Jim Cooper, former US representative (D-TN-05); former chairman, Strategic Forces Subcommittee, House Armed Services Committee

Madelyn Creedon, former assistant secretary of defense for global strategic affairs, US Department of Defense

Doug Lamborn, former US representative (R-CO-05); former chairman, Strategic Forces Subcommittee, House Armed Services Committee

James McConville, general (ret.), US Army; fortieth chief of staff, US Army

Whitney McNamara, senior vice president, Beacon Global Strategies; nonresident senior fellow, Forward Defense, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council

Industry task force members

Felipe Gomez del Campo, CEO, Specter Aerospace

Mick Maher, chief strategy and commercial officer, Amaero

Katrina “Kat” Hornstein, director, vehicle systems, Ursa Major

Michael Johns, senior vice president, Kratos

Mike Manazir, vice president, federal, Hadrian

Mark Rettig, vice president and general manager, Edison Works, GE Aerospace

Ralph Sandfry, director, advanced capabilities, Lockheed Martin

Zach Shore, chief revenue officer, Hermeus

Brian Zimmerman, senior vice president, global defense, Booz Allen Hamilton

Advisors

Reginald Brothers, former under secretary for science and technology, US Department of Homeland Security

Justin Johnson, former senior official performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for space policy

Lead author and methodology

Michael E. White was the inaugural principal director for hypersonics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, serving from October 2018 to June 2023. In that capacity, White was responsible for leading the Pentagon’s vision and strategy for developing offensive and defensive warfighting capability enabled by hypersonic systems. White previously served as the head of the air and missile defense sector at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL). White is a board director of North Wind USA Inc., which provides research, development, test, and evaluation products and services in aerospace and defense, and of Textum, which produces advanced textiles and aerospace composites. As managing member of WhiteAero, LLC, he is a senior defense consultant for hypersonic, air and missile defense systems, and tactical and strategic strike systems. WhiteAero’s clients include Lockheed Martin and GE Aerospace, which are both supporters of the Hypersonic Capabilities Task Force and producers of hypersonic capabilities, as well as Stratolaunch, X-Bow Systems, Cerberus Capital Management, Karman Space and Defense, Textum, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, JHU/APL, ACMI, and Riverside Research, all of which are involved in hypersonic capabilities.

As part of the research process for this report, the lead author conducted several dozen interviews and consultations with members of the Atlantic Council’s Hypersonic Capabilities Task Force, current and former officials in the US Department of Defense, congressional staff members, and industry representatives. The full task force convened several times over the course of the project to develop the findings reflected in this report, but the report’s analysis and recommendations do not necessarily reflect the views of all individuals consulted. This effort was conducted under the leadership of task force director Stephen Rodriguez, former Forward Defense director Clementine G. Starling-Daniels, former deputy director Mark J. Massa, and program assistant Jonathan Rosenstein.

This effort has been made possible through the support of Amaero, Booz Allen Hamilton, GE Aerospace, Hadrian, Hermeus, Kratos, Lockheed Martin, Nominal, RTX, Specter Aerospace, and Ursa Major.

The Atlantic Council maintains strict intellectual independence for all of its projects and publications. The Council requires all donors to agree to the Council maintaining independent control of the content and conclusions of any products resulting from sponsored projects.

Foreword

The United States stands at a critical juncture. The strategic environment is defined by the return of great power competition and the rapid proliferation of advanced military technologies that challenge long-held US advantages. China and Russia have invested heavily in systems designed to deny US forces access to key theaters and to strike their forward-deployed assets and allies with unprecedented speed.

The fielding of hundreds of hypersonic weapons by US adversaries represents a paradigm shift in modern warfare, creating a battlefield asymmetry that the United States cannot afford to ignore. This challenge demands more than incremental improvements to the existing force; it requires a fundamental rethinking of the US strategy for deterrence and defense. During our time leading the US Air Force and US Army, we saw good progress against these objectives, but there is much more to be done.

That is why we have served as co-chairs of the Atlantic Council’s Hypersonic Capabilities Task Force. In its final report, the task force puts forth a clear-eyed assessment of this challenge and offers a comprehensive road map for action. The concept of integrated comprehensive layered defeat provides the strategic framework, and the imperative to field offensive hypersonic capabilities provides the critical tool. The recommendations outlined herein are actionable, urgent, and essential to ensuring the United States can meet the demands of this new era. Now is the time to act decisively to close the hypersonic gap and defend the nation’s interests for the future.

The Hon. Deborah Lee James
Twenty-third secretary of the US Air Force;
Co-chair, Hypersonic Capabilities Task Force

The Hon. Ryan McCarthy
Twenty-fourth secretary of the US Army;
Co-chair, Hypersonic Capabilities Task Force

Executive summary

Potential US adversaries such as China and Russia are creating an increasingly contested anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) environment, posing a severe challenge to US battlefield dominance on land, at sea, in the air, and in space. It is imperative that the United States develop and field hypersonic strike weapons, in substantial numbers, as part of an integrated comprehensive layered defeat strategy that delivers left- and right-of-launch defeat of each adversary A2/AD capability through integrated kinetic and nonkinetic effects to defeat vulnerable kill-chain elements. US hypersonic strike systems enable delivery of timely, survivable, left-of-launch kinetic effects from outside of an adversary’s defensive perimeter in a timescale of relevance and are essential to ensuring future US warfighting preeminence on a highly contested battlefield. It is also imperative that the United States aggressively pursue defense against adversary hypersonic strike systems to combat the growing number of such systems being fielded.

To address these hypersonic imperatives, it is essential that the US Department of Defense pursue and Congress fund: robust acquisition of the current generation of hypersonic weapons and counter-hypersonic interceptors; block upgrades to these systems to field advanced capability and significantly improve affordability; accelerated development of next-generation systems to achieve affordable capacity; technology maturation to increase capability and affordability for hypersonic strike weapons, hypersonic interceptors, and future reusable hypersonic aircraft; critical workforce initiatives; expansion of the nation’s test infrastructure and modeling and simulation capabilities to accelerate advanced concept development; robust long-range kill webs to allow for effective employment of hypersonic capabilities; and cooperation with allies and partners to coproduce these weapons and interceptors and integrate them into whole-of-alliance defense strategies and plans.

Beyond closing the hypersonic missile gap, this report also recommends a dedicated effort to mature reusable hypersonic aircraft. These systems offer a transformational capability for persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and responsive strike missions in highly contested environments, ensuring enduring US leadership in the next generation of warfare.

The hypersonic imperative

Any future US battle against a great power rival, and particularly against the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the Indo-Pacific theater and the Russian Federation in the European theater, will be fought in a highly contested environment where US battlefield dominance will be challenged in each of the warfighting domains: land, air, sea, and space. This challenge will come in the form of the A2/AD warfighting-capability areas described below:

Large numbers of high-speed strike systems, such as ballistic missiles, supersonic missiles, and hypersonic missiles, along with many more conventional subsonic uncrewed aerial vehicles and cruise missiles. These threats will place at risk US, allied, and partner forward land bases and carrier-based sea bases.
Increasingly sophisticated air and missile defense systems designed to prohibit penetration of US strike aircraft and defeat traditional strike weapons.
Terrestrial and spaced-based antisatellite systems that will challenge the space-based elements of US and allied ISR capabilities and the space portions of US kill chains.
Fifth-generation fighters armed with air-to-air missiles with very long ranges that will challenge US air superiority.
Land, maritime, and air-launched antiship and antisubmarine capabilities that will challenge US maritime dominance.
Nonkinetic disrupters, including laser and high-powered microwave systems, cyberattack capabilities, and electromagnetic (EM) spectrum jamming and spoofing, which will challenge all elements of the US offensive and defensive capability suite.¹

These systems create what is oftentimes referred to as an anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) strategy that proliferates and integrates these high-end systems, at extended range, in a way that is designed to defeat traditional US warfighting capability, including traditional strike weapon systems. (See figures 1 and 2.)

Figure 1: Notional depiction of Russian A2/AD strategy in the European theater

Figure 2: Notional depiction of Chinese A2/AD strategy in the Pacific theater

Defining the challenge

The combination of adversary offensive and defensive capabilities described above create a highly contested environment that has the potential to severely degrade the US ability to maintain battlefield dominance. Addressing these challenges requires an integrated comprehensive layered defeat (ICLD) strategy. (See figure 3.)

Figure 3: Example system elements for ICLD capability to fight within a timescale of relevance

ICLD involves breaking the needed US capability space into four quadrants that include left- and right-of-launch defeat (i.e., before and after launch) of each adversary A2/AD capability, and aggressive use of kinetic and nonkinetic defeat mechanisms (in both phases) to attack and disable vulnerable elements of each respective kill chain. Effective integration of the ICLD warfighting capability requires a dedicated battle management system working to optimize employment across all four capability elements. High-priority targets should be identified based on the specific strategy and mission plan being employed. This strategy should be applied to each element of the adversary’s A2/AD environment.

Take, for example, the mission to defeat the adversary’s strike missile capability described in the A2/AD capability area above. The missile defense modality that gets the most attention is kinetic intercept of an incoming missile by a missile defense system, such as the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), Patriot, and Aegis ballistic missile defense (BMD) for theater defense, or the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, with the Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) or eventually the Next-Generation Interceptor (NGI), for defeating nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles.² These systems consist of an integrated network of sensors, command-and-control elements, and interceptors required to perform the detect, control, and engage functions necessary to defeat incoming missiles. While US kinetic, postlaunch missile defeat capability is significant and necessary, it is not sufficient, due to challenges associated with overwhelming numbers, sophisticated tactics, and advanced threats such as hypersonic missiles. These challenges can reduce the effectiveness of each element of the defensive fire-control loop and make defense against a capable adversary very challenging, at best. It therefore becomes essential that the other three elements of the ICLD construct, namely, right-of-launch nonkinetic defeat mechanisms and left-of-launch kinetic and nonkinetic defeat mechanisms, be brought to the fight and integrated to ensure maximum probability of an effective defense. This necessity applies across all six of the A2/AD target areas described above.

While integrated employment of kinetic and nonkinetic options will maximize the effectiveness of postlaunch missile defense systems, a capable and determined adversary can overwhelm a defensive system with numbers and tactics. Therefore, maximum effort must be applied to defeating adversary capability before launch. In other words, an effective defense requires a good offense to deny and degrade the adversary’s ability to employ its A2/AD-enabling systems.

For left-of-launch nonkinetic attack, the objectives are to degrade and/or disable foundational elements of the adversary’s prelaunch kill chain. These include degrading the adversary’s ability to detect and geolocate US targets and to communicate that targeting information to its respective launch assets to help prevent launch. Additionally, attacks on the adversary command-and-control infrastructure would also be an effective means of prelaunch nonkinetic attack.

Even with the other three elements of the ICLD construct, left-of-launch kinetic strike remains an essential component of an effective ICLD construct by enabling the prelaunch physical destruction of required system elements, thereby limiting the number of threats that must be defeated after launch. While the United States has traditionally used subsonic strike capabilities on a battlefield where the timescale of relevance is measured in hours and days, the effectiveness of these systems is severely degraded by today’s peer adversaries that can deploy both high-speed systems to dramatically compress the battlefield timescale and high-end defensive systems to create a highly contested airspace out to an increasingly long range. On such a battlefield, traditional US long-range strike capabilities are simply insufficient to adequately perform the kinetic strike element of ICLD to achieve left-of-launch defeat of time-critical elements of adversary A2/AD capabilities, due to insufficient speed of action at meaningful range and poor survivability. This deficiency greatly jeopardizes the US ability to achieve and maintain battlefield dominance, creating the imperative to field hypersonic strike weapons in meaningful numbers. Once fielded, hypersonic weapons will better enable and then complement more traditional strike capabilities, providing a significant force multiplier.

To fully appreciate the growing asymmetry and the imperative to accelerate the fielding of US hypersonic systems, it is important to understand some of the key challenges and assess the relative status of US hypersonic capability versus China and Russia.

Addressing the challenge

Hypersonic strike systems provide a unique combination of range, speed, survivability, and maneuverability to deliver lethal kinetic effects to defeat a wide range of critical targets in a highly contested environment and within a battlefield timescale of relevance. An aggressive transition to, and fielding of, hypersonic strike capabilities in meaningful numbers is essential to enable US forces to fight in the increasingly compressed timescale being dictated by adversaries’ fielding of high-speed strike systems. The importance of being able to eliminate such an asymmetry between the United States and China was highlighted by then-nominee for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth when he stated that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Forces can launch a strike from the Chinese mainland on US carriers located in the Pacific theater within twenty minutes.³ This statement reflects the fact that China has fielded a large number of medium- and intermediate-range ballistic and hypersonic glide weapons designed to carry out high-speed attacks of US and allied forward land and sea bases in the first and second island chain. In both China and Russia, traditional intercontinental nuclear ballistic missiles are being augmented by hypersonic systems being developed, and in some cases fielded, that place the US homeland more at risk. The adversary’s fielding of these weapons dramatically compresses the timescale of any future battle and creates uncertainty that may affect US decision calculus. Without the US fielding of similarly capable systems, a dangerous asymmetry will persist that will dramatically affect the United States’ deterrence posture. This battlefield asymmetry must be addressed with a dedicated and accelerated effort to field US hypersonic strike capabilities to enable success on the tactical battlefield, enhance the effectiveness of the US nuclear deterrent, and provide another rung on the escalation ladder prior to the use of nuclear weapons.

The target sets that define the needed hypersonic strike capabilities for this essential capability include key terrestrial elements of the adversary A2/AD capability areas (described above) such as: the long-range, high-speed strike systems that threaten US forward land, sea, and air bases; integrated air and missile defense launch complexes; terrestrial sites that support adversary kill chains (specifically, command, control, communications, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting [C4ISR&T] nodes); terrestrial components of adversary anti-space capabilities; and other high-value, time-critical, and heavily defended targets. The number of targets that will require hypersonic strike missile allocation early in a war is significant, making it imperative to not only develop survivable, long-range hypersonic strike capabilities, but also to field that capability in significant numbers. This translates into the need to create and fund a family of affordable hypersonic systems supported by a robust and properly incentivized industrial base to deliver affordable hypersonic capacity.

Adversary hypersonic strike capability

The current gap in high-speed and hypersonic capability is significant and growing rapidly. Russia and China have both aggressively developed and fielded hypersonic strike capabilities. Russia has fielded the Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missile that has been used against Ukraine. Moscow also has fielded the Tsirkon ship-launched hypersonic strike missile and a new intermediate-range, multiple independent reentry vehicle-equipped ballistic missile with a conventional warhead, also used in Ukraine. Perhaps most notably, Russia has fielded the Avangard intercontinental missile with a hypersonic glide vehicle carrying a nuclear warhead that threatens the US homeland.⁴

The 3M22 Tsirkon missile. (Russian Ministry of Defense)

The Avangard. (Russian Ministry of Defense)

The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal. (kremlin.ru)

China has fielded numerous short-, medium-, and intermediate-range high-speed strike systems including ballistic missiles, ballistic missiles with maneuvering reentry vehicles, and hypersonic glide vehicles that can target US and allied land bases in the first and second island chains as well as US aircraft carrier sea bases at extended range. These systems include, among others, the DF-17, the DF-21 family of missiles, and the DF-26 family of missiles. The recent PRC military parade displayed supersonic and hypersonic cruise missiles. Additionally, Beijing has demonstrated and is on the path to fielding global-range strike systems, as shown by the PRC’s nuclear modernization efforts coupled with a fractional orbital system that was flight tested in 2021.⁵

The DF-26. (Wikimedia)

The DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile. (Wikimedia)

The DF-17 Intermediate Range Hypersonic Glide Weapon. (Wikimedia)

Russia and China have fielded many hundreds of high-speed strike systems that today pose a dramatic threat to forward land and sea bases as well as to the US homeland. Beyond Russia and China, there have also been numerous media reports that indicate the likely development and deployment of hypersonic systems in North Korea and Iran, among others.⁶ The asymmetry created by the tactical employment of these systems by nonpeer adversaries is likely not as much of a critical issue given their lack of other key capabilities across the battlefield landscape, but they still pose a clear and present threat to US forward presence and to US allies—and the potential for future nuclear versions could be catastrophic.

US hypersonic capability

The United States, which for years had a lead in research related to hypersonic technologies, has been late in recognizing and embracing the military significance of hypersonic systems, which coupled with rapid advancements by US adversaries has created an asymmetry that is growing and that has the potential to jeopardize future US and allied deterrence and battlefield dominance. With an eye toward addressing that asymmetry, there has been good progress in the United States over the past seven years or so relative to developing a family of first-generation hypersonic strike systems for air, land, and sea launch.⁷ However, it is important to note that these systems are just now getting to the point of being ready for fielding.

The AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon Instrumented Measurement Vehicle 2. (Giancarlo Casem for the US Air Force)

Long Range Hypersonic Weapon Transporter Erector Launchers. (Ryan DeBooy/David Kim for the US Army)

A Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile. (Lindsey Iniguez for the US Air Force)

The Army and Navy have worked to develop a common hypersonic missile that can deliver a hypersonic glide body with a conventional warhead that will be able to strike critical targets that are on the order of 1,700 miles downrange in a matter of minutes. That capability is now ready for fielding by the Army as the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), aka Dark Eagle. The plan is for that same missile to be fielded as the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) weapon on Zumwalt-class destroyers and then on Virginia-class submarines.⁸

The Air Force developed a long-range strike system called the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), based on the joint Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Air Force Tactical Boost Glide program. The integrated ARRW weapon system capability was demonstrated in a successful flight demonstration program that culminated in 2024.⁹ That system delivers survivable, lethal effects many hundreds of miles downrange in minutes. The Air Force completed development of ARRW in 2024 but decided not to field ARRW when it was ready. The new administration has included funding for ARRW procurement and fielding in President Donald Trump’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget request.

The Air Force has continued to allocate funding to develop an air-launched Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) capability.¹⁰ Air-launched, lower-cost hypersonic cruise missiles are an important element of the hypersonic strike portfolio because they are more affordable, smaller, and can be fielded in significant numbers on a wide variety of aircraft.

In addition to the significant progress being made in US development efforts for this family of first-generation strike weapons, there are numerous other key efforts of note. There has been significant additional funding allocated to the Test Resources Management Center (TRMC) in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) to bolster and energize the nation’s hypersonic test and evaluation enterprise and enhance capability and throughput for ground and flight test.¹¹ There also has been additional OSD funding allocated to bolster the hypersonic industrial base, with presidential determinations signed for munitions, high-temperature materials, propulsion, and guidance and navigation.¹² The Joint Hypersonic Transition Office (JHTO) is making investments in the University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics to help prepare the next-generation workforce and is accelerating the transition of advanced technologies.¹³ There has also been significant private capital funding allocated to establish a cadre of small companies to augment the traditional defense industrial base addressing some of the key hypersonic challenges, such as enabling a much more rapid flight test cadence to accelerate learning and development.

With all that said, the United States continues to face a growing battlefield asymmetry in fielded hypersonic and high-speed weapon systems that jeopardizes US deterrence effectiveness and threatens to degrade or eliminate US battlefield dominance in all warfighting domains. The United States must move more aggressively to close the gap by fielding hypersonic weapon capabilities in quantities sufficient to ensure that such an asymmetry does not stand.

Meeting the imperative

The gap in high-speed and hypersonic systems has resulted in major implications for the US ability to deter and, if necessary, prevail on the battlefield. The capability gap is magnified by the aggressive deployment of the broader A2/AD strategy discussed earlier and the highly contested warfighting environment being established by US adversaries across all warfighting domains. It is imperative that the gap between the hypersonic capability needed to defeat critical adversary A2/AD capability and the current US trajectory for fielding offensive and defensive systems be aggressively closed. Addressing this imperative is essential to ensuring that the United States can operate in a battlefield timescale of relevancewhile also addressing the highly contested environment that has been created across all battlefield domains. Fielding hypersonic strike systems in significant numbers is essential to enabling defeat of the rapidly increasing set of heavily defended, time-critical targets that simply cannot be addressed with the US military’s legacy set of subsonic strike weapons.

It is important to appreciate that the imperative to field hypersonic strike capability does not replace the need for more traditional US weapons. Quite to the contrary, hypersonic weapons are essential to enabling the United States and its allies to fully leverage their traditional capabilities by defeating high-end adversary systems early in a conflict and “decontesting” the battlefield environment. Therefore, the near-term gap that exists and continues to grow is in the ability to field the number and types of weapons necessary to defeat the heavily defended, time-critical target set that the adversary has employed to challenge US battlefield dominance on land, at sea, in the air, and in space. Looking beyond this immediate need, reusable hypersonic aircraft present an opportunity to achieve this decontesting effect with greater persistence and flexibility. A reusable platform can conduct ISR missions to locate and track mobile targets, a critical enabler for the entire strike complex, and then execute or coordinate a strike itself, providing a rapid sensor-to-shooter capability that expendable missiles alone cannot.

Remaining challenges

While there has been good progress on developing the first generation of US hypersonic systems, there are still significant challenges that remain to accelerate fielding of US capability in the numbers necessary to address adversary A2/AD capabilities. Most important among those challenges is affordability. Current systems being fielded by the United States are based on accelerated prototype designs transitioned to a production environment. The system designs were not optimized for affordability and high-rate production and, as such, initial units are more expensive than traditional strike weapons that have been in production for years or decades. The cost will come down as the production rate increases, but the services must prioritize production at cost-efficient rates and institute cost-reduction initiatives to ensure the United States can affordably field the necessary capacity in the near term.

The United States must ensure that the warfighter is equipped to fully leverage the fielding of the hypersonic strike capabilities. As they are fielded, there must also be a high-priority effort to integrate hypersonic strike capability into US deterrence strategies and war plans for future conflicts. In so doing, DOD planners must include a focus on diverse platform integration, production in meaningful numbers, war plan utilization strategies, and, perhaps most importantly, development and implementation of a robust and effective long-range kill web.¹⁴

A critical challenge that must be overcome to close the capability gap is the inherent bias by the services, and some in OSD, toward next-generation air, land, and sea platforms at the expense of weapon quantity and capability. Each service has historically prioritized funding for development of next-generation platforms that have grown increasingly more complex and expensive due to the need to operate in an ever more contested environment, and they are almost always years late and billions of dollars over budget. As a result, weapons programs have consistently been bill-payers for platform priorities and overruns.

Nothing will be possible without an energized and expanded industrial base that embraces speed of development, affordability, and innovation across the portfolio. The current industrial base is simply not equipped or incentivized to innovate, design, and build hypersonic weapons to achieve affordable capacity. There must be a dramatic shift in perspective to embrace a model that is much more like the automobile, commercial aerospace, and commercial space-access industries than the traditional defense contractor business model. New and innovative contracting incentives should be created through collaboration between the government and industry to motivate the industry behavior essential to national success (i.e., rapid, on-time delivery of highly capable systems at or below clearly defined cost objectives). Investments in the hypersonic industrial base necessary to address this deficiency can come in the form of Defense Production Act Title III investments, Innovation Capability and Modernization (ICAM) program and Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment (IBAS) program investments, and Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) program investments.¹⁵ However, these investments should be targeted to new and innovative ways of achieving affordable capacity for hypersonic systems and should not be used to simply build up traditional industry to do more of the same.

A call for action

The DOD and Congress can, and should, take numerous additional actions to rapidly and efficiently field warfighting capability based on hypersonic strike systems, and to bolster capabilities for defense against rapidly proliferating adversary hypersonic strike and, more broadly, growing A2/AD capabilities. Recommended actions include the following.

1. Create a munitions czar to oversee weapons development and procurement

Problem statement

The US military services are platform-centric, with weapon programs often having lower priority than development and procurement of current and next-generation platforms. These platforms are notoriously expensive, with delays measured in years and consistent cost overruns totaling billions of dollars. Services historically defund weapons programs to pay for these overruns, while also slow-rolling advanced weapons activities that might in any way compete politically with the advanced platform budget allocations.

Recommendation

The DOD should create a direct reporting program manager (DRPM) for weapons, a “weapons czar,” reporting directly to the deputy secretary of defense, and elevate the principal director for hypersonics to be a direct report to that DRPM, with responsibility and authority for defining the vision, strategy, and execution plans for all high-speed weapons programs, including defense against adversary high-speed weapons, in close coordination with the DRPM handling the proposed “Golden Dome” missile shield. The weapons czar should have authority over advanced weapon budget allocations and be held accountable for program execution.

2. Aggressively field and evolve first-generation hypersonic weapons

Problem statement

The United States has made good progress developing its first generation of hypersonic strike weapons. However, fielding has been delayed by technical challenges, budget battles, and shifting priorities, while adversaries continue to expand their arsenals. These initial systems, designed as accelerated prototypes, are also not yet optimized for affordability or high-rate production.

Recommendation

The DOD and Congress should ensure stable funding and priority to aggressively field first-generation hypersonic weapons across air, land, and sea launch platforms at the earliest possible dates, and fully equip units at levels consistent with the DOD’s analysis of warfighting needs. The DOD must work with industry to drive down costs as production rates increase. A block-upgrade strategy should be implemented for each system to rapidly insert advanced capabilities and enhance affordability, allowing them to service a broader set of targets and be procured and fielded in the necessary numbers.

3. Prioritize next-generation hypersonic systems designed for affordable capacity

Problem statement

While first-generation systems are critical for closing the immediate capability gap that adversaries have opened regarding expendable hypersonic missiles, the initial cost of first-generation US systems will limit the capacity that the United States can affordably field. To counter the sheer number of targets presented by the A2/AD strategies of peer adversaries, the United States requires a next-generation family of long-range, high-speed strike systems designed from the outset for affordable, high-rate production and broad launch-platform compatibility. The current industrial base is not structured or incentivized for this kind of rapid, cost-effective innovation.

At the same time, focusing solely on mirroring adversaries’ approach surrenders the strategic initiative. An opportunity remains to lead in the next transformational capability: reusable hypersonic aircraft for responsive ISR and strike missions. As space becomes increasingly contested, hypersonic aircraft could decisively counter adversary A2/AD strategies by enabling persistent, survivable operations from within contested zones.

Recommendation

The DOD should robustly fund two distinct but complementary lines of effort for affordable capacity:

(a) Next-generation expendable missiles: Pursue a family of lower-cost, high-capacity missiles for affordable capacity designed to service a broad set of A2/AD targets. This should be done through competitive programs that incentivize traditional companies to deliver affordable capacity, and inspire new and innovative companies, including nontraditional commercial firms, to compete against the traditional defense industrial base. These programs should set firm cost requirements and a trade space of performance objectives, with the goal of achieving optimal affordability. High-capacity designs must be integrated with air, land, and sea launch platforms that allow for delivery of high-capacity effects on a highly contested battlefield.
(b) Foundational reusable aircraft programs: Aggressively fund technology maturation and demonstrator programs for reusable hypersonic aircraft. While the initial investment is higher, these platforms offer the prospect of significantly lower cost per sortie for persistent ISR and strike missions over their lifecycle, representing the most viable path to truly affordable and sustainable capacity. Affordability must be a key driver to the design process at the earliest stages of this effort.

4. Mandate and resource an ICLD strategy

Problem statement

Fielding offensive hypersonic weapons is only one part of the solution to defeating complex A2/AD environments created by adversaries. Battlefield dominance will require both an architecture and approach that is holistic. Relying solely on postlaunch kinetic interceptors (like Patriot or THAAD) is insufficient due to challenges of overwhelming numbers, sophisticated tactics, and the unique flight characteristics of adversary cruise, ballistic, and hypersonic missile threats.

Recommendation

The DOD must formally integrate the fielding of offensive and defensive hypersonic systems into an integrated comprehensive layered defeat architecture. This framework should be adopted and must be resourced to include robust pre- and post-launch kinetic and nonkinetic capabilities. It should be an underpinning of both homeland defense (such as the proposed “Golden Dome” missile shield) and theater warfighting strategies, leveraging hypersonic strike as a critical left-of-launch enabler to disrupt and destroy adversary systems before they can be used while defeating every other element of the adversary kill chain through the integration of kinetic and nonkinetic capabilities.

5. Accelerate learning through an integrated national test enterprise

Problem statement

The pace of developing and fielding hypersonic systems is directly tied to the ability to test them early and often in a development cycle. The nation’s once-robust hypersonic ground- and flight-test infrastructure, while improving, continues to be a bottleneck, slowing down the development cycle for next-generation hypersonic systems.

Recommendation

The United States must continue to enhance its hypersonic ground and flight tests and its modeling and simulation (M&S) capabilities to enable accelerated learning and development. This enterprise must be resourced to support both rapid iteration of expendable missile designs and the more complex, sustained flight test campaigns required for reusable air-breathing aircraft. The progress made by the TRMC in ground testing, flight testing, and enhanced test-range telemetry should be embraced and robustly funded. The HyperCorr program, emphasizing ground and flight test efforts tightly coupled to high-fidelity M&S, should be accelerated. Greater emphasis should be placed on tightly coupling these TRMC investments to the overarching objectives of the DOD hypersonics program portfolio, with emphasis on accelerated development of affordable capacity for future hypersonic capability.

6. Energize allied codevelopment and coproduction

Problem statement

The United States will likely not face an adversary alone in any future major conflict. Collaboration with allies on the development and deployment of advanced high-speed systems has been limited by information-sharing challenges, missing key opportunities to share costs, leverage innovation, and together build a more integrated and capable coalition force.

Recommendation

The United States must work diligently with allies to cooperatively develop, produce, and deploy advanced and affordable hypersonic strike capabilities. Cooperative programs, such as AUKUS Pillar 2, which focuses on developing and delivering emerging technology, should be nurtured and expanded to advance alliances, foster innovation, and field capabilities in more meaningful numbers.¹⁶ Collaboration should be enhanced with all allies pursuing advanced high-speed systems, and with the removal of barriers to information and technology sharing, wherever it is possible.

7. Modernize theater and strategic nuclear delivery options

Problem statement

Adversary integrated air defenses and nuclear-modernization efforts are challenging the survivability of legacy nuclear delivery systems. For example, the F-35A dual-capable aircraft, central to NATO’s nuclear mission, is not likely to remain sufficiently survivable in the 2030s against peer defenses in all relevant scenarios.¹⁷

Recommendation

The DOD should pursue hypersonic delivery options for future strategic and tactical nuclear weapons to ensure enduring deterrence. A high-speed, air-delivered standoff weapon should be considered to augment and then replace B61 gravity bombs for the NATO mission. The United States should consider new nuclear capabilities that would be delivered by highly responsive systems, like hypersonic weapons, capable of penetrating advanced defenses with high reliability.

8. Bolster layered defenses against hypersonic threats

Problem statement

Defending against adversary hypersonic strike weapons is exceptionally difficult. These threats challenge all aspects of the defensive fire-control loop, from detection to engagement, due to their speed, range, altitude, and highly maneuverable and unpredictable trajectories.

Recommendation

The DOD must pursue a defense-in-depth, layered strategy for counter-hypersonic defense. Crucially, this kinetic shield must be integrated with nonkinetic defensive layers, such as capabilities that degrade or deny satellite navigation, communication, and terminal missile seekers, to maximize the probability of defeat. This postlaunch capability is a necessary, but not sufficient, element of the ICLD architecture.

9. Develop robust long-range kill webs for hypersonic strike capability

Problem statement

Current kill webs for effective employment of long-range strike missiles require considerable time and effort and can be brittle. This vulnerability limits the ability to deliver meaningful warfighting capability in a highly contested A2/AD environment. Warfighting effectiveness for long-range strike systems can be significantly enhanced relative to traditional weapon employment by the integration of hypersonic strike weapons. Hypersonic weapons are inherently survivable due to their ability to maneuver unpredictably and fly high-altitude, high-speed trajectories. This characteristic dramatically reduces both mission planning time prior to weapon employment and target custody duration for relocatable and moving targets.

Recommendation

The DOD should significantly enhance the development and fielding of robust long-range strike kill-web capabilities, fully leveraging the advantages of hypersonic strike weapons. An integrated and specific initiative should be funded to enhance time-critical targeting capabilities that would leverage the full spectrum of US and allied ISR and targeting systems.

10. Rapidly transition advanced technology and enhance the workforce to support future hypersonic capability development and production

Problem statement

The JHTO has responsibility for this area of the national strategy. JHTO has, so far, done a good job in creating the University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics. However, JHTO budgets have been limited beyond that. Workforce challenges and resulting technology maturation timelines are bottlenecks to further scaling the development and production of hypersonic capabilities.

Recommendation

The DOD should champion a whole-of-nation effort to address workforce initiatives and science and technology advancements to quicken the pace for future development, production, and fielding. The department and Congress should robustly fund the JHTO to identify and aggressively develop new technology for rapid transition to next-generation systems and to accelerate upgrades for existing systems. Initiatives should include the maturation of concepts and technology driven by the need to deliver affordable capacity and advanced capabilities, including future reusable hypersonic aircraft. Finally, the JHTO should more tightly couple its workforce and technology development strategies to the needs of traditional and nontraditional industry to enable accelerated development of future affordable hypersonic systems.

Conclusion

Potential adversaries, particularly China and Russia, are creating an increasingly contested environment that severely challenges US battlefield dominance. A central element of this challenge is their fielding of a variety of high-speed and hypersonic strike systems designed to attack US and allied forces at long range and with overwhelming speed.

To ensure US battlefield preeminence, the Pentagon must develop and field capabilities to enable execution of an integrated comprehensive layered defeat strategy that leverages kinetic and nonkinetic means to defeat adversary capabilities. As part of this strategy, it is imperative for the United States to develop and field its own hypersonic strike weapons in substantial numbers to enable US forces to operate effectively and survive on the modern battlefield by defeating adversary high-end capabilities in a battlefield timescale of relevance.

To that end, the Department of Defense and Congress should aggressively move forward to field first-generation air-, land-, and sea-launched hypersonic strike weapons; develop and field a next-generation family of affordable hypersonic strike systems in meaningful numbers; mature and demonstrate future hypersonic aircraft technologies; and energize the foundational enablers of the industrial base, test infrastructure, technology, and workforce. Simultaneously, the United States must bolster its defenses against adversary air and missile threats through implementation of the full spectrum of ICLD capabilities. The time to act is now to close the growing gap in offensive and defensive hypersonic capability and ensure the United States’ ability to deter and, if necessary, win in any future conflict.

List of acronyms

Acronym	Definition
A2/AD	Anti-access/area-denial
ARRW	Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon system
BMD	Ballistic missile defense
C4ISR	Command, control, communications, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance
CPS	Conventional Prompt Strike (weapon system)
DOD	US Department of Defense
DRPM	Direct reporting program manager
EM	Electromagnetic
GBI	Ground-Based Interceptor
HACM	Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile
IBAS	Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment (program)
ICAM	Innovation Capability and Modernization (program)
ICLD	Integrated comprehensive layered defeat strategy
ISR	Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance
JHTO	Joint Hypersonic Transition Office
LRHW	Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon, or the “Dark Eagle”
M&S	Modeling and simulation
ManTech	Manufacturing technology
NGI	Next-Generation Interceptor
OSD	Office of the US Secretary of Defense
PRC	People’s Republic of China
THAAD	Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense
TRMC	Test Resources Management Center
UCAH	University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics

Biographies

Co-chairs

Deborah Lee James is an Atlantic Council board director and served as the twenty-third secretary of the US Air Force from 2013 to 2017. In this capacity, she was responsible for organizing, training, equipping, and providing for the welfare of the Department of the Air Force’s nearly 660,000 active-duty, Guard, Reserve, and civilian airmen and their families. She also oversaw the Air Force’s annual budget of more than $139 billion.

James has extensive homeland and national security experience in the federal government and the private sector. In the private sector, she served as president of Science Applications International Corporation’s Technical and Engineering Sector, as executive vice president and chief operating officer at Business Executives for National Security, and as vice president at United Technologies.

In earlier government positions, James served as assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs, in the office of the assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs, and as a professional staff member of the House Armed Services Committee.

James earned a bachelor of arts degree in comparative area studies from Duke University and a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. She served as co-chair of the Atlantic Council’s Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption.

Ryan D. McCarthy served as the twenty-fourth secretary of the US Army from 2019 to 2021. In this capacity, he was responsible for the recruitment, organization, training, equipping, and care of 1.4 million active-duty, National Guard, and Reserve soldiers, Department of the Army civilians, and their families. Prior to this role, he served as the thirty-third under secretary of the Army from 2017 to 2019.

McCarthy has extensive national security experience in government and the private sector. Prior to his confirmation as the under secretary of the Army, McCarthy worked for Lockheed Martin Corporation in vice president roles responsible for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program and the company’s global security policy. Earlier in his career, he was a vice president for HSBC.

In earlier government positions, he served as special assistant to then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, as the special assistant to the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, and as a professional staff member of the US House of Representatives Committee on International Relations. McCarthy proudly served in the US Army from 1997 to 2002 and was involved in combat operations in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom with the 75th Ranger Regiment. He holds a bachelor of arts in history from Virginia Military Institute and a master of business administration from the University of Maryland’s School of Business.

Lead author

Michael E. White was the inaugural principal director for hypersonics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, serving from October 2018 to June 2023. In that capacity, White was responsible for leading the Pentagon’s vision and strategy for developing offensive and defensive warfighting capability enabled by hypersonic systems. White previously served as the head of the air and missile defense sector at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL). White is a board director of North Wind USA Inc., which provides research, development, test, and evaluation products and services in aerospace and defense, and of Textum, which produces advanced textiles and aerospace composites. As managing member of WhiteAero, LLC, he is a senior defense consultant for hypersonic, air, and missile defense systems and tactical and strategic strike systems.WhiteAero’s clients include Lockheed Martin and GE Aerospace, which are both supporters of the Hypersonic Capabilities Task Force and producers of hypersonic capabilities, as well as Stratolaunch, X-Bow Systems, Cerberus Capital Management, Karman Space and Defense, Textum, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, JHU/APL, ACMI, and Riverside Research, all of which are involved in hypersonic capabilities.

Task force director

Stephen Rodriguez is the founder of One Defense, a technology-enabled consulting firm that identifies advanced commercial capabilities and accelerates their transition into the defense industrial base. He was a senior leader at an artificial intelligence growth-stage company and a global defense corporation. He has also been in and out of the US government throughout his career, including operational service in Colombia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Afghanistan. Rodriguez serves on the boards of fourteen venture-backed companies, including Applied Intuition, Chariot Defense, Firestorm, Kela Systems, Smack Technologies, Ursa Major Technologies, and ZeroMark. He is also a commission director at the Atlantic Council, chairman of Blue Forge Alliance, and a life member at the Council on Foreign Relations. Rodriguez received a bachelor of business administration from Texas A&M University and a master’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, War on the Rocks, and National Review.

Program director

Clementine G. Starling-Daniels is the former director of the Atlantic Council’s Forward Defense program and is now a nonresident senior fellow with Forward Defense. Her contributions to this task force concluded before she departed her fulltime role at the Council in September 2025. In her role, she shaped the center’s US defense research agenda and produced thought leadership on US security strategies and the evolving character of warfare. Her research focuses on long-term US thinking on issues like China’s and Russia’s defense strategies, space security, defense industry, and emerging technology. Prior to launching Forward Defense, Starling-Daniels served as deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security team, specializing in US security policy toward Europe and NATO. During her time at the Atlantic Council, Starling-Daniels authored numerous reports and commentaries on US space strategy, deterrence, operational concepts, coalition warfare, and US-Europe relations. Outlets that have featured her analysis include Bloomberg, Defense One, Defense News, RealClearDefense, the National Interest, SpaceNews, NATO’s Joint Air and Space Power Conference, the BBC, National Public Radio, and ABC News, among others. Starling-Daniels previously worked in the UK Parliament focusing on technology, defense, and Ukraine. She graduated with honors from the London School of Economics with a bachelor’s degree in international relations and history, and she received her master of arts in security studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

Task force staff

Mark J. Massa is the former deputy director of the Forward Defense program of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. He leads Forward Defense’s work on strategic forces policy. He holds a master’s in security studies and a BSFS in science, technology, and international affairs from Georgetown University.

Jonathan Rosenstein is a program assistant in Forward Defense. He supports the program’s strategic forces body of work. He holds a master of security policy studies from The George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree from Tulane University.

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1 For more on these and other military capabilities in the context of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, see: “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China,” US Department of Defense (DOD),2024, 80–100, https://media.defense.gov/2024/Dec/18/2003615520/-1/-1/0/MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA-2024.PDF.

2 Lockheed Martin, a sponsor of this task force and a client of the lead author’s consultancy, produces THAAD, the Aegis Combat System, and the NGI. RTX, a sponsor of this task force, produces the Patriot system.

3 Shawn Ryan, host, Shawn Ryan Show, podcast, episode 143, “Pete Hegseth-Secretary of Defense Nominee,” November 7, 2024, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/143-pete-hegseth-secretary-of-defense-nominee/id1492492083?i=1000676048381.

4 “Nuclear Challenges: The Growing Capabilities of Strategic Competitors and Regional Rivals,” US Defense Intelligence Agency, Advanced Capabilities series, 2024, 10–16, https://www.dia.mil/Portals/110/Images/News/Military_Powers_Publications/Nuclear_Challenges_2024.pdf.

5 “Military and Security Developments,” US DOD.

6 “Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat,” Defense Intelligence Ballistic Missile Analysis Committee and National Air and Space Intelligence Center, 2020, 14–30, https://media.defense.gov/2021/Jan/11/2002563190/-1/-1/1/2020%20BALLISTIC%20AND%20CRUISE%20MISSILE%20THREAT_FINAL_2OCT_REDUCEDFILE.PDF.

7 Michael E. White, “The Hypersonic Imperative,” Atlantic Council, March 2025, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/strategic-insights-memos/the-hypersonic-imperative/.

8 Lockheed Martin, a sponsor of this task force and a client of the lead author’s consultancy, is the prime systems integrator for the LRHW and CPS. Andrew Feickert, “The US Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW): Dark Eagle,” Congressional Research Service, April 24, 2025, https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IF/PDF/IF11991/IF11991.33.pdf.

9 Lockheed Martin, a sponsor of this task force and a client of the lead author’s consultancy, is the prime contractor for the ARRW. “AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW),” Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation,2024, 295–297, https://www.dote.osd.mil/Portals/97/pub/reports/FY2024/af/2024arrw.pdf?ver=3fXxXiEv-GcV0EYPvwE6qQ%3d%3d.

10 RTX, a sponsor of this task force, is the prime contractor for HACM.

11 “Department of Defense Demonstrates Reusability of Hypersonic Test Vehicle,” US Department of Defense Test Resource Management Center,May 5, 2025, https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4174167/department-of-defense-demonstrates-reusability-of-hypersonic-test-vehicle/.

12 Presidential determinations “resolve that certain provisions of law are or are not in the national interest,” according to the law library research guide of The George Washington University’s Jacob Burns Law Library, accessed September 16, 2025. “DOD Strengthens Supply Chains for Hypersonic and Strategic Systems,” Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy,April 28, 2023, https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3377605/DOD-strengthens-supply-chains-for-hypersonic-and-strategic-systems/.

13 The University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics has hundreds of universities, research centers, and industry partners as members, listed here: https://hypersonics.tamu.edu/affiliate-members/, including some sponsors of this task force and clients of the lead author’s consultancy. “Annual Hypersonics Consortium Offers University Partnerships and Student Networking Opportunities,” US Department of Defense Under Secretary of Research and Engineering, April 19, 2024, https://www.cto.mil/news/annual-hypersonics-consortium/.

14 While a “kill chain” refers to a linear progression of systems from sensing to effecting a target, the more contemporary “kill web” approach builds in redundancy by linking together many nodes to achieve the desired effect.

15 For recent Atlantic Council work on accelerating the adoption of defense innovation and software-defined capabilities, see: Whitney M. McNamara et al., Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption: Final Report,Atlantic Council, January 16, 2024, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/atlantic-council-commission-on-defense-innovation-adoption/; and Whitney M. McNamara, Peter Modigliani, and Tate Nurkin, Commission on Software-Defined Warfare: Final Report, Atlantic Council, March 27, 2025, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/atlantic-council-commission-on-software-defined-warfare/.

16 “Defense Official Statement on AUKUS Pillar 2 and Exercise Maritime Big Play,” news release, US Department of Defense, October 24, 2024.

17 Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for the F-35A, is among the sponsors of this report and is a client of the lead author’s consultancy.

The post The imperative for hypersonic strike weapons and counterhypersonic defenses appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Yevgeniya Gaber joins Defense News, on on Ukraine’s defense coop and knowledge transfer to European countries in developing counter-UAV capabilities

aozen — Thu, 09 Oct 2025 12:49:11 +0000

ORIGINAL SOURCE

The post Yevgeniya Gaber joins Defense News, on on Ukraine’s defense coop and knowledge transfer to European countries in developing counter-UAV capabilities appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Ukraine’s defense tech sector must guard against innovation drain

Andriy Dovbenko — Thu, 09 Oct 2025 00:01:12 +0000

On the outskirts of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine, Ukrainian electronic warfare teams are deploying home-grown systems that automatically detect and suppress Russian drones. Along the southern front, domestically developed observation drones are giving Ukrainian troops real-time visibility in contested airspace. These are not prototypes; they’re battle-proven Ukrainian technologies saving lives on a daily basis and shaping the future of warfare.

Yet as Ukraine cements its reputation as a defense tech powerhouse, a strategic risk is emerging. Without robust intellectual property (IP) protections, Ukraine may lose control of the very breakthroughs that are currently helping to defend the country on the battlefield. Ukraine could potentially win the war itself and secure national survival, only to lose the innovation economy that should underpin its recovery.

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Wartime urgency creates pressure to sacrifice IP sovereignty. Startups under fire need capital, global market access, and production capacity which foreign investors and international partners can provide. But too often, these deals require handing over IP rights. What looks like a lifeline can, in fact, be a strategic loss.

This leaves Ukraine exposed to a quiet leakage of its designs. Meanwhile, the absence of a strong domestic IP framework risks pushing entrepreneurs to register patents and commercialize outside the country, where protections are stronger and funding is more accessible. The result could be both a brain drain and an innovation drain, hollowing out Ukraine’s defense tech sector just as it proves its global potential. Instead of becoming an international hub, Ukraine risks being relegated to the status of pipeline for foreign defense industries.

The case for IP sovereignty is not only about Ukraine’s economy and national security; it is also about the future resilience of Europe and NATO. For Ukraine, retained IP means royalties, licensing revenues, and a steady funding stream for reconstruction. It signals to investors that Ukraine is not just a wartime incubator but a serious innovation ecosystem. Most importantly, it preserves national sovereignty. Control over sensitive technologies ensures Ukraine is not permanently dependent on foreign suppliers for security.

For Kyiv’s allies, Ukrainian IP is also an important asset. The United States is currently exploring a multi-billion dollar joint drone production deal with Ukraine. But if Ukraine cannot retain ownership, partners risk relying on fragmented supply chains and losing access to innovation. Europe’s Defense Industrial Strategy, launched this year, calls for a resilient continental base. That goal will be undermined if Europe’s most battle-tested and innovative nation loses control of its own technologies.

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Protecting IP involves more than goodwill. It requires policy, legislation, and institutional design. Every foreign aid package and licensing deal should include explicit protections for Ukrainian IP ownership. Likewise, technological solutions co-developed with international partners must not result in the wholesale transfer of rights.

Ukraine’s current plan to relax restrictions on some categories of arms exports is good news. Export barriers force many firms into joint ventures (JVs) or licensing arrangements that often strip away their IP protections. Enabling direct exports would ease this dependency on JVs or licensing, reducing both complexity and IP risk, as well as the danger of leakage. Ukraine should encourage co-production and investment, but on terms that guarantee domestic equity and enforceable IP rights.

Currently, the Ukrainian government is closely monitoring its top innovators to prevent IP leaks abroad. Some companies have sought to incorporate outside of Ukraine in order to free themselves from these shackles, but have encountered problems related to unfair IP structuring. One solution could be greater intergovernmental cooperation. This could allow Ukraine to access external capital and expertise while keeping control over core technologies.

Tech parks and defense incubators should anchor talent domestically, providing access to funding, testing grounds, and mentorship. With 40,000 trained drone pilots and a new generation of AI engineers, Ukraine could benefit hugely if the country can create the right climate to build global companies at home. Speed is also important. Traditional patent offices often move too slowly for battlefield innovation. Ukraine needs a dedicated defense IP office to fast-track protection, address dual-use complexities, and guard against theft or predatory licensing.

The Israeli experience provides a potentially useful model for Ukraine. Decades of conflict have forced Israel to develop technologies with immediate battlefield relevance. Crucially, Israel has managed to retain IP sovereignty, even when foreign funding was involved, and has built an ecosystem where defense innovation feeds into global competitiveness.

Europe also offers lessons. Airbus shows how multinational collaboration can preserve shared IP while scaling production across borders. The overall objective is clear: Ukraine should be positioned as a central node in Europe’s defense industry and not just as a subcontractor.

Ukraine’s battlefield innovations are saving lives today, but they can also lay the foundations for tomorrow’s Ukrainian economy. Without IP sovereignty, Ukraine risks becoming a laboratory for others. With the right frameworks, Ukraine can transition from its current status as a war-driven exporter of ideas to become a global defense industry innovation leader. This can only happen if the country’s IP assets are protected.

Andriy Dovbenko is the founder and principal at UK-Ukraine TechExchange.

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Ukraine’s rapid rise to drone superpower status confirms the old adage that necessity is the mother of invention. When Putin first launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it was clear that the Ukrainian military could not realistically hope to compete with Russia’s often overwhelming advantages in terms of manpower and conventional firepower. Instead, Kyiv would have to rely on a combination of raw courage and innovative technological solutions.

From the early stages of the war, Ukraine began pioneering the large-scale deployment of drones in combat roles. By 2023, this was enabling Ukrainian commanders to compensate for artillery shell shortages and blunt Russian advances. This emphasis on relatively cheap and highly effective drones has transformed the battlefield and created a kill zone along the front lines that Ukrainians have dubbed the “Drone Wall.”

With drones now ubiquitous above the battlefield, any soldier or vehicle that breaks cover in a zone stretching for many kilometers on either side of the zero line risks becoming an instant target. This has made it extremely challenging to concentrate large quantities of troops and armor, which helps explain the lack of major front line breakthroughs over the past three years.

Ukraine has also employed drone technologies to great effect far beyond the battlefield. Kyiv’s innovative use of marine drones has turned the tide in the Battle of the Black Sea, breaking the Russian blockade of Ukraine’s southern coastline and forcing Putin to withdraw the bulk of his warships from occupied Crimea to the relative safety of Russian ports. More recently, Ukrainian marine drones have been modified to carry anti-aircraft missiles and have reportedly shot down Russian helicopters over the Black Sea. This unprecedented success has revolutionized naval warfare and led to growing global interest in Ukraine’s domestically developed marine drones.

Kyiv has dramatically expanded its long-range drone fleet in recent years as part of a strategy to bring Putin’s invasion home to Russia. As a result, Ukraine has been able to mount a highly effective bombing campaign since August 2025 targeting oil refineries, logistics hubs, and military industrial sites deep inside the Russian Federation. This has led to a fuel crisis across Russia, with some regions forced to introduce gasoline rationing amid supply shortages and record price hikes. Ukraine’s long-range strikes have helped to reshape perceptions of the war and have demonstrated how Kyiv’s technological edge can offset its material disadvantages.

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Former Ukrainian Commander in Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi was one of the architects of Ukraine’s drone warfare doctrine until being relieved of his position in early 2024. In a recent commentary, he argued that innovation must remain the foundation of a sustainable Ukrainian resistance strategy against Russia. Zaluzhnyi stressed that Ukraine’s embrace of drone technologies has helped offset the imbalance between the two countries while inflicting disproportionate costs on the Kremlin. “Ukraine must compensate for its relative lack of resources by constantly introducing military innovations,” he commented.

Ukraine and Russia now find themselves locked in a relentless race to innovate, with the window between the appearance of new weapons systems and the development of effective countermeasures now sometimes reduced to a matter of weeks. The intensity of this competition has turbo-charged Ukraine’s domestic drone industry and propelled it far ahead of its Western counterparts.

If NATO members wish to close this gap, they must lean heavily on the technical and strategic lessons learned by the Ukrainian military over the past three and half years of full-scale drone warfare. Training initiatives are already underway, with President Zelenskyy expressing his readiness to share Ukraine’s experience with more of the country’s NATO partners.

A growing number of countries are also looking to establish joint drone production in order to benefit from Ukrainian defense tech know-how. In late September, Britain announced that it would soon launch the mass production of interceptor drones developed in collaboration with Ukraine. Romania has also recently unveiled ambitious plans to manufacture drones in partnership with Ukraine for domestic use and for potential export to NATO allies. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian delegation is reportedly in the United States this week to negotiate a landmark deal with the Trump administration that would see Kyiv sharing battle-tested drone technology with the US.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is the world’s first fully fledged drone war and represents a watershed moment in military history. With drones now set to play a dominant role in the wars of the future, Ukraine’s unique experience in this technologically advanced form of warfare makes the country a key partner for NATO and an indispensable ally in the defense of Europe.

David Kirichenko is an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

The results speak for themselves. Ukrainian drones have excelled along the front lines of the conflict and have allowed Kyiv to turn the tide in the Battle of the Black Sea. Far beyond Ukraine’s borders, the country’s growing fleet of bomber drones now routinely strike targets deep inside the Russian Federation.

Many partner countries are understandably eager to incorporate Ukrainian drone technologies into their own defense doctrines. Britain recently confirmed that it will begin mass producing drones developed in collaboration with Ukraine as part of efforts to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank against the threat of Russian incursions. A Ukrainian delegation reportedly set off for the United States in late September to begin discussions on a potentially major drone production cooperation agreement.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is well aware of his country’s rising military profile and sees the current mission to Denmark as a potential model for a more comprehensive approach to Ukrainian drone warfare training initiatives with other European countries. “Our experience, our specialists, and our technologies can become a key element in Europe’s future Drone Wall initiative,” he commented on September 30.

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Ukraine’s burgeoning reputation as a key player in the field of drone warfare reflects the dramatic shifts currently taking place in Europe’s security architecture. Until quite recently, Ukraine was treated as a military minnow struggling to adopt NATO standards. Strikingly, it is now NATO that is seeking to adopt Ukrainian standards.

The emergence of Ukraine as a drone superpower is only one aspect of the country’s remarkable recent transformation into a major military force. The Ukrainian army is also at the cutting edge of innovation in defense tech sectors including electronic warfare, robotic systems, and cyber security. It came as no surprise that the recent Defense Tech Valley industry showcase event in western Ukraine attracted at least 5000 participants from over 50 countries, with Western companies pledging more than $100 million in investments.

The technological progress made by the Ukrainian Armed Forces since 2022 is certainly eye-catching, but the country’s human capital remains its greatest asset. Today’s Ukraine boasts Europe’s second-largest army, with almost one million men and women currently in uniform and a large reserve of battle-hardened combat veterans. This dwarfs anything else on the continent, even before Ukraine’s unrivaled experience of modern warfare is taken into account. With the United States seeking to reduce its role in European security, the Ukrainian military is now the biggest single barrier between an expansionist Russia and an unprepared Europe.

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Ukraine’s newfound status as one of Europe’s leading military powers is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s worst nightmare. It is nightmare entirely of his own making. Indeed, this military metamorphosis would have been inconceivable without the impetus of Russian imperial aggression.

When Putin began the invasion of Ukraine in 2014, Kyiv had only a few thousand combat-ready troops at its disposal. At first, things went according to plan for Moscow, with minimal Ukrainian resistance to the seizure of Crimea. However, Russian efforts to push further into mainland Ukraine then sparked a wave of popular resistance, with thousands of ordinary Ukrainians forming improvised volunteer battalions to block the Kremlin advance. This epic grassroots response saved Ukraine and laid the foundations for the subsequent expansion and modernization of the Ukrainian army.

Despite this stunning setback, Putin refused to accept defeat. With his initial plans to extinguish Ukrainian statehood thwarted, the Kremlin dictator made the fateful decision to escalate further and began preparing to launch the full-scale invasion of February 2022.

On the morning of the invasion, Putin identified the “demilitarization” of Ukraine as one of his two key war aims. This made perfect sense. After all, in order to effectively subjugate Ukraine, it would first be necessary to render the country defenseless. However, it is now abundantly clear that Putin’s plan to demilitarize Ukraine has backfired disastrously.

Russia’s invasion has spurred the creation of a formidable military machine in Ukraine that has quickly come to occupy a pivotal role in European security. In capitals across Europe, there is a growing sense of recognition that the Ukrainian army is indispensable for the defense of the continent and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Kyiv’s partners now have an obvious and urgent self-interest in supporting Ukraine’s defense industry and financing the Ukrainian war effort. Indeed, the choice currently facing European leaders is disarmingly simple: Support Ukraine today or face Russia tomorrow.

With Russian troops still advancing and Russian drones and missiles pummeling Ukrainian cities, it remains far too early to declare Putin’s invasion a failure. Nevertheless, it is already difficult to conceive of any outcome that would leave Ukraine undefended and at Moscow’s mercy. Instead, the Ukrainian army is likely to emerge from the war stronger than ever and fully capable of defending the country’s place within the European community of nations. Putin had hoped to disarm and decapitate the Ukrainian state, but his self-defeating demilitarization campaign has inadvertently created the strong and fiercely independent Ukraine he feared most of all.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

According to the French outlet Intelligence Online, Mexican and Ukrainian intelligence services are investigating reports that Mexican nationals joined Ukraine’s International Legion not to fight Russia’s invasion but to study FPV drone operations. These “volunteers” allegedly sought assignment to specialized units where FPV tactics were evolving most rapidly, acquiring knowledge and techniques that could accelerate the cartels’ learning curve by a matter of years.

Mexico’s National Intelligence Center reportedly sent a memo to Ukraine’s counterintelligence service, the SBU, warning that Spanish-speaking volunteers in the International Legion were deliberately targeting FPV training. The memo expressed concern that cartel-linked operatives were embedding within semi-clandestine International Legion units along the frontlines, such as Ethos, which has tested FPVs in large numbers. Some investigations have even extended to the possible involvement of non-Mexican actors, including individuals linked to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC.

Ukraine’s International Legion was created as a noble effort to harness global solidarity against Russia’s invasion. Yet its open recruitment policy also created opportunities for malign actors to exploit the war as a proving ground. For Mexican cartels, whose drone programs have historically lagged global innovators by five to ten years, this represents a chance to leapfrog directly to the cutting edge.

FPV drones are rapidly evolving

The Ukrainian battlefield has become a laboratory for drone warfare. At the outset of the war, Kyiv received small batches of manufactured loitering munitions, such as the US-supplied Switchblade. But these systems proved expensive, limited in scale, and vulnerable to Russian electronic warfare. Ukrainian innovators quickly pivoted to commercially available FPVs, originally designed for high-speed drone racing.

The advantages of FPVs immediately became clear. They’re cheap—often under four hundred dollars per unit—highly maneuverable, and easily assembled from off-the-shelf parts. They can carry small explosive payloads with precision. And operating them only requires a level of dexterity that can be honed through widely available flight simulators. What began as improvisation soon evolved into industrial-scale production lines, backed by a global supply chain of parts and volunteer networks.

In the past three years, Ukrainian FPV tactics have advanced rapidly. Operators have integrated octocopters as airborne relays, extending control ranges by serving as signal repeaters. Artificial intelligence has been layered in, allowing FPVs to lock onto targets even when communications are jammed. More recently, Ukrainian units have deployed drones tethered with fiber optic spools, enabling secure, jam-resistant operations deep into contested environments.

This rapid cycle of innovation has created what military analysts call a “co-evolutionary dance” between Ukraine and Russia—new FPV tactics prompting new countermeasures, which in turn spur further adaptation. For outside observers, however, the key lesson is clear: These technologies are transferable, scalable, and relatively easy to learn. What takes years for militaries to institutionalize can be picked up in weeks by dedicated operators with access to training.

How cartels are using FPVs

For Mexican cartels, FPVs offer an ideal combination of affordability, lethality, and deniability. They can be assembled discreetly, launched from improvised sites, and targeted with extraordinary precision. In cartel-on-cartel warfare, FPVs might be capable of striking high-value targets inside fortified compounds, which previously required costly and high-risk raids. Cartels already have experience experimenting with drones. Roughly five years ago, some began dropping grenades and small improvised munitions from commercial quadcopters, many years after the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, pioneered the tactic in Syria. These systems were crude and limited. FPVs, by contrast, bring maneuverability and standoff capability that could tilt the balance of power in ongoing conflicts.

There are already signs that cartels are adapting their FPV tactics. In their long-running arms race, the Sinaloa cartel and the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación are reportedly testing FPVs in west-central Mexico. Videos have surfaced online of FPV attacks depicting targeted strikes. In anticipation, some cartel “narco-tanks” have been modified with protective cages to ward off drone strikes—eerily echoing the battlefield adaptations of Russian and Ukrainian forces.

The danger is not confined to cartel rivalries. Should US policy escalate to commonplace kinetic strikes against cartels—a possibility the Trump administration acted on recently—FPVs could quickly be redirected toward US personnel and infrastructure. Border patrols, forward operating bases, or even critical nodes in urban environments could become vulnerable to swarm attacks.

How the US can adapt to drone proliferation

Nonstate actors can now acquire capabilities once reserved for nation-states. Cartels are no longer merely criminal syndicates; they increasingly resemble hybrid entities blending organized crime, paramilitary force, and terrorist tactics.

The United States and its partners cannot afford to treat cartel drone experimentation as a distant curiosity. The risk trajectory is clear: What begins as opportunistic adoption can quickly harden into doctrine. In response, the United States should take several steps to combat this threat:

Enhance intelligence cooperation. Washington should strengthen trilateral intelligence sharing with Mexico and Ukraine, focusing on the movement of personnel and technology linked to FPVs. Early identification of operatives seeking training abroad is critical.
Invest in counter-drone defenses. US Customs and Border Protection, the Department of Homeland Security, and Mexican security forces need access to the latest counter-drone technologies. This includes directed-energy weapons, jamming tools, and radar systems scaled to detect small, low-flying craft.
Disrupt supply chains. While FPV parts are commercially available, targeted export controls and monitoring could slow bulk acquisition by malign actors. Cooperation with private manufacturers is essential.
Reframe cartels as hybrid threats. US strategy must continue to evolve beyond treating cartels as criminal and terrorist organizations, instead combating them as “narco-multinational corporations” (narco-MNC). Their adoption of military-grade tactics—combined with terrorist-style violence—demands a whole-of-government approach that blends law enforcement, defense, and intelligence tools.
Plan for FPV attacks on the US-Mexico border. Scenarios involving FPV swarm attacks on border facilities should be integrated into homeland security through Multi-National, and Multi-Agency exercises. Waiting until the first operational use against US targets would be too late.

***

This is a brave new world where a disposable drone can checkmate a $24 million tank. In Ukraine, FPVs have bought time against Russia’s advance. In Mexico, their adoption by cartels could accelerate violence, destabilize regions, and threaten US border security.

The question is not whether cartels, or narco-MNCs, will experiment with FPVs—they already are. The question is how quickly the United States and its partners can adapt, anticipate, and counter this emerging threat. The diffusion of FPV technology underscores a sobering reality: the democratization of military power is no longer hypothetical. It is unfolding now, with profound consequences for security from Kyiv to Mexico City to Washington.

Now is the time for the United States to defend against the growing threat that the democratization of drone warfare poses to its southern border.

Stephen Honan is a fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Counterterrorism Project, a senior consultant for BVG and Company, and a former explosive ordnance disposal officer for the US Navy.

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In defense of the US maintaining a balanced nuclear triad

Paul Amato — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 17:52:29 +0000

The United States has long relied on a nuclear triad of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), strategic bombers, and nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). This combination, which the past four US presidential administrations endorsed, is the best way to maintain effective deterrence at a reasonable cost. But new risks loom on the horizon, and defenders of the triad should take note that potentially expedient US government decisions made in the coming years could inadvertently undermine the triad’s continued viability.

The three legs of the triad are mutually supporting, making the whole greater than the sum of its parts. The SSBN force is widely seen as the most survivable leg in a conflict, as SSBNs have been virtually undetectable when at sea. ICBMs are often viewed as the most responsive leg, because they are on alert and ready to launch any time day or night. Strategic bombers are the most flexible and visible leg, because they can be alerted, dispersed, and forward-deployed in plain sight to provide both assurance to allies and deterrence against adversaries.

Together, the triad’s three legs provide many benefits. The triad offers enhanced survivability and, thus, assured retaliation. It offers strategic stability through redundancy of options, as well as flexibility in both crisis and conflict. It offers the ability to tailor deterrence to diverse adversaries, as well as the ability to mitigate risk related to technological breakthroughs or geopolitical realignments.

Changes in triad composition that significantly alter the proportion of US nuclear capabilities fielded among its three legs, combined with new, nonnuclear adversary attack vectors, could invite preemptive, nonnuclear attack in ways that could undermine deterrence and the United States’ ability to employ its nuclear capabilities in a conflict. The strength of the triad is a function not just of the existence of its three legs, but also of the balance in numbers and capabilities among the three legs. Any changes that disrupt this balance may introduce new vulnerabilities into one or more of its legs, thereby undermining deterrence.

Introducing vulnerability

The Trump administration is unlikely to abandon the triad outright, and its support for the existing nuclear modernization program seems solid. However, there are growing stressors that might lead to decisions that could undermine the triad’s continued effectiveness and credibility. This could manifest if the United States either reduces its commitment to one of the legs of the triad or improvidently increases its reliance on one leg at the expense of the others. The United States must not just maintain the triad. It must also maintain balance among its three legs to ensure it possesses the correct mix of attributes that US nuclear deterrence policy and posture have come to rely on to maintain stability and the capacity to achieve national objectives in the event of conflict.

Three examples of these stressors illustrate the risks if warhead imbalances are introduced into the triad in the coming years.

First, SSBNs have long been considered practically invulnerable to adversary attack and, as a result, the leg upon which the United States relies for its second-strike capability. With this in mind, some commentators have suggested an increased reliance on SSBNs or that Washington should purchase more of them. This could disproportionately increase the number of weapons in the SSBN leg relative to the other two.

Second, because of the growing cost of the Sentinel ICBM program* (estimated at 81 percent higher in 2024 than the 2020 estimate), the US Air Force has admitted that it must decide whether to stay with the current Sentinel ICBM acquisition strategy or significantly change it (a process that is ongoing). Congress has staunchly supported Sentinel, and the Pentagon has shown no signs that it will abandon the current plan to replace the Minuteman III ICBM with the Sentinel on a one-for-one basis. However, if costs continue to rise so sharply, then it could create pressure to pursue other avenues, potentially resulting in a smaller number of deployed Sentinels, a fielding approach with fewer key nodes for adversary attack, or, perhaps, a pivot to an entirely different system that results in fewer fielded missiles but a larger number of warheads. This could reduce the number of ICBMs in the land leg relative to the other two.

Third, because the B-21 Raider* program is proceeding apace, some are calling for the purchase of a greater number of B-21s. All else being equal, this could increase the bomber leg relative to the other two.

Emerging threats

Any one of these potential posture changes may be a logical response to factors such as how the security environment is changing, what funds are available, or what is feasible in the short term from an acquisition perspective. However, any such posture change should be approached cautiously for fear that it could introduce vulnerabilities into the triad. Such vulnerabilities could arise by US policymakers failing to account for evolving threats or by unintentionally providing adversaries perverse incentives for preemptive attacks in ways that US strategists and planners had not previously envisioned.

For example, emerging technology is heightening risks to the triad’s sea leg. Unmanned surface and subsurface drones threaten to make US submarines incrementally easier to find, fix, and track. Similarly, quantum sensing technologies hold the potential to render submarines more detectable by using advanced acoustics, magnetometry, and gravimetry. While the threat posed by these evolving capabilities in the near term may be limited by the vastness of the ocean and the tactics, techniques, and procedures adopted to mitigate risks, the Defense Intelligence Agency warned in May that quantum technologies are nearing battlefield relevance. Given the small number of SSBNs (especially when they are not on a heightened alert status), and the correspondingly large share of deployed warheads that these SSBNs carry, such developments may introduce new and destabilizing vulnerabilities to US nuclear posture if SSBNs and their missiles come to represent a disproportionately large share of the overall US nuclear arsenal.

A similar concern applies to US strategic bombers. The B-2 Spirit* and B-52 Stratofortress are based in the continental United States on open ramps or unhardened aircraft hangars. Publicly available information suggests that the B-21, when fielded, will be located in unhardened environmental protection shelters similar to the B-2. Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb, conducted in June 2025, should give US policymakers pause. Ukrainian special forces attacked and damaged or destroyed more than forty Russian strategic bombers from within Russian territory with unmanned aerial vehicles. This operation is a potential blueprint for how China or Russia could attack US strategic bombers with assets from within the United States.

US ICBM silos and launch infrastructure are not immune to these increasing risks either. In a crisis or conflict, drones carrying munitions or even shaped charges launched from US farmland or other locations near ICBM missile fields could conceivably interfere with the United States’ ability to launch ICBMs quickly by attacking launch control centers, critical command-and-control infrastructure, and/or the missile silos themselves.

In light of such increasing and emerging risks, the United States should continue to field a balanced proportion of capabilities among the three triad legs. Increased emphasis on one leg or a decreased emphasis on another could introduce vulnerability to the triad that Washington will later regret—especially as it takes years to field new or different capabilities due to challenges in the defense industrial base and nuclear enterprise. As US policymakers consider potential changes to the size, posture, or composition of US nuclear forces, they must account for these considerations—and recognize that the consequences of the choices they make today will play out over decades.

Paul Amato is the former director for nuclear deterrence policy in the Office of Secretary of Defense for Policy. He is a retired Marine infantry officer with twenty-eight years of active and reserve service. Before his government service, he was a practicing lawyer in the private sector. The views expressed in this article are his own.

Note: The Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security conducts work on nuclear and strategic forces that is supported by donors including Lockheed Martin Corporation, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Northrop Grumman Corporation (which is the prime contractor for the Sentinel ICBM, the B-21 Raider, and the B-2 Spirit), RTX Corporation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the United States Department of Defense, and the United States Department of State, as well as through general support to the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

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How to write a US National Security Strategy

Matthew Kroenig — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 15:28:40 +0000

The Trump administration is reportedly nearing completion of its national security strategy (NSS). Since the 1980s, the US Congress has required every presidential administration to produce an NSS that explains the threats facing the United States and the country’s strategy to address them.

To aid the administration in this task, we reached out to NSS authors from the George W. Bush administration through to the Biden administration to get their advice and recommendations for how President Donald Trump’s team should approach this important document. What should the Trump administration prioritize in its upcoming strategy? How can the United States best adapt to new and emerging threats? Find valuable insights from past NSS contributors below.

Click to jump to an expert analysis:

Rebecca Lissner: Drafters can benefit from outside input, but must not allow it to dilute strategic focus

Mara Rudman: The NSS should be maximally implementable

Peter Feaver: To be worth drafting and reading, an NSS must convey the logic guiding the administration

The NSS must make the case for the president’s worldview

My advice to anyone writing an NSS is that the document should make the best case possible for the president’s worldview, rather than reflecting the consensus view of the entire US government. It should be interesting to read and move the debate on the president’s foreign policy forward.

There are two mistakes to avoid. The first is what could be called the “Christmas ornament” problem, where everything is added in regardless of whether it really fits with the strategy. The second is the tendency to sand down anything interesting until it is fairly innocuous.

To avoid these mistakes, you need a small team of one or two people to do the drafting and run a tight process, and for the president or the national security advisor to be deeply engaged and have some ownership over the document. This enables you to write something coherent, and it means there is someone who can overrule recommendations from the interagency if needed.

In Trump’s first term, his National Security Council produced an excellent NSS that had a positive impact on the administration’s foreign policy. The problem, though, is that it did not reflect Trump’s own views. One need only read his remarks marking its publication.

On this occasion, the Trump administration seems poised to produce a document more reflective of the president’s worldview. From a process perspective, I think that’s the right approach. But substantively, it worries me because his worldview is very much at odds with traditional US strategy, particularly on alliances, China, and Russia. That’s his right. He won the election. The 2017 NSS obscured the differences between Trump and traditionalists on US foreign policy. This NSS is likely to reveal and clarify them.

—Thomas Wright is a senior fellow at the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Brookings Institution, and a former special assistant to the president and senior director for strategic planning at the National Security Council. In the latter role, he contributed to the 2022 NSS.

Drafters can benefit from outside input, but must not allow it to dilute strategic focus

While past presidents have produced updated NSS documents for their second terms in office, this one will have the unique task of adapting—or perhaps overhauling—Trump’s first-term vision after the passage of eight consequential years since his first NSS was released in December 2017. Initial leaks indicate that this NSS may depart significantly from his first one, shifting from an overriding focus on great power competition with China and Russia toward a Western hemispheric strategy that prioritizes threats closer to the US homeland.

I spent the first year of the Biden-Harris administration as lead author of then US President Joe Biden’s NSS, so I understand the challenge facing Trump’s team. Stakeholders inside and outside of the government are eager to see their priorities reflected in what is supposed to be the president’s most authoritative statement of strategic intent. Policy experts across the government lobby for their regions or issues—in my case, by sending thousands of track-change edits to drafts we circulated. Foreign embassies are calling to ensure their countries receive the requisite mentions. Interest groups and think tanks are suggesting language and hoping for early previews. This feedback is important. It helps ensure that the analysis and prescriptions are sound, that the national security bureaucracy will be invested in its implementation, and that the NSS is well received by outside groups. But it also risks diluting strategic focus and turning the NSS into a dreaded “Christmas tree,” covered in stakeholders’ parochial ornamentation.

As they triage input and finalize their drafts, Trump’s team would do well to remember that the NSS is, first and foremost, the president’s document. An NSS must achieve many objectives at once: guide US government policy, create a communications template for national security messaging, signal the direction of US policy to countries around the world, and indicate priorities to Congress and the American people. To be effective, audiences must perceive the document as truly reflective of the president’s priorities and preferences. For all the downsides of this administration’s centralized national security decision-making process, one benefit may be an NSS that speaks clearly and authoritatively on behalf of the president.

—Rebecca Lissner is a senior fellow for US foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Brady-Johnson distinguished practitioner in grand strategy at the Jackson School of Global Affairs at Yale University. She is a former deputy assistant to the president and principal deputy national security advisor to the vice president and a former acting senior director and director for strategic planning on the National Security Council. In the latter role she contributed to the 2022 NSS.

The NSS should be maximally implementable

My advice for those drafting the NSS: Focus on the why, what, who, and how, in the room where it happens, to deliver an effective, executable strategy. I base this on coordinating the 2009 NSS development and on assessing the 2022 NSS through service on the National Defense Strategy Commission.

1. Why: The NSS is mandated by Section 603 of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. The legislation, a bipartisan national security structural statute developed in concert with the Reagan administration, requires the president to submit this report to Congress to communicate their national security vision to the legislative branch.

2. What: This mission statement should guide policy execution. It must discuss the United States’ international interests, commitments, objectives, and policies, along with capabilities necessary to deter threats and implement US security plans.

3. Who: The president and their immediate circle of advisers benefit from soliciting input from senior officials across the broad swath of executive branch agencies and departments that carry national security responsibilities. An effective coordinating process should pressure test even the most determined of presidential views. Allowing debate leads to a stronger product. Providing space at the crafting table to consider wide-ranging positions makes those who were heard more committed to executing the strategy, regardless of whether their views prevail.

4. How: Strategy drafters should design the president’s national security mission statement to be maximally implementable. By statute, the strategy must discuss the “capabilities necessary” to “implement … security plans.” Strategies consistently fall short on the follow-through that is necessary to execute the vision. It is crucial to include parameters against which the executive branch can measure progress toward the strategy’s goals. This can set the frame for dialogue with Congress, which is charged with procuring funding and providing oversight.

—Mara Rudman is a professor of practice and director of the Ripples of Hope Project within the Miller Center at University of Virginia and a former deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs in the Clinton and Obama administrations. She coordinated the development of the 2009 NSS and assessed the 2022 NSS during her service on the National Defense Strategy Commission.

To be worth drafting and reading, an NSS must convey the logic guiding the administration

It is relatively easy to write a coherent NSS in one’s own voice. Countless scholars and analysts have done so over the years. The challenge is to write a version of the NSS that is in the president’s voice and thus an authentic account of how the president understands the United States’ role in the world, the challenges the country faces, and the way forward. And it is even more challenging to do all of that in a more rigorous way than your garden-variety presidential speech might do. Presidential speeches can be a good window into the president’s vision and voice. But they rarely if ever address the kind of tough, “yes, but what about this?” kind of pushback that an NSS worth reading will include.

Of course, there are many other desiderata, most of which are not possible to be included (which explains why you will not find them in any of the published NSS’s of the past four decades). It would be great if the NSS went granular on “means” in addition to covering “ends” and “ways.” However, it is just not practical to include such details in a vision-logic statement. But if the NSS is worthwhile, it will ultimately be reflected in the president’s budget.

Likewise, many critics ask for clear and unambiguous prioritization—as if they expected the document to rack and stack allies and adversaries in a best-of/worst-of list. Good NSS’s do reveal the president’s priorities by revealing what issues they dwell on and what they skip lightly over. But there are inevitable compromises that blur the text for understandable reasons. If we mention ally A without mentioning ally B, we buy ourselves lots of heartache with little gain; what is the harm in mentioning them both, even if everyone knows—and the president demonstrates through allocation of scarce resources like Oval Office access—that A matters more than B? Sometimes, calls for prioritization themselves indicate strategic incoherence, as when “prioritizers” pretend we can better confront China by abandoning Ukraine to the predations of China’s ally Russia.

An NSS is worth reading if it accurately conveys the logic that is actually guiding the administration. If that logic is wise, the NSS will be easy to praise; if that logic is unwise, the NSS will help illuminate the problem. Either way, it is a fruitful guide to understanding the administration’s national security ambitions.

—Peter Feaver is a professor of political science and public policy and director of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy and co-principal investigator of the America in the World Consortium at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. He is a former special advisor for strategic planning and institutional reform at the National Security Council, where his responsibilities included contributing to the drafting of the 2006 NSS.

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Cole discusses the role of fictional intelligence and technological prediction with War on the Rocks

ajohnson — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 19:19:12 +0000

On September 17, August Cole, a nonresident fellow at Forward Defense, and P.W. Singer were interviewed by War on the Rocks, reflecting on the technological predictions of their 2015 book Ghost Fleet. They highlighted the use of fictional writing for exploring future military and technological scenarios.

Fellow

August Cole

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Industry Defense Policy

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How AI with ‘nurtured consciousness’ could transform warfare

John James and Alia Brahimi — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 13:25:11 +0000

The rise of large language models (LLMs) and multimodal foundation models has already begun to reshape the character of warfare. For evidence, look no further than the battlefields of Russia’s war on Ukraine. During “Operation Spiderweb” in June, for example, Ukrainian quadcopters switched to autonomous navigation assisted by artificial intelligence (AI) to strike multiple Russian airfields. After standard GPS and communication links were disabled by Russian jammers, built-in sensors and pre-programmed decision-making meant that “backup AI targeting” took over. The strike, Ukraine’s longest-range assault of the conflict to date, resulted in the destruction of billions of dollars’ worth of Russian aircraft.

But automation and data-processing speed—image identification, logistics, and pattern detection—are only one part of the story. An arguably more significant transformation is underway, toward synthetic cognition within AI systems.

Adversary simulation

The US Army’s Mad Scientist Initiative and NATO’s Strategic Foresight Analysis program have both identified AI-based adversary simulation as critical for preparing joint forces for contested decision environments. This involves mapping adversary biases, illuminating internal cognitive blind spots, and forecasting narrative-driven escalations. The idea is to promote what has been called “strategic empathy”—the disciplined effort to understand how adversaries perceive their interests, threats, and opportunities—and to reduce inadvertent escalation risks.

Everyday AI chatbots such as GPTs are already spontaneously displaying the rudiments of theory of mind—that is, the ability to infer that others can hold beliefs different from one’s own. This capability has been demonstrated in LLMs through successful completion of false-belief tasks, such as recognizing that a person can search for an object where they mistakenly believe it to be, rather than where it actually is—a benchmark long associated with childhood cognitive development and a function regarded as unique to the species. In military contexts, if carefully constrained and validated, such capabilities are likely to soon allow for real-time simulation of adversarial logic, strategic ambiguity, and reputational calculus.

The capacity to accurately interpret and anticipate adversaries’ behaviors and strategic intent may prove to be the ultimate determinant of cognitive overmatch, understood here as the demonstrable ability to emulate, predict, and outpace adversary decision cycles. In practice, this is measured in reduced decision time, greater accuracy in escalation forecasting, and validated against observed behavior in falsifiable scenario outcomes. In an era defined by the contest of perceptions, safely and successfully integrating synthetic cognition into defense capabilities may well prove decisive. As such, embedding cultural, historical, and ideological nuance into cognitive-emulative systems will be important to ensure strategic superiority for the United States. After all, China is already reportedly investing in culturally informed AI frameworks for military use.

Taught versus nurtured consciousness

The crux of efforts to simulate adversarial reasoning emerges from a cognitive duality between taught consciousness and nurtured consciousness. This is not standard AI terminology, but a conceptual framework we have introduced to distinguish between two modes of reasoning. Taught consciousness refers to structured learning, facts, and procedural logic. Nurtured consciousness, by contrast, arises from culture, history, trauma, identity, and emotional reinforcement—the forces that shape how an actor interprets risk, legitimacy, and legacy.

To “think better,” AI must move beyond structured data alone; it must incorporate historical memory, cultural worldviews, symbolic interpretations, and ideological drivers of conflict. For example, a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) commander influenced by the 1979 Sino-Vietnam War may exhibit caution in mountainous terrain, a detail invisible to most automated models but accessible to LLMs trained on PLA memoirs, doctrine, and historiography.

As a recent report we both worked on details, military decisions are rarely made in isolation from personal or collective history. Strategy is often shaped by deep-seated narrative logic, encompassing national myths, identities, and ideology. Beyond procedural logic and battlefield geometry, war is fought through perception: how each actor experiences shame, fear, honor, legitimacy, and memory. These variables do not exist in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance feeds or probability tables. They are present in the minds of adversaries, shaped by decades, if not centuries, of history, trauma, and political indoctrination. This is the cognitive substrate of strategic action, and it cannot be approximated through taught knowledge alone.

Consider the threat from jihadist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, and Boko Haram, which do not adhere to classical strategic logic; their behaviors are shaped by religious eschatology, historical grievances, and narrative theater. They use spectacular violence and ritualized fear to sustain their ideological appeal, often engaging in an epistemic war against perceived Western influence and employing brutality as part of the construction of identity. A purely data-driven model might focus on the number of fighters, frequency of attacks, or intercepted chatter while missing the symbolic logic animating those patterns.

A system that incorporates cognitive elements layers in the importance of sacred geography, the modeling of theological escalation ladders where martyrdom is incentivized, and the role of online radicalization, where command structures are replaced by narrative contagion. Nurtured AI systems trained on religious texts, ideological manifestos, and martyr testimonials might be able to simulate the decision logic of these “nonrational” actors, providing predictive insights into, for example, when a symbolic event might trigger a suicide bombing, or when leadership decapitation may lead to fragmentation and the splintering toward more extreme offshoots.

Inhabiting the fog

Without nurtured consciousness, even the most advanced AI-driven systems risk failing to accurately interpret complex adversarial behaviors, symbolic intentions, and cultural thresholds, thereby undermining strategic effectiveness.

While taught consciousness enables a model to replicate tactical planning or doctrinal norms, nurtured consciousness simulates how a decision maker understands risk, perceives adversaries, and weighs personal legacy against national mythology. This is what allows an AI system to reason like a human in a real-world context, rather than merely replicating surface-level behavior. Combined, taught and nurtured consciousness deepen strategic empathy.

However, as AI systems with synthetic cognition begin to dynamically shape military operations, they will require accountability frameworks, multidisciplinary oversight, and governance protocols. Failure to establish clear guidelines risks strategic misalignment, ethical ambiguity, and unanticipated escalation, ultimately weakening their utility and credibility. Therefore, cognitive-emulative systems must remain auditable, strategically aligned with values, and guided by transparent governance structures involving regional experts and ethicists to ensure responsible deployment. Given rapid advances by the United States’ near-peer adversaries, Washington needs technical and doctrinal oversight of nurtured consciousness, as well as clearly defined international norms governing its use.

Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz observed that “war is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty.” Conscious-model AI does not dispel the fog, it inhabits it. It reasons, reacts, and remembers within it. This capability is what turns an information advantage into a conscious advantage, and it has the potential to set the standard for strategic dominance in the twenty-first century.

John James is a technologist, deep-tech investor, and founding partner of BOKA Capital Ltd, which has investments in military AI companies.

Alia Brahimi, PhD, is a nonresident senior fellow on the Atlantic Council Middle East Programs.

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Ukraine’s skies are Europe’s first line of defense against Russian drones

Alina Zubkovych — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 21:01:41 +0000

The recent launch of Russian drones into Polish airspace generated global headlines, but the incident was far from unprecedented. In reality, it was the latest escalation in a far larger Kremlin campaign that aims to test NATO’s resolve and intimidate European leaders. In addition to regular incursions into NATO airspace, Russia is also accused of disrupting thousands of European flights through the widespread use of GPS jamming. Unless the West responds decisively, Russia will continue to escalate.

For the Russians, gray zone acts of aggression such as the recent drone raid on Poland offer an opportunity to gauge how far they can go without provoking a major military response. Each new operation is a probe. If Russian drones can cross into Poland unchecked, the next stage may be for missiles to begin “accidentally” striking NATO territory.

As none of the drones launched at Poland last week appear to have been armed, it is reasonable to conclude that Putin does not currently seek to conduct a conventional attack on NATO. Instead, the operation served a number of other objectives. Crucially, it allowed the Kremlin to test NATO’s red lines and demonstrate that the alliance is hesitant to act, even when its borders are so clearly penetrated. This strikes at the credibility of NATO’s core commitment to collective security.

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The appearance of Russian drones in the skies above Poland set off alarm bells in a number of European capitals. This trend toward greater insecurity can help drive the radicalization of European politics, which often means increased support for Kremlin-friendly parties on both the far-left and far-right of the political spectrum.

Fears over a mounting Russian threat could also divert attention and resources away from Ukraine, with Europeans growing less inclined to support the Ukrainian war effort and more concerned about their own security. In the aftermath of the recent drone incident, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned of growing anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Poland fueled by Moscow, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested that Russia may be seeking to prevent the delivery of additional air defenses to Ukraine ahead of the winter season.

With the Western response to Russia’s drone raid still taking shape, it remains too early to draw any definitive conclusions. However, the mixed initial reaction from Western leaders is unlikely to have deterred the Kremlin. Rather than projecting unity and purpose, US President Donald Trump appeared to contradict many of his NATO allies by claiming that the large-scale Russian incursion into Polish airspace could have been “a mistake.”

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Russia’s drone escalation has revived the long-running debate over the possibility of a NATO-backed no-fly zone of some kind in Ukraine. Following the Kremlin’s aerial attack, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski became the latest figure to publicly voice his support for allied efforts to close the skies over Ukraine. Poland’s top diplomat argued that protecting Ukrainian airspace from Russian drone and missile attacks would also serve as the first line of defense for the rest of Europe.

This concept has been under discussion since the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion but has so far failed to gain serious traction due to widespread Western fears of escalation. Skeptics have noted that any NATO jets deployed to Ukraine would immediately become targets for the Russians, creating the potential for a direct military confrontation between the alliance and the Kremlin. A single downed NATO aircraft over Ukraine or a destroyed anti-aircraft system on Russian territory could plunge Europe into a major crisis with unpredictable outcomes for international security.

Europe can minimize the risks associated with a no-fly zone by ruling out the deployment of fighter jet squadrons in Ukrainian airspace and focusing instead on boosting the number of ground-based air defense systems covering western Ukraine. Many systems could be positioned across the border and need not actually enter Ukraine at all.

Participating countries could also increase their support for Ukraine’s own layered air defenses, including Kyiv’s growing interceptor drone capabilities. This approach would strengthen the security of European airspace without the necessity of sending NATO pilots into combat.

Enhanced air defenses would not entirely neutralize the Russian threat but could succeed in creating significantly safer conditions for millions of Ukrainians along with citizens in neighboring EU states. While Moscow would inevitably protest over any increased European involvement, it would be hard for the Kremlin to argue convincingly that intercepting Russian drones and missiles constitutes an act of international aggression.

Recent events offer a clear precedent for a greater European role in Ukraine’s air defenses. Jets from multiple NATO countries shot down a number of the Russian drones that entered Polish airspace last week without sparking an escalation. There is therefore no reason to believe that expanding the no-fly zone into western Ukraine would suddenly spark World War III.

Ukraine also has an important role to play in efforts to strengthen Europe’s air shield. Following the recent Russian incursion into Polish airspace, European countries now recognize that they need to urgently study Ukraine’s unrivaled experience of defending against Russian missiles and drones. This process is already underway, with Poland looking to implement lessons learned by the Ukrainians over the past three and half years of regular Russian bombardment. Other countries will no doubt soon be joining the Poles in seeking the advice of Ukrainian air defense crews. Looking ahead, Ukraine’s unique air defense expertise must be fully integrated into NATO and EU security planning.

It should now be abundantly clear that Putin will continue to escalate until he is stopped. The Kremlin dictator’s imperial ambitions extend far beyond the conquest of Ukraine. To achieve his goals, he seeks to discredit NATO and divide Europe. Acting decisively through smart air defense, leveraging Ukrainian expertise, and deepening regional cooperation can help safeguard European security. If Western leaders continue to hesitate, Putin will grow bolder still and the cost of stopping Russia will only rise.

Alina Zubkovych is Head of the Nordic Ukraine Forum and Academic Director at the Kyiv School of Economics.

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Like many other NATO members, Poland has invested heavily in recent years in high-end air defense systems such as Patriots and F-35 warplanes. However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has revealed a new kind of war that requires alternative solutions. Since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion more than three and a half years ago, unmanned systems have emerged as the decisive weapon above the battlefield and have also been used extensively for longer range attacks on land and at sea.

With Russia and Ukraine locked in a relentless race to innovate, the Kremlin has prioritized the mass production of deadly strike drones capable of hitting targets hundreds of kilometers away. The number of drones involved in Russian aerial attacks on Ukrainian cities has risen dramatically over the past year from dozens to hundreds, with record waves in recent months featuring as many as eight hundred drones. Europe remains dangerously unprepared to address the unprecedented challenges posed by these large-scale Russian drone swarms.

Ukrainians have been advising their European colleagues for some time of the need to reassess their air defense strategies in line with the growing dominance of drones. Ukrainian drone warfare specialist Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, who leads the country’s Unmanned Systems Forces, warned in July 2025 that NATO commanders must urgently review their air defense doctrines in order to focus on the dangers posed by swarms of Russian attack drones.

Brovdi’s call to Kyiv’s Western partners and his offer to share Ukraine’s unique experience of drone warfare did not initially provoke much of a response. However, following Russia’s recent escalation in the skies above Poland, that may now be changing. Within days of the Russian drone incursion, Polish and Ukrainian officials announced plans for Ukraine to provide anti-drone training in Poland. Other NATO members are now expected to follow suit, reflecting Ukraine’s status as a leading authority on drone warfare.

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Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski is one of numerous senior European politicians to acknowledge the need for NATO countries to learn from Ukraine. “The Ukrainians have better equipment for dealing with Russian drones and more up-to-date experience,” he commented during a visit to Kyiv last week. “This is something that the public and governments in the West need to urgently integrate into their thinking. It is the Ukrainians who will be training us on how to stand up to Russia, not the other way around.”

US Special Envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg echoed this sentiment, commenting on September 12 that Ukraine has emerged in recent years as a “world leader” in drone warfare. Noting that the evolution of drone technologies was changing the nature of modern war, Kellogg credited Ukraine with playing a leading role in this trend while acknowledging that other nations including the United States were now “well behind.”

In addition to offering air defense training to the country’s allies, Ukraine is also ready to help NATO partners identify and procure the necessary defensive tools to combat Russian drones. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently stressed that nobody in the world has enough missiles to shoot down the large volumes of drones currently being deployed by the Kremlin. Instead, a more eclectic approach is needed, featuring ground-based air defenses and jet fighters together with defensive drones, helicopter patrols, and propeller planes.

Ukraine has already developed and begun deploying a number of interceptor drones that serve as a cost-effective solution to Russia’s expanding swarms of strike drones. Work is now underway to increase production in order to keep pace with Russia’s growing output. Kyiv’s partners are engaged in these efforts. A new initiative was recently unveiled that will see Britain support Ukraine by mass producing interceptor drones based on existing Ukrainian technologies. This should make it possible to deliver thousands of drones to Ukraine every month.

Ukraine’s sophisticated anti-drone defenses will now set the standard for NATO as the alliance adjusts to the changing face of modern warfare and the mounting threat posed by Putin’s drones. At present, Putin is using drone incursions to test NATO and probe the alliance’s military and political responses, but his appetite for escalation has never been more apparent. European countries must therefore prepare to defend themselves against potential large-scale attacks involving hundreds of Russian drones. As they scramble to do so, Ukraine’s experience will prove absolutely indispensable.

David Kirichenko is an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

Belarus hosts Russian war games as Putin’s drones probe Poland

Hanna Liubakova — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 11:42:47 +0000

On September 12, Belarus will play host to Russia as the two countries stage their largest joint military exercises since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The war games are set to begin against a backdrop of dramatically heightened regional tensions, coming just two days after at least nineteen Russian drones penetrated Polish airspace. Some of these Russian drones entered Poland via neighboring Belarus.

Polish and other NATO jets reportedly shot down a number of Russian drones in the skies above Poland early on September 10. This was the first time in NATO history that alliance fighter pilots have engaged Russian targets in allied airspace, officials stated. Addressing members of the Polish parliament in Warsaw, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the incident was “the closest we have been to open conflict since World War II.”

Moscow’s decision to target Poland with drones was the latest in a series of alarming escalations by the Kremlin following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s August summit meeting in Alaska with US President Donald Trump. This has served to significantly raise the stakes ahead of Russia’s military drills in Belarus. While the authorities in Minsk have sought to downplay the significance of the joint exercises, they are a timely reminder that Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka is a key accomplice in Russia’s war effort who poses a security threat to NATO’s eastern flank.

Even before this week’s unprecedented appearance of Russian drones over Poland, Belarus’s European neighbors were already stepping up security measures along the frontier. Lithuania and Poland are accelerating construction work on enhanced border defenses, while the Polish authorities have announced the closure of border crossings with Belarus during the military exercises, citing the risk of provocations tied to the drills.

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The “Zapad” military exercises, meaning “West” in Russian, are large-scale drills that have been jointly organized for a number of years by Russia and Belarus. The planned 2023 iteration was canceled as Russian troops and equipment were needed for the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. This year’s war games are set to be significantly smaller in scale that the 2021 exercises, which were used as cover for preparations ahead of Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Following Russia’s recent drone incursion, NATO forces across the border from Belarus will be on high alert for any further escalations during the drills.

This week’s Zapad 2025 military exercises will underline the transformation of Belarus into a forward base for the Russian army and will further normalize Moscow’s military footprint in the country. Infrastructure for hosting Russian troops is already in place including missile facilities, fortified munitions depots, and expanded rail links. Almost 300 Belarusian state enterprises are also reportedly involved in the production of weapons or munitions for the Russian military.

Lukashenka has been steadily trading Belarusian sovereignty for regime security ever since 2020, when he became dependent on the Kremlin for his political survival following the brutal suppression of anti-regime protests across Belarus. Hosting Russian troops, supplying Putin’s war machine, and supporting the invasion of Ukraine are all part of this bargain. Russian backing has made it possible for Lukashenka to transform Belarus into an increasingly repressive dictatorship, with regime opponents exiled and over a thousand political prisoners currently behind bars.

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While Lukashenka has little choice but to continue playing the role of junior partner in Putin’s anti-Western crusade, there are signs that he may not be entirely comfortable with his current predicament. In fact, the Belarusian response to this week’s Russian drone incursion into Polish airspace says much about how cornered the Lukashenka regime has become.

Early on Wednesday morning, officials in Minsk reportedly contacted their Warsaw counterparts to offer advance warning that drones were heading their way from the direction of Belarus. Poland said this information was unexpected but helpful. “It was surprising that Belarus, which is really trying to escalate the situation on our land border, decided to cooperate in this way,” commented Polish military officials. While the Belarusians were ready to help the Poles, they also avoided blaming Russia directly for the incident, highlighting just how carefully Lukashenka is treading.

The message from Minsk seems straightforward. Lukashenka is desperate to demonstrate to his EU neighbors and the wider international community that he is not fully tied to Moscow’s war machine and can still act independently of the Kremlin. He is probing for geopolitical space and signaling a cautious openness to dialogue with the West, while trying to avoid provoking a furious response from his Russian patrons.

This should not be interpreted as a sudden thaw. Moscow will certainly fight to keep Belarus as a key pressure point against NATO for many years to come, and is in a position to do so. Over the past five years, Russia has managed to establish extensive levers of influence throughout Belarus’s political, military, business, and cultural establishments in a process that some have characterized as a “creeping annexation.” Meanwhile, Lukashenka may have earned a reputation as a wily political operator, but he will almost certainly always gravitate back toward the Kremlin, regardless of any overtures from the West.

Lukashenka’s room for maneuver is clearly limited. But at the same time, his fear of being dragged directly into Putin’s war against the West creates a potential opening for pragmatic diplomacy. The September 11 visit by a US delegation to Minsk, which secured the release of dozens of political prisoners, shows that this diplomatic path is already producing tangible results. Western governments should now build on this momentum to press Lukashenka harder for the release of all political prisoners and an end to the repression of domestic opponents.

Hanna Liubakova is a journalist from Belarus and nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

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Nonresident Fellow

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Daniels discusses China’s AI strategy on the China Power Podcast

Atlantic Council — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 16:15:23 +0000

On August 19, Forward Defense nonresident senior fellow Owen Daniels was featured on Episode 108 of the German Marshal Fund’s China Power Podcast. In the episode, Owens discusses US-China competition in artificial intelligence, China’s AI strategy and ambitions, and how Beijing is leveraging AI to expand its global influence. Daniels also explores what the United States can do to maintain and bolster its technological leadership.

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Owen J. Daniels

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Putin is facing a fuel crisis as Ukraine escalates attacks on Russian refineries

David Kirichenko — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 21:06:17 +0000

Gasoline prices soared to record highs in Russia this week amid growing reports of fuel shortages due to an escalating Ukrainian bombing campaign targeting Russia’s oil refineries. Social media has been flooded with videos showing long lines of cars and lorries queuing up at gas stations in regions across Russia and in occupied parts of Ukraine, highlighting the scale of the mounting crisis.

Ukrainian long-range drone strikes have knocked out around 13 percent of the Russia’s oil refining capacity since the beginning of August, the Moscow Times reports. The situation is proving particularly challenging as the supply disruption caused by Ukrainian airstrikes is coinciding with a period of peak seasonal demand due to summer travel and the upcoming harvest season.

News of Russia’s growing fuel shortages has been welcomed by many in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s influential chief of staff Andriy Yermak noted that Russia had earlier done everything it could to deprive Ukraine of fuel. “Now they suddenly face shortages themselves,” he commented. “That’s what happens when you attack Ukrainians.”

Ukraine’s unfolding bombing campaign is no mere act of righteous retribution, of course. The recent strikes against Russia’s oil industry infrastructure are designed to directly hit Putin’s war economy and undermine his ability to continue bankrolling the invasion of Ukraine. With Kyiv’s European and American allies seemingly reluctant to impose tougher sanctions measures against the Russian energy sector, Ukrainians see the current wave of drone attacks as a highly effective form of “direct sanctions.”

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The Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries since the beginning of August are part of a wider pattern. In recent weeks, Ukraine has also struck multiple military production sites inside Russia, along with a number of fuel trains and logistics hubs in areas close to the front lines of the war. On August 18, Ukrainian drones destroyed the pumping station for the Druzhba pipeline in Russia’s Tambov region, shutting down this strategically important element of the Kremlin’s energy infrastructure carrying Russian oil to European markets.

Ukraine’s leaders regard the country’s growing long-range strike potential as an important factor in efforts to force Russia to end its invasion and come to the negotiating table. During the early months of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine had only a very limited number of drones capable of reaching targets inside Russia. Over the past three and a half years, Kyiv’s long-range arsenal has expanded dramatically, making it possible to launch increasingly ambitious air offensives.

The latest addition to Ukraine’s arsenal is a domestically produced long-range cruise missile dubbed the “Flamingo.” This recently unveiled missile has a reported range of over 3000 kilometers and carries a massive warhead that dwarfs anything Ukraine’s long-range drones are currently capable of delivering. Zelenskyy recently confirmed that the missile has undergone successful testing and should enter mass production by the end of the current year.

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Ukraine’s ability to establish domestic cruise missile production should come as no surprise. The country had earlier played a central role in the Soviet missile program, with Ukrainian city Dnipro known informally throughout the Cold War as “Rocket City.”

The revival of this tradition now gives Kyiv a potential trump card in talks with Moscow. Even with the country’s current limited domestic drone and missile capabilities, Ukraine is already proving itself capable of inflicting serious damage on Russia’s economically vital energy sector. If Kyiv reaches its goal of mass produced long-range cruise missiles, the consequences for Russia’s refineries, ports, and pipelines could be catastrophic.

Ukraine’s accelerating deep strikes come at a time when the dominance of drones is making battlefield breakthroughs increasingly difficult to achieve. While the Russian army continues to grind forward in eastern Ukraine, it is advancing at glacial pace and has managed to capture less than one percent of Ukrainian territory in the past one thousand days while losing hundreds of thousands of soldiers.

The current technological realities of the war clearly favor the defenders. This leaves no obvious pathway toward a decisive Russian military victory in Ukraine. Kyiv policymakers are hoping that if Putin is confronted with a bloody stalemate in Ukraine and the prospect of mounting attacks inside Russia, he may be forced to rethink his current uncompromising stance and seek a settlement to end the invasion.

Historically, Russia’s sheer size has always been considered one of its main strengths. By launching waves of airstrikes across the country, Ukraine now intends to exploit this vastness and transform it into Russia’s greatest weakness. The Kremlin simply does not have enough air defense systems to protect thousands of potential military and energy targets spread across eleven time zones. The only question is whether Ukraine can produce drones and missiles in sufficient quantities to destroy Putin’s war machine. Based on the current trajectory, there is certainly cause for concern in the Kremlin.

David Kirichenko is an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

Turkey and the United States have entered an era of renewed bilateral relations, with Ankara and Washington demonstrating increasing will at the highest level to enhance dialogue and cooperation. Both the Middle East’s ongoing conflicts and its emerging opportunities, such as the rise of the new government in Syria, have underscored Turkey’s strategic position as a crucial partner for the United States in this period of change. However, while there is positive momentum in the bilateral dialogue, certain points of disagreement persist, such as the US partnership with the People’s Defense Units (YPG) in Syria, sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), and diverging perspectives on Israel’s foreign policy.

Defense cooperation is a central pillar of the US-Turkey bilateral relationship. Turkey has NATO’s second-largest army and has recently shifted from being a major US defense tech importer to a domestic defense tech manufacturer and rising exporter. Turkish drones and unmanned aerial vehicle technology have proved successful on the battlefield from the South Caucasus to Libya to Ukraine.

Turkey and the United States see strong potential and shared interest in deepening their defense cooperation. A long-stalled deal for F-16 fighter jet sales to Turkey is progressing, with growing optimism in both capitals that it will soon be finalized. Both sides are signaling readiness to address and overcome the CAATSA sanctions the United States imposed on Turkey following its purchase of the Russian S-400 system, which have constrained US-Turkey defense cooperation for several years. Turkey’s readmission to the F-35 program has also been raised as a topic for discussion.

Below are highlights from the Turkey Program’s Defense Journal launch event, which addressed the importance of US-Turkey defense relations and US-Turkey strategic cooperation in the Middle East.

Defne Arslan, senior director of the Turkey Program and AC in Turkey at the Atlantic Council: “The region stands at an inflection point. This historic moment calls for increasing cooperation and alignment of mutual interests between NATO allies Turkey and the United States,” said Arslan in her welcoming remarks.

General James L. Jones, executive chairman emeritus at the Atlantic Council, former US national security advisor, and former supreme allied commander Europe: Jones noted: “Turkey’s defense capabilities and strategic location make it a critically important ally for the United States in tackling regional security challenges.”

Michael Goldman, chargé d’affaires at the US embassy in Turkey: Goldman spoke about the United States and Turkey’s ever-evolving partnership, arguing that their cooperation is important for addressing regional challenges. He also noted several qualities that provide Turkey’s strategic importance for NATO: “When we talk about the region in flux, Turkey is the center of it. . . This country and our relationship have three things: Turkey’s geography, its mass, and its innovative capacity.”

Rich Outzen, co-managing editor of the Defense Journal and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Turkey Program: Outzen said that there was an alignment in how Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and US President Donald Trump approach Russia, arguing that both leaders prioritize engaging Moscow through strength while keeping the door open to negotiations to end its war against Ukraine. Outzen highlighted that both Turkey and the United States have substantial battlefield experience, especially in evolving methods of war. Outzen also explained the intent behind the Defense Journal: “Both the US and Turkey suffer from information pollution about the relationship. There are some ideas that paint us as enemies of one another rather than allies of long standing. The Defense Journal is a response to that.”

Can Kasapoğlu, co-managing editor of the Defense Journal by the Atlantic Council Turkey Program: “With the Defense Journal, we want Turkish and American strategic communities to be able to communicate, agree and disagree, like two NATO allies,” Kasapoğlu said. He added that the Defense Journal project is important for keeping the momentum for further cooperation between the US and Turkish defense communities.

Ambassador Ömer Önhon, former Turkish ambassador to Syria: “Turkish-American cooperation is essential for lasting stability in Syria; but we have to have a common ground,” Önhon said. Önhon underlined that the US-Turkey partnership was indispensable for ensuring stability in Syria. However, while the main goals of the two allies are aligned, he said, there are a few ongoing issues such as US support to the YPG, which he said should be addressed to further improve joint efforts for Syria’s reconstruction. Önhon also shared his key takeaways from his recent trip to Syria, where he observed that unlike in the case of Iraq, the state structures from the era of Bashar al-Assad’s regime were not eradicated by the new government. He argued that this gives Syria’s new leadership a good foundation to slowly and deliberately reshape governance and develop better practices. While acknowledging that Syria’s reconstruction would be a slow process and a long-term challenge, Önhon argued that there is unexplored potential for increasing transatlantic engagement with the region while also addressing Turkey’s regional strategy and potential future role in Syria.

General Tod D. Wolters, distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and former supreme allied commander Europe: To conclude the event, Wolters reiterated the importance of the US-Turkey defense partnership for tackling regional security challenges. Wolters highlighted the qualities of the Turkish defense sector that make it strategically important for the United States. “One of the military and government attributes of Turkey is its tremendous degree of readiness,” said Wolters. “It has a lot to do with resilience and responsiveness,” he said, crediting Turkey’s readiness posture for its contribution to regional stability.

Photos from the event

Alp Ozen is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council Turkey Program.

Zeynep Egeli is project assistant at the Atlantic Council Turkey Program.

A vision for US hypersonic weapons

Edward Brady and Michael E. White — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 22:13:28 +0000

Bottom lines up front

Near term: Hypersonics are vital to “kick down the door” of enemy anti-access/area-denial systems to enable less-exquisite forces to attack in mass.
Long term: A high-low mix of hypersonic and traditional weapons will be key to asserting military advantage.
What’s at stake: Delaying the fielding of hypersonic weapons would increase strategic risk; expediting the fielding of hypersonic strike weapons would improve lethality and deterrence and reduce strategic risk.

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Any future large-scale conflict in the Pacific will be in a highly contested environment where US capability will be aggressively challenged in the air, on land, at sea, and in space. The US military must have the ability to rapidly deliver lethal effects at range in a timescale of relevance. On their own, traditional strike weapons do not have sufficient speed or range to enable effective operation on what will be the highly contested battlefield of the future. Hypersonic weapons, if fielded in sufficient numbers to defeat critical targets necessary to degrade adversary capabilities, will enable effective use of traditional weapon systems and allow for future battlefield dominance. A layered defeat construct must be deployed to defend against ballistic and hypersonic missiles targeting US assets.

How do hypersonic weapons fit into weapons evolution?

For centuries, weapons have trended toward increasing speed, range, and accuracy. Hypersonic weapons build on these trends. Advanced engine technology and improved materials enable missiles to travel at hypersonic speeds (above Mach 5) while maintaining meaningful maneuverability. Because of their speed, hypersonic weapons, especially hypersonic cruise missiles, tend to have greater ranges than similarly sized weapons.

Faster weapons with longer ranges are more lethal than slower, shorter-range weapons. The faster speeds mean that targets have less time to evade or defend themselves. Hypersonic weapons are more likely to penetrate enemy defenses optimized for slower munitions, meaning missile salvos can comprise fewer missiles. Longer ranges mean that shooters can engage from farther away, potentially outside detection or engagement range of enemy defenses, depending on launch platform capabilities.

In the next decade, exquisite hypersonic weapons will be keys to “open the door” for forces equipped with more traditional weapons. This paradigm is like the United States’ 1991 employment of the new F-117 stealth fighters equipped with precision bombs to dramatically degrade Iraqi air defense command and control. This innovation made it possible for traditional airpower to attack other targets. In a similar vein, highly capable platforms like the B-21 stealth bombers or Virginia-class fast-attack submarines can employ hypersonic weapons against high-value targets in enemy defenses, reducing the overall effectiveness of the enemy defense system at much lower cost than a more traditional force package.

Hypersonic weapons are 5 to 20 times faster than traditional missiles

Reaction time is up to 6x shorter

75% fewer hypersonic missiles needed for a given mission

How can hypersonic weapons increase near-term lethality in the Indo-Pacific context?

Consider a large surface warship like China’s Type 055 (or Renhai-class) cruiser. These vessels are potent sea- and air-control platforms, able to detect and engage air and surface targets hundreds of miles away. They are key nodes within a broader anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) system, capable of extending the A2/AD bubble well into the Pacific Ocean in the event of war. They usually steam in a task group of several other warships, adding missiles and antisubmarine capabilities as well. Moreover, that group is also likely to be protected by fighter aircraft and possibly shore-based surface-to-air missiles. One can assume that the task group could engage incoming missiles at a range of at least one hundred nautical miles.¹

A traditional cruise missile launched from several hundred miles away from the ship traveling at about Mach 1 (or slower) would take up to an hour to reach the ship. In contrast, a hypersonic cruise missile closes that distance in just ten minutes or less. The ship defenses have one-fifth the time to detect, maneuver, and engage a hypersonic threat compared to a traditional missile.

Calculating how many missiles will “leak” through the enemy defenses is extremely challenging. Empirical studies of anti-ship missile attacks show that a good assumption for hits is 30 percent against older defenses, likely less against more modern defenses.² One can assume a need for one-quarter to one-third as many hypersonic weapons to achieve the same effects as traditional weapons based on this same analysis (i.e., an advanced weapon against older defenses not designed to counter it). Successful strikes (i.e., the ship was knocked out of action) against ships with less capable defenses were between 30 and 60 percent. When missiles were fired against ships with capable defenses, this rate fell to only 13 percent.³ Since existing missiles are well understood by most navies, one can assume that traditional missiles will likely have success rates of around 10 percent. In contrast, there are essentially no effective defenses (especially shipborne) against hypersonic weapons: It is therefore reasonable to assume a success rate closer to 30 percent. This change not only reduces the weapon cost per target but also places far fewer launch platforms at risk throughout a campaign. This example could be easily applied to other target sets, launch platforms, and so on, and does not take into account the enabling assets required for the strike force.

Fig. 1: Salvo-size comparison shows hypersonic advantage over subsonic weapons

How do hypersonics improve survivability?

The ability to deliver timely and survivable lethal effects from outside of an enemy’s defended perimeter means that hypersonic weapons significantly reduce the operational risk for the launching forces. Air and missile defense forces defend themselves, broadly speaking, by “shooting the arrows” (destroying incoming missiles), “shooting the archers” (neutralizing launch platforms before they fire their munitions), or both. Peer adversaries like China use both methods.

Continuing the cruiser example, the ship uses its defenses to engage incoming missiles (or launch platforms if they get too close). However, many current weapons outrange the cruiser’s defenses. As a result, a high-end adversary will likely ensure that shore-based surface-to-air missiles, surface-to-surface missiles, fighters, submarines, and so on, are complementing the cruiser to further extend the defensive perimeter. Incoming bombers or surface vessels will likely be engaged outside the range of US missiles by these defenses. A stealth bomber needs to be within several hundred nautical miles of the cruiser to engage with an extended-range antiship missile. Even if the cruiser is several hundred miles from the coastline, at least some other defensive assets will likely engage, whether a carrier- or land-based aircraft, possibly supported by tankers. In the near future, those fighters will likely have unmanned combat autonomous vehicles (UCAVs) with them. Therefore, the US bomber needs to be protected by fighters. This package will likely need electronic warfare (EW) platforms, targeting assets, tactical command and control, and, significantly, tankers, as the strike package likely requires several aerial refuelers to get it to and from the fight. A hypersonic-equipped surface force can achieve the same level of lethality with improved survivability: The ability to launch from twice the range or more puts the hypersonic-equipped force beyond the reach of many of the defenses, notably reducing the size of the enabling assets needed for the strike package while simultaneously reducing operational risk.

Hypersonic weapons—especially if they achieve precision accuracy—may trigger shock waves in the strategic balance.

—Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., The Origins of Victory

How do hypersonics generate improved campaign effectiveness?

In the near term, leveraging hypersonic weapons in a high-low weapons mix will allow critical targets to be struck with increased effectiveness and at lower risk. This means fewer weapons need to be used to break down the A2/AD system; fewer assets lost during that process; and overall, a more sustainable, effective, and affordable campaign.

Returning to the high-end cruiser example and using round numbers, one can assume that traditional subsonic antiship missiles cost approximately $3 million each and hypersonic antiship cruise missiles cost $6 million each (a reasonable assumption with larger purchase orders).⁴ One can also assume that it will take, on average, ten traditional subsonic missiles to disable the cruiser and it will take three hypersonic antiship missiles. The missile procurement cost to complete the mission is $30 million for the traditional missiles and $18 million for the hypersonic missiles.

Using a single hypersonic missile to first degrade the ship’s defenses followed by two traditional missiles brings the weapon cost down to $12 million. Now, to take it one step further, independent of type, each missile requires one weapon station, and each launch platform has a fixed number of weapon stations. If the number of weapon stations used is reduced by one-third for an individual target, then the number of targets any specific launch platform can attack increases by a factor of three, dramatically increasing the overall campaign effectiveness of a given force.

While this example is intended to be illustrative, it demonstrates that a mix of hypersonic and traditional strike weapons has the potential to significantly increase force effectiveness and reduce mission cost. This increase in mission effectiveness becomes dramatic when the number of high-value, heavily defended targets—as anticipated for any future conflict—is considered.

In addition to the difference in cost for this example, consider an array of related questions: How many launch platforms might be lost taking higher-risk shots with traditional weapons compared to hypersonic ones? How many fewer strike packages are needed each day in a campaign by a longer-ranged hypersonic-equipped force? How much easier is resupply if the number of missiles to be replenished is measured in tens to hundreds (in the hypersonic category) versus hundreds to thousands (of traditional ones)? While the optimal combination of capability and respective inventory should be determined with a more detailed and specific analysis by the joint force, the answers to these questions dictate that policymakers should use decision metrics that reflect the dramatic improvement in mission effectiveness enabled by hypersonic weapons and not simply weapon cost when making critical acquisition and weapon-mix decisions.

Finally, in any conflict in the Pacific, the United States will be faced with an adversary that has a large inventory of long-range ballistic, supersonic, and hypersonic strike missiles. These missiles will be able to deliver effects on US land and sea forces out to hundreds of miles in a matter of minutes. The US military must be able to strike at range within a similar timescale so as not to lose control of the battlespace. Traditional long-range, US strike missiles are subsonic, however, limiting the military’s ability to do so. That asymmetry in battlefield timescale reduces the United States’ warfighting effectiveness and overall tactical deterrence, highlighting an additional imperative to field hypersonic strike missiles in meaningful numbers.

What is a long-term vision of hypersonic weapons?

In the longer term, twenty to thirty years from now, the majority of missiles, fired from all platforms, may very likely be hypersonic weapons. Air combat weapons evolved from exclusively short-range weapons in the early 1980s to mostly medium-range weapons by the 2000s. In the same way, air-to-surface munitions evolved from predominantly unguided “dumb” bombs in 1990 to almost exclusively precision-guided munitions by 2015. It is reasonable to envision a future in which missile speeds evolve from the current norms (less than Mach 1 to Mach 3) to hypersonic (Mach 5+) speeds in the next twenty to thirty years.

But hypersonic weapons are so expensive—are they worth the cost? The short answer is yes. Hypersonic weapons are the future of weapons. Fielding accurate hypersonic weapons in moderate quantities will deliver notable military advantage to the United States. Not doing so might put the United States at a dangerous disadvantage to China and other competitors.

Moreover, these weapons are very expensive now (compared to traditional missiles) precisely because the systems are rapidly fielded, first-generation prototypes that are procured in small numbers. As weapons progress through typical upgrade plans, technology continues to mature, and production efficiencies are realized along with increased procurement numbers, economies of scale are likely to kick in and costs can be expected to begin to decline significantly.

One example of this process is the now-ubiquitous AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile. (RTX, a sponsor of the Scowcroft Center’s Hypersonic Capabilities Task Force, produces the AIM-120.) When its procurement began in 1987, each missile cost $997,000. When the peak efficiencies were reached in the late 1990s, the unit cost of the AIM-120 was $105,000.⁵ Policymakers should expect a similar decrease in unit cost of hypersonic weapons with sustained procurement.

Achieving this future vision rests on assumptions that policymakers can influence. Three stand out.

Promoting continued development of hypersonic weapons will result in them transitioning from bespoke weapons for specific platforms, usually large in size, to smaller sizes that can be integrated across multiple platforms.
Sustaining research and development will solve critical technical problems over time, notably those related to sensors and materials, among others.
Continuing and increasing acquisition will reduce unit cost over time as a demand signal causes industry to invest in appropriate resources and larger orders create economies of scale.

Hypersonic weapons are crucial for future battlefield success. As defenses increase in potency, hypersonic weapons are essential to give the military the lethality it needs to attack key targets and open the door for other forces. Failing to field these weapons, in sufficient quantities, creates strategic risk by making the US military less lethal and less survivable. A US force equipped with hypersonic weapons, on the other hand, is a potent conventional deterrent.

In future publications, the Atlantic Council’s Hypersonic Capabilities Task Force will cover offensive hypersonic capabilities and counter-hypersonic defenses. The Task Force will offer numerous specific policy recommendations to make this vision of expedited deployment a reality.

View the full issue brief

About the authors

Michael E. White is the lead author of the Atlantic Council’s Hypersonic Capabilities Task Force. He served as the first principal director for hypersonics in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. In that capacity, White was responsible for leading the nation’s vision and strategy for developing offensive and defensive warfighting capability enabled by hypersonic systems. Prior to his time in the Department of Defense, he was head of the Air and Missile Defense Sector at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

Edward Brady is a US Air Force officer and A-10 instructor pilot who served as a national defense fellow at the Atlantic Council. The views expressed in this brief represent the personal views of the author and are not necessarily the views of the Department of Defense, the Department of the Air Force, the Air University, or any other US government agency.

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1 Eric Wertheim, “Type 055 Renhai-Class Cruiser: China’s Premier Surface Combatant,” US Naval Institute, March 2023, https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2023/march/type-055-renhai-class-cruiser-chinas-premier-surface-combatant.

2 John Schulte, “An Analysis of the Historical Effectiveness of Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles in Littoral Warfare” (master’s thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, September 1994), 15–18, https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADB192139.pdf; and B. R. Prakash, “Analysis of Missile Effectiveness– A Historical Perspective,” Defense Research and Studies, August 2020, https://dras.in/analysis-of-missile-effectiveness-a-historical-perspective/.

3 Prakash, “Analysis of Missile Effectiveness.”

4 John Tirpak, “Air Force Ramps Up Multiyear Buy,” Air & Space Forces Magazine, Air & Space Force Association, April 2024, https://www.airandspaceforces.com/navy-shoots-four-lrasmair-force-multiyear-buy/. For cost of the hypersonic weapons, see below discussion of AIM-120 cost. While hypersonic weapons currently in development cost at least $18 million, none
of these weapons are in large-scale production. The AIM-120 example illustrates that, once a weapon is procured in larger numbers, the cost should drop significantly.

5 US Department of Defense, AMRAAM Selected Acquisition Report (SAR), December 2018, Report No. 19-F-1098 DOC 14, Department of Defense, 2018, https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/Selected_Acquisition_Reports/FY_2018_SARS/19-F-1098_DOC_14_AMRAAM_SAR_Dec_2018.pdf.

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A marketplace for mission-ready AI: Accelerating capability delivery to the Pentagon

Jack Long, Bharat C. Patel, and Jags Kandasamy — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 14:30:56 +0000

TO: The secretary of defense

FROM: Jack Long, Bharat C. Patel, and Jags Kandasamy

DATE: August 14, 2025

SUBJECT: Proposing a performance-based AI model marketplace for the Department of Defense

Jack Long, PhD, is a lieutenant colonel in the US Marine Corps Reserve and the Naval AI lead at the Office of Naval Research.
Bharat C. Patel is product lead, Project Linchpin, at the US Army Program Executive Office–Intelligence, Electronic Warfare, and Sensors.
Jags Kandasamy is co-founder and chief executive officer of Latent AI, a start-up offering scalable, secure edge AI solutions for battlefield and industrial environments. He is also a distinguished fellow at the University of South Florida’s Global and National Security Institute.

The Department of Defense (DOD) should accelerate the deployment of operational artificial intelligence (AI) by establishing a performance-driven AI model marketplace. This strategic insights memo outlines a framework for one such marketplace. The approach incentivizes innovation through open competition, rapid iteration, and real-world performance validation—delivering mission-ready AI solutions at speed and scale. This proposal follows the principles outlined by the Atlantic Council’s Software-Defined Warfare Commission.

Currently, the government purchases AI models from a variety of industry partners. These models need regular retraining and optimization to be relevant in the deployed scenarios. There is a better way to meet the Defense Department’s need for AI.

In this proposal, the government would make a “data lake” available for industry partners to use to train models. This data lake could consist of imagery, radio frequency, sonar, and other mission-relevant datasets. Vendors could independently train models on this data lake and submit them to a centralized government model catalog—the Open Model Marketplace—where they would be made available for discovery and deployment by DOD components across services and commands.

Unlike the traditional procurement of AI through upfront contracts, this approach would compensate vendors based solely on model usage. The government would pay only for performance and the vendors would make money each time their models are deployed in operations. Models that demonstrate real-world utility, responsiveness to mission context, efficient compute utilization, and value to the user and value to the user would naturally rise to the top.

Step one: The Pentagon sets up a government-furnished data playground.

DOD will establish and operate a secure data playground in which industry partners can work with US government data at various classification levels.
DOD will provide vetted industry partners access to datasets and a data catalog.
The playground will provide secure infrastructure; vendors are expected to support the infrastructure by paying to use it.

Step two: Vendors develop models and DOD vets them.

DOD will provide known requirements, but vendors would be free to develop models for any use case they consider relevant.
Models will be assessed via common and standardized metrics.
Models will be vetted for relevance, performance, security, interoperability, and ethical considerations.
Models will undergo basic validation and be scored before gaining approval for inclusion in the catalog of the Open Model Marketplace.

Step three: DOD units use the Open Model Marketplace.

The Open Model Marketplace will be a centralized catalog containing all approved models categorized by mission, type, accuracy, and resource footprint.
Government customers could perform additional testing on models to assess relevance.
Any DOD unit could select and deploy models that meet its mission needs.
Users could run models on the compute infrastructure of their choice.
Models could be selected individually or as part of a “model pack” based on pricing offered by vendors.

Step four: Vendors are paid using a pay-for-performance model.

Vendors will be compensated based on model consumption—with no upfront funding or long-term exclusivity.
Model pricing will be independent of compute costs; models will run on government hardware.
The model can be used on a monthly basis, with the option to terminate at end of each month.
Vendors willing to assume risk could move quickly to build solutions.
By avoiding long-term contracts or vendor lock-in, DOD could maintain flexibility.
Innovation cycles would be shortened as vendors continuously iterate to remain competitive.

Step five: Users and customers score and give feedback.

DOD can concurrently run multiple models that address the same problem.
Government units will provide structured feedback and scoring on model performance.
Users will send feedback to both the vendor and a DOD Test, Evaluation, Validation and Verification oversight team.
Model performance statistics will be included in a model card and visible in a model catalog.
Poorly performing models will be flagged, while high performers will be rewarded with increased usage and visibility.

Step six: Contracting pathways for acquisition.

The DOD can leverage different contracting mechanisms to enable both rapid onboarding of new models and scalable deployment of proven ones.
For newer models, the Commercial Solutions Opening authority is the best option to quickly prototype and validate capabilities that are tied to specific operational needs.
For proven models, DOD should establish a multiple-award Blanket Purchase Agreement under Federal Acquisition Regulation 13.5 or 16.703 to pre-qualify and establish standardized terms (security, intellectual property, telemetry, runtime), enabling rapid call orders for repeat or scaled use.
This approach ensures the marketplace serves as both an on-ramp for emerging capabilities and a fast lane for repeat procurement.

An open-model marketplace would offer several benefits to servicemembers.

Innovation: Access to data would make it possible for the vendor base to iterate and develop faster.
Speed: DOD would have immediate access to cutting-edge models without procurement delays.
Performance: Only the most effective models would be likely to survive based on real-world success.
Flexibility: DOD operators could tailor model selection to their unique operating environments.
Cost-efficiency: DOD would only spend taxpayer dollars on solutions that deliver value, avoiding sunk costs.

To handle adoption and implementation, the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO) should develop a franchise strategy in which it sets the standards but others (e.g., services, combatant commands, and others) can set up their own operations. CDAO should define onboarding policies, model-intake standards, test and evaluation criteria, and other high-level rules, but should let the franchisees execute. This approach would ensure department-wide interoperability while allowing fast movers to drive ahead.

Acknowledgments

Latent AI is a financial supporter of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Software-Defined Warfare Commission. Kandasamy is an industry member of the commission.

The views expressed are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect those of their employer, the US government, or any affiliated organization.

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Ukraine’s expanding robot army can help address manpower shortages

David Kirichenko — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 20:55:04 +0000

The Ukrainian military claims to have conducted a groundbreaking local offensive in early July 2025, using exclusively robotic systems to seize a front line position in the Kharkiv region and capture a number of surrendering Russian soldiers. Officials from the Ukrainian army’s Third Assault Brigade stressed that the operation was unprecedented in modern warfare and emphasized that Ukraine had suffered no casualties.

Meanwhile, another Ukrainian front line unit has recently showcased a new robotic platform that is reportedly capable of shooting down Russian warplanes and helicopters. The system features a Soviet-era anti-aircraft missile launcher mounted on a remote-controlled robot, providing Ukrainian troops with enhanced defense against aerial attack while reducing their exposure to Russian drones.

These two developments underline the growing importance of robotic systems for the Ukrainian war effort. The Commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, Major Robert Brovdi, has identified the deployment of robots as a top priority for the embattled nation. “Drones are currently creating a kill zone extending 20 kilometers from the front lines,” he stated in July. “The next challenge is to replace Ukrainian infantry with ground-based robotic systems that can take over all the logistical tasks in the front line area.”

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The increased use of ground robots by the Ukrainian military reflects an emphasis on innovation that has enabled Ukraine to counter Russia’s often overwhelming advantages in terms of conventional firepower and manpower. For example, since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion more than three years ago, Ukraine has dramatically increased domestic drone production and earned a reputation as a global leader in drone warfare.

Similar trends are now evident in the development and deployment of Ukrainian robotic systems on the modern battlefield. Earlier this year, Ukrainian Ministry of Defense officials said the country intends to produce up to 15,000 ground robots by the end of 2025. If this target is reached, it would represent a massive expansion in the use of Unmanned Ground Vehicles or UGVs.

Robotic systems are in many ways an ideal solution for Ukraine as the country seeks ways to leverage its proven tech prowess in order to defend itself in a grueling war of attrition against a far larger enemy. With the Russian invasion now in its fourth year, mobilizing sufficient troops to maintain the war effort is becoming an increasingly acute problem for the Ukrainian authorities amid high casualty rates and an alarming rise in the number of desertions. This has led to questions over how much longer the Ukrainian military can hold the current front lines, and is believed to be fueling optimism in Moscow that a decisive breakthrough may soon be possible.

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While robots can never completely replace humans on the battlefield, there are a range of front line functions that robotic systems are suitable for. At present, Ukraine’s growing robot army is most commonly used in a logistical role to deliver supplies to troops in the trenches. With drones now a ubiquitous feature above the battlefield, any soldiers or vehicles moving around close to the front lines immediately become targets. Tracked or wheel-mounted robotic systems make it possible to resupply forces without risking casualties.

Crucially, robotic systems can be used to evacuate soldiers. Since 2022, the dominance of drones has made it more difficult to withdraw the wounded from the battlefield. This has led to increased Ukrainian losses, with injured troops often unable to receive medical attention in a timely fashion. While robotic transports are also vulnerable to drone attack and can face a range of other technical obstacles, the use of such platforms for emergency evacuations does increase the chances of survival.

Ukraine is also developing robotic systems capable of playing more direct defensive and offensive roles in the combat zone. While soldiers are still needed to guard trenches and consolidate any territorial gains, armed robots can potentially help maintain defensive positions and prevent Russian advances. This could reduce Ukraine’s reliance on dwindling manpower reserves and limit casualties.

Volunteers and private companies are playing an important part in efforts to develop new robotic models and integrate them into the Ukrainian military. They are faced with an array of practical challenges. In addition to securing the necessary funding and resources, it can also be difficult to provide training for military personnel who are desperately needed for combat duty.

While Ukraine’s senior military and political leadership are believed to appreciate the potential benefits of robotic systems, some field commanders reportedly remain reluctant to embrace new technologies. This legacy of the Soviet past has led to an uneven picture at different points along the line of contact, with many Ukrainian brigades able to invest time and money into developing and deploying robotic systems while others receive only limited access.

In order to fully capitalize on the promise of Ukraine’s robotic ground systems, more support must come from the Ukrainian government and the country’s international partners. Foreign investment is also needed to help Ukrainian developers boost output. Meanwhile, front line units must be given the resources and flexibility to train soldiers in the use of new unmanned systems, with commanders empowered to identify and prioritize the most effective robotic solutions.

Ukraine’s rapid wartime defense tech progress is driving the expansion of the country’s robot army. This is helping to address manpower shortages across the front and allowing the Ukrainian military to at least partially compensate for Russia’s greater resources and far larger population.

With the right investment and technical support, robotic systems could become a key element guaranteeing Ukraine’s national security and protecting the country against further Russian aggression. In order to reach that point, Kyiv and its partners must act quickly to scale up production and integrate new robotic technologies along the front lines of the war.

David Kirichenko is an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

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Recent reports of growing Chinese support for the Russian war effort are fuelling renewed speculation over what Beijing is hoping to achieve in Ukraine. While Chinese officials reject accusations that their country is arming Russia as “groundless” and insist that their focus remains on promoting peace talks, comments attributed to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in early July offer a window into Beijing’s priorities. According to EU officials, China’s top diplomat told his European counterpart, Kaja Kallas, that Beijing is not willing to accept a Russian defeat in Ukraine as this could allow the United States to turn its full attention to China.

Wang Yi’s widely reported statement certainly fits with Beijing’s official stance toward the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Although China claims to want peace, it has consistently demonstrated its diplomatic and economic support for Moscow amid deepening ties with the Kremlin. On the eve of the invasion, China and Russia declared a “no limits” partnership. China’s President Xi Jinping has since met with his Russian counterpart on multiple occasions to reaffirm this partnership. Chinese officials have also frequently echoed Russian justifications for the invasion.

Economic ties between the two countries have strengthened significantly since 2022 amid a rupture in Russian business links with the West. Bilateral trade has soared to record highs, with China serving as a key alternative destination for Russian energy exports while also allegedly proving instrumental in helping Moscow bypass Western sanctions. According to a May 2025 report by the German Foreign Ministry, China is believed to be responsible for around 80 percent of Russian sanctions avoidance.

This growing partnership makes perfect sense. China and Russia share a clear geopolitical alignment in opposition to the current US-led world order, with both Xi and Putin openly speaking about the need for a new multipolar era in international relations. Russia also appears to have had considerable success in convincing China that the invasion of Ukraine is a key step toward achieving this goal. Likewise, Beijing has good reason to fear a Russian defeat in Ukraine, which would significantly strengthen the West while freeing up the United States to turn its attention to Asia.

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It is clear that China is now Russia’s most important international partner, but there are some indications of distrust between the two authoritarian allies. Many in Moscow are wary of Russia’s growing dependence on Beijing amid suspicions regarding China’s long-term ambitions toward their country. According to a New York Times report published in June 2025, some elements within Russia’s extensive intelligence community openly refer to the Chinese as “the enemy” and believe efforts are already underway to lay the groundwork for future claims to Russian territory.

In China, meanwhile, there is likely to be a degree of uneasiness about the rapidly deepening military cooperation between Russia and North Korea. Since 2022, Pyongyang has emerged as a key supplier of artillery shells, ballistic missiles, and other munitions to the Russian army. More recently, North Korea has begun providing thousands of combat troops for Russia’s war against Ukraine, along with large numbers of workers for military-related construction and factory roles.

Growing cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang could undermine Beijing’s position by diluting China’s ability to influence the Kremlin. At the same time, the large amounts of money and increased access to advanced Russian military technologies that North Korea is receiving in return for its support could also transform the delicate geopolitical balance in East Asia.

There is little reason to doubt recent EU claims that China is committed to preventing a Russian defeat in Ukraine. However, the much-hyped partnership between Moscow and Beijing may be more marriage of convenience than ideological alliance. Both sides share a common interest in weakening the West, but they might not be as trusting of each other as their public statements would suggest.

Some in Russia are now openly alarmed by their country’s growing reliance on China and have little faith in Beijing’s good intentions. China almost certainly does not want Russia to lose the war in Ukraine, but Beijing is unlikely to welcome the idea of an historic Russian victory that would strengthen Moscow and weaken the current dominant Chinese position during future negotiations with the Kremlin. Instead, China’s preference may be for the indefinite continuation of a war that increases its leverage over Russia while keeping the West fully occupied and unable to turn its attention to Asia.

Guido Torres

Forward Defense Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security

Defense Policy Defense Technologies

Public Event Thu, July 24, 2025 • 4:15 am ET

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SAIC CEO Toni Townes-Whitley on the ‘ecosystem of capabilities’ needed to win today’s wars

Katherine Golden — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 17:27:06 +0000

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SAIC CEO Toni Townes-Whitley on mission integration in the defense ecosystem

AN #ACFRONTPAGE EVENT—SAIC CEO Toni Townes-Whitley discusses the role of mission integrators in today’s defense industrial base and the future of the US defense ecosystem.

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In SAIC Chief Executive Officer Toni Townes-Whitley’s view, it will take much more than top tech to win the wars of the future.

“You can win a battle with some phenomenal tech,” she said at an Atlantic Council Front Page event on Thursday. “But if we’re talking about durable, long-term regional conflict, to win wars, you have to have an ecosystem of capabilities.”

For Townes-Whitley, having such an ecosystem—one that joins academics, investors, innovators, and government officials behind common national-security objectives—depends on mission integration. It requires an “open” architecture that accommodates innovation from this wider ecosystem, instead of maintaining exclusivity, or “vendor lock,” for the biggest competitors in the defense industrial base.

“Commercial technology, as important as it is, as critical as it is, is not the only answer,” she said. “For war fighting going forward, our national security needs . . . integration, and it has to drive toward interoperability.”

In short, as Townes-Whitley put it: The United States needs to “leverage all that this country creates in the war fight.”

Below are more highlights from the conversation, moderated by Atlantic Council President and Chief Executive Officer Frederick Kempe, which was held as part of the Captains of Industry series of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Forward Defense program.

Play the player

Townes-Whitley argued that adversaries such as China and Russia have already worked to assemble a wide ecosystem for both defense and warfare, with China leaning into asymmetric and hybrid warfare and Russia heightening its cyberwarfare activities.
“We have a change not only in who the players are, how they engage, where they show up, but quite frankly what they leverage,” she said.
Thus, when it comes to a US-led innovation ecosystem, “we have to know how to leverage all of it to protect this country and to protect this planet,” she said.
She added that Ukraine has similarly rallied a massive ecosystem for the sake of its defense, bringing together a “talented” and “tech-enabled citizenry” and gritty technologies—backed by policymakers who have “changed capital structures” to support the fight. “It’s been a phenomenal lesson for us,” she said.
As European countries commit to ramping up their defense spending, they have a “leapfrog opportunity,” Townes-Whitley said, to prioritize mission integration first, instead of following “the US pattern of buying things” and having to make their defense tech interoperable later. “There’s an opportunity for them to use the best of commercial technology if they have a framework and engagement around mission integration,” she said.

High speed, high tech

Townes-Whitley argued that an upfront investment in mission integration will help improve the United States’ speed on the battlefield as warfighting continues to change quickly.
One reason, she explained, is that the “open and interoperable” architectures she envisions would be “plug and play,” erasing the need to ensure in advance that certain defense technologies are compatible with others.
“The speed of compatibility is going to be . . . more of the pacing mechanism than just the commercial tech itself,” she said.
Townes-Whitley said that as artificial intelligence (AI) advances, she sees a future in which “digital agents” are deployed for the sake of defense, making capabilities cheaper.
But “there’s a big conversation about how much it gets regulated,” she argued. She said that the White House’s AI Action Plan reflected a “real openness to AI” and a “desire to not let a regulatory burden slow down the commercial AI.”
Townes-Whitley argued that national security threats have expanded beyond traditional borders to include defending cyberspace and critical infrastructure, fundamentally changing how the homeland must be defended. As a result of this evolving landscape, “data has become the new currency,” helping people on the frontlines make more informed decisions faster.
But still, Townes-Whitley said, the “stovepipe nature” of the military and structural issues between the Department of Defense and the intelligence community continue to serve as “blockers” to much-needed data integration and real-time analytics. “This is not a tech issue,” she said. “This is a policy issue. This is a structural issue.”

Sending a signal

Townes-Whitley’s open architecture vision for the defense ecosystem will depend on whether the government can “send the right signal of long-term investment” to the private sector—and it will require officials across the government to send a consistent message.
Townes-Whitley said that she is “thrilled” to see signals from the current administration that there is high demand for commercial technology.
“The time is ripe right now for the country to evolve in our thinking of how we look at commercial technology,” she said, “how we look at investments and private equity, and how we look to bring those together for orchestration in the current world order.”

Katherine Golden is an associate director on the editorial team at the Atlantic Council.

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Ukraine is now an indispensable security partner for the US and Europe

Oleksiy Goncharenko — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 21:15:16 +0000

The world is currently entering a new multipolar geopolitical era defined by declining Western dominance, growing Chinese influence, and resurgent Russian imperialism. As the United States adapts to these changing realities, the Trump administration is seeking to reduce its commitment to European security while boosting the continent’s ability to defend itself. Ukraine can play a vital role in this process, and is ideally placed to help US President Donald Trump realize his vision of a secure but more self-sufficient Europe.

Many European leaders were initially caught off-guard in early 2025 when new US Vice President JD Vance stated plainly that Europe must take greater responsibility for its own security. Other White House officials have since reiterated this stance, while also underlining the continued US commitment to partnership with America’s NATO allies.

This new US security posture has sparked a major debate across Europe over the need to rearm. However, while the rhetoric in European capitals has changed markedly, there is still no consensus on exactly what this rearmament should involve. At the recent NATO summit, for example, Spain pushed back against the proposal to raise defense spending to 5 percent of GDP, calling it “unreasonable.”

The time for talk may soon be over. Numerous NATO member countries are already warning that Russia could be in a position to attack the alliance within the coming five years. By almost any measure, Europe is not currently ready to face this threat. With clock now ticking, the continent’s leaders must urgently expand defense sector production while also revising outdated defense doctrines.

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Ukraine is uniquely positioned to help Europe meet the mounting security challenges posed by a revisionist and expansionist Russia. After all, Ukraine has already been defending Europe’s eastern frontier for more than a decade following Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea and invasion of the Donbas region. Since February 2022, the country has been the scene of the largest European war since World War II.

The past eleven years of Russian aggression have transformed Ukraine into one of Europe’s leading military powers. Today, the Ukrainian army features around one million battle-hardened men and women, dwarfing the armed forces of its European neighbors. Kyiv’s EU and US partners need to recognize that this unrivaled experience of the twenty-first century battlefield makes Ukraine a key contributor to the future of European security.

Ukraine brings much more to the table than mere numbers. Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian defense industry has expanded dramatically and is capable of further growth. The country has also emerged as a global innovator in a number of defense tech segments ranging from attack drones to cyber security.

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Ukraine currently serves as the ideal testing ground for the American and European weapons systems of tomorrow. Ukraine’s successful deployment of Western defense technologies such as the Patriot air defense system has led to a number of historic breakthroughs that have made significant operational upgrades possible. Growing numbers of cutting edge European and American defense sector companies are already present in Ukraine, developing partnerships and testing their products in combat conditions.

Meanwhile, US security support for Kyiv is keeping the country’s defense contractors busy, creating thousands of jobs and contributing billions of dollars in tax revenues to the United States budget. Similar processes are underway across Europe as the impact of Russia’s full-scale invasion helps to reverse decades of defense industry neglect.

Ukraine’s rapidly evolving drone industry deserves a special mention. Since 2022, Ukrainian drone production has increased dramatically to millions of drones per year. This progress has helped Ukraine counter Russia’s often overwhelming battlefield advantages in terms of firepower and manpower, while also transforming the Battle of the Black Sea in Kyiv’s favor and enabling long-range strikes against targets deep inside Russia.

In June 2025, Ukraine conducted an unprecedented attack involving simultaneous remotely coordinated drone strikes on a number of airbases across Russia. This landmark operation was carried out at a fraction of the cost of traditional missile systems, underlining how Ukraine is shaping the future of drone warfare. Indeed, Ukrainian innovation is now pushing the entire global defense industry to evolve and rethink future plans.

At a time when the rest of Europe is struggling to adjust to a rapidly changing security environment, Ukraine stands out. Over the past decade, Ukrainians have developed the mindset, resilience, and self-confidence to function effectively as a front line democracy in an increasingly insecure world. They know what it means to mobilize society in response to an existential threat, and understand the nature of modern war. These attributes make Ukraine a valuable partner for the United States and key contributor to the future defense of Europe.

Oleksiy Goncharenko is a member of the Ukrainian Parliament with the European Solidarity party.

Combined arms refers to an approach that, when implemented well, creates a decisive tactical advantage for one’s military. The essence of combined arms lies in striking an adversary in multiple ways so that responding to one kind of attack exposes vulnerabilities to another. Its modern form emerged in the early twentieth century, particularly during World War I, as militaries learned to synchronize infantry, artillery, armor, and aviation to overcome tactical challenges.

Since then, military capabilities have significantly evolved across four key variables: speed, range, sensing, and accuracy of fires. Today, another transformation is now underway—with two major implications for combined arms. First, dramatic improvements in computational power, epitomized by artificial intelligence (AI), greatly increase the amount of data that can be processed at headquarters at all levels. Second, autonomy and advanced missile technology—combined with this enhanced computational power—increase both the range and volume of accurate firepower and improve the protective capabilities of forces.

These changes in the character of warfare suggest different approaches to both platform design and overall force structure. In this new environment, combined arms demands tactical forces across all domains that can: fight for information and decision advantage, deny the enemy access to information; deliver (and absorb) large amounts of firepower; and maintain the ability to close “organic” kill chains to ensure that maneuver remains part of the tactical and operational playbook.

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Five pillars for deterring strategic attacks

Mark J. Massa, Alyxandra Marine — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 20:30:00 +0000

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Executive summary

To achieve the likely objectives of the National Defense Strategy—defending the US homeland and deterring China—the United States must address the risk of strategic attacks on the homeland. This imperative includes preventing such attacks and ensuring that the Department of Defense has both the strategy and capabilities to restore deterrence at the lowest possible level of damage if prevention fails.

This is essential because a strategic attack could coerce the United States into halting its support for allies and partners, or cause military disruption severe enough to prevent such support altogether—thus undermining the objective of deterring China. Moreover, adversaries could inflict damage on US society that far outweighs the benefits the United States seeks through its foreign policy, further weakening homeland defense.

An effective strategy to address the risk of strategic attack on the US homeland must rest on several overlapping pillars. These include deterring a large-scale nuclear attack on the United States; preventing nuclear escalation during conventional regional conflicts; fielding US and allied forces sufficient to deter the outbreak of major-power conventional war; maintaining a flexible declaratory policy and adaptable strategic forces; and enhancing the nation’s ability to sustain warfighting capacity—even while under strategic attack.

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Alyxandra Marine

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Invest in space or lose the high ground

Edward Brady, Clementine G. Starling-Daniels — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 20:30:00 +0000

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Executive summary

Space will be a decisive factor in shaping the direction—and possibly even the outcome—of the next major-power war. Ever since humanity first ventured beyond Earth, the ability of air forces—and now space forces—to affect military activity on the ground has only grown. Since World War II, achieving air superiority, or at least denying it to the enemy, has been essential for successful surface operations. Today, this same logic holds for space: control of the air enables dominance on the surface, but space superiority now underpins dominance in both air and surface domains (land and sea).

In future conflicts, militaries that achieve space superiority will be able to detect adversary activities across land, sea, and air; strike platforms and advanced long-range weapons will engage targets at unprecedented distances by leveraging space-based sensors, communications, and command and control systems; and space power will be essential for deterring strategic attacks on the US homeland and defending US territory if deterrence fails.

The Department of Defense’s (DoD) emphasis on Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control reflects this reality to a certain extent. Still, the current Space Force budget is insufficient to establish space superiority. In fact, a lack of investment is putting not only US space ambitions, but the effectiveness of the broader military, in jeopardy. Addressing this problem requires increasing the Space Force budget by billions of dollars. If Congress is unwilling to raise the defense topline to accommodate these investments, then the importance of space is so critical that the DoD should make the necessary divestments from other parts of the military to fund the Space Force. Deterring the next war—and winning it if deterrence fails—requires a powerful Space Force that is fully resourced to succeed.

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The Sahel is pivoting toward Turkey. Here’s what that means for Washington.

Jordanna Yochai — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 12:31:51 +0000

Since 2022, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Niger have received at least a dozen total shipments of Turkish defense articles. This is just one of several signs of the Sahel’s growing engagement with Turkey. High-level diplomatic exchanges, along with the rumored operation of Turkish private military companies in the region, hint at a broader relationship. Washington may consider partnering with Turkey when it advances US interests—but it must approach any cooperation with clear eyes.

A broadening partnership

Turkey’s engagement in the Sahel predates the region’s security crisis, though it has grown in recent years. Trade between Turkey and Mali increased 32,000 percent over the previous two decades, from $5 million in 2003 to $165 million in 2022. Turkish firms have also played a key role in infrastructure development, constructing both an airport and a five-star hotel in Niamey, Niger. These relationships provide a strong base for defense cooperation.

Sahel-Turkey defense cooperation has steadily increased since 2018. What began as a five-million-dollar Turkish pledge to the now-defunct G5 Sahel Joint Force has matured into a broader, deeper partnership. Additionally, coups d’état in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Niger prompted the United States to halt its defense assistance, impeding these states’ ability to maintain and procure US equipment. Turkey became a more attractive partner as regional security deteriorated and Western assistance stagnated.

Military equipment sales are the cornerstone of Sahel-Turkey defense cooperation. They began in earnest in 2022, when Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger each took delivery of Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones. These drones rapidly proliferated across both the region and the continent, drawing comparisons to the AK-47 assault rifle because of their affordability, reliability, and ubiquity. These acquisitions heralded a shift in procurement, as Sahel states increasingly turned toward Ankara.

As time went on, drone sales continued apace. Chad obta ined Anka-S drones in 2023 and Aksungur drones in 2024, while Mali expanded its TB2 fleet. Burkina Faso and Mali both procured Akıncı drones in 2024, signaling a shift toward more advanced systems. “Our defense capacity consists of the famous Bayraktar TB2s. We now have a new [drone] called Akıncı,” boasted Burkina Faso’s president, underscoring the centrality of Turkish equipment in Burkina Faso’s arsenal.

But it’s not just drones: Burkina Faso and Chad each acq uired Turkish armored vehicles in 2022. Cooperation expanded further when Niger procured Turkish planes in late 2022, becoming the first export customer of an entirely Turkish-produced aircraft. Chad followed soon thereafter, acquiring the same aircraft in 2023.

Turkish equipment has addressed Sahel militaries’ acute security gaps and afforded them new capabilities. Turkish aircraft and drones offset ground mobility constraints by enabling militaries to surveil their territory and project force into contested areas. Turkish TB2 drones reportedly played a decisive role in Mali’s 2024 reconquest of Kidal, a rebel stronghold situated deep in the Sahara Desert.

Military equipment sales help grow Turkey’s relationships and influence. Partnering with Sahel states offers Turkey new avenues through which it can pursue its regional interests and bolster its image as a leader among Muslim-majority countries. A Turkish intelligence report from 2024 assessed that Niger was a “strategic partner,” capable of extending Ankara’s influence in Africa.

These relationships also enable Turkey to compete with rivals. Some analysts contend that Turkey’s outreach helps it outflank France and the United Arab Emirates. In addition, relations with Sahel states have helped Turkey constrain the Gülen movement, which the Turkish government labeled a terrorist organization and blames for the 2016 coup attempt. For example, Chad and Mali handed over control of Gülenist schools to a Turkish state-run organization in 2017.

Sahel states consider Ankara an important security partner. “We are taking a new course,” said the Malian minister of defense in November 2024. “[Turkish equipment] will help strengthen the territorial grid and neutralize threats wherever they are.” Burkina Faso awarded its highest state medal to the head of a Turkish defense company in 2023.

Defense cooperation may reach even further than equipment sales. In 2024, a report from Agence France-Presse indicated that SADAT International Defense Consultancy, a Turkish private military company, was deployed in the Sahel. It cited the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights as saying that one thousand Syrian personnel who had signed contracts with SADAT were deployed to Niger “to protect Turkish projects and interests.” (SADAT and the Turkish Ministry of National Defense denied these allegations). Africa Defense Forum, a magazine published by US Africa Command, reported that “Turkey said the fighters are in Niger to consult and guard Turkish interests, such as mines.” A deployment to Niger has not been confirmed.

Another report from Jeune Afrique suggested that SADAT had deployed to Mali and trained the country’s military in mid-2024. According to the report, SADAT personnel embedded with elite units loyal to the president and trained them to prevent coups d’état. This has not been verified, but, if accurate, would suggest that Turkey is employing new tools to deepen partnerships and address regimes’ desire for security.

There is also a small body of reporting indicating that Turkey is expanding its overt military presence. In February 2025, Military Africa reported that Chad granted Turkey control of a military base in the city of Abéché. If confirmed, this would be Turkey’s first base in the Sahel. It would also constitute a new element in defense partnerships that, to this point, have largely been driven by Turkish private industry and Sahel states’ demand for military hardware.

So what?

There are some conditions under which cooperating with Turkey could advance US regional objectives. Sahel states need defense assistance to fight a growing terrorist threat, which the United States often cannot provide. Turkish assistance does not face the same legal restrictions and thus fills urgent capability gaps. Turkish aircraft, armored vehicles, and drones improve force mobility and help militaries take the fight to terrorist strongholds. As terrorists expand operations, partnering with Turkey could help regional militaries manage the threat.

Turkey’s growing involvement in the region also presents opportunities to counter US adversaries. Turkish military equipment offers an affordable, high-quality alternative to Chinese or Russian products. In a similar fashion, SADAT could reduce states’ reliance on Russia’s Africa Corps, which has provided training and regime security to Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. SADAT offers a suite of similar services, and its deployment to Mali, if confirmed, would suggest that Mali’s president may be looking to move beyond Russian assistance.

That said, there are also risks in working with Turkey, and Washington must approach any partnership with clear eyes. The United States requires recipients of advanced military equipment to submit to end-use monitoring, but Turkey does not enforce recipients’ compliance with the law of armed conflict in the same manner. Moreover, private military companies operate under different rules of engagement than conventional militaries, underscoring the risks associated with possible SADAT deployments in the Sahel. Turkish defense assistance often comes with fewer asks than US assistance, and the United States may incur reputational harm if it chooses to partner with Turkey.

Partnering with Turkey is not a panacea for declining Western influence either. Ankara oscillates between cooperation and competition with Russia, frustrating European leaders. Turkey has been accused of fueling anti-colonial sentiment in Africa; this once irritated the French president who, in late 2020, alleged that Ankara and Moscow had inflamed anti-French sentiment in Africa. The European Union has since expressed interest in partnering with Turkey to “generate a wide international coalition that can support [the Sahel].” Even so, Turkey’s foreign policy suggests that it may not share the West’s precise goals.

Any partnership with Turkey must be carefully calibrated and closely monitored. Partnership has the potential to advance some US objectives, but it alone cannot resolve the broader challenges posed by terrorism’s dramatic expansion and states’ pivot from the political West. The United States must be prepared to work with Turkey where objectives align, while preserving the capacity and flexibility to act independently in pursuit of its vital interests.

Jordanna Yochai is an analyst whose research examines West African security, with prior experience in the US Department of Defense.

The positions expressed in this article do not reflect the official position of the US Department of Defense. The US Department of Defense does not endorse the views expressed in hyperlinked articles or websites, including any information, products, or services contained therein.

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Stephen Rodriguez in War on the Rocks on the defense industrial paradigm

mpaulhiac — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 19:53:20 +0000

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On July 22, Stephen Rodriguez, senior advisor at Forward Defense, published a piece in War on the Rocks entitled “Titans, Trailblazers, and Translators: Forging a Unified Defense Industrial Paradigm”. Rodriguez, working at the intersection of the defense industrial base and technologies, identifies a growing tension between the two. To address this challenge to enduring national security, he says, the strategic imperative is to “harness the industrial might of the titans, fuse it with the digital velocity of the trailblazers, and leverage the deep integration expertise of the translators.”

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NATO is unprepared for the growing threat posed by Putin’s Russia

Elena Davlikanova, Yevhenii Malik — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 22:02:13 +0000

Ever since Russia began the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, debate has raged over whether Vladimir Putin’s ambitions extend further. Could the Kremlin dictator actually attack NATO? Initially, many were skeptical, but as Russia’s invasion has escalated into the largest European war since World War II, more and more security experts believe that some kind of Russian attack on the NATO alliance is now a realistic possibility.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte recently stated that Russia could mount a military operation against a NATO member state within the next five years. Numerous intelligence services and military officials within the alliance concur. This Russian threat to NATO is helping to spur the largest European rearmament drive since the end of the Cold War. However, increased defense spending alone will not solve Europe’s Putin problem. NATO members must also convince the Kremlin that they have the political will to defend themselves, while urgently updating their military doctrines to reflect the drone-dominated realities of modern warfare.

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Those who question Russia’s ability to attack NATO typically point to the underwhelming performance of the Russian army in Ukraine. They note that the current invasion has exposed the limitations of Putin’s war machine and argue that Russia would have no chance in any direct confrontation with the far more formidable forces of the NATO alliance. This is true enough, but it assumes that Russia’s only option is to launch a conventional war against NATO. In reality, a future Russian attack would be far more likely to employ hybrid warfare tactics or rely on the Kremlin’s rapidly evolving drone warfare capabilities.

One possible scenario would involve a limited Russian cross-border incursion into the Baltics under the pretext of protecting the ethnic Russian population in countries like Estonia or Latvia. The strategic calculation behind such a move would be to test NATO’s resolve, betting that the alliance might avoid a direct military confrontation and instead resort to diplomacy. If the alliance chose not to respond militarily, it would seriously undermine the credibility of NATO’s core commitment to collective defense.

This outcome looks all too plausible when considered in the context of Russia’s recent ability to intimidate NATO countries and limit Western military support for Ukraine. The West’s excessive caution since 2022 has already emboldened Putin, encouraging him to escalate the invasion of Ukraine and expand his territorial demands. Crucially, this Western weakness may also have convinced Putin that Russia’s enemies lack the requisite resolve for a direct military confrontation and will always ultimately back down.

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Russia’s overwhelming current advantage in drone manufacturing is another key factor that may persuade Putin to move against NATO sooner rather than later. Over the past three years, Russia has built up an extensive domestic drone industry that is now producing thousands of units each month. This is already evident in Ukraine, with nightly bombardments involving more than 500 drones becoming a routine feature of the war. Russian drones are also undergoing constant technological upgrades to become deadlier and more difficult to intercept.

In contrast, NATO nations lag far behind. Drone production across the alliance remains fragmented. Meanwhile, the drones that are available are often outdated and poorly integrated into broader military structures. Unlike Ukraine and Russia, no European army has established a dedicated unmanned aerial force component. Instead, major NATO exercises still tend to treat drones as tactical novelties rather than the decisive weapons of the modern battlefield. While the rapid rise of drone warfare is no secret, it would certainly seem that many NATO commanders have not yet fully digested the lessons of the Russia-Ukraine War.

The situation in terms of missile production is similar. While Western output is still extremely modest, Russia is now able to produce hundreds of ballistic and cruise missiles every month. Increasingly, Russian rockets feature new modifications that allow them to evade Western air defense technologies such as the Patriot system. These dramatic advances in Russia’s drone and missile arsenal give the Kremlin a significant edge over NATO that Moscow may wish to exploit before the gap closes.

Putin is also likely to view the current geopolitical climate as being exceptionally favorable for Russia. US President Donald Trump has raised serious questions over his readiness to defend America’s NATO allies. Other members of the alliance are cranking up defense spending, but the process still lacks a sense of urgency. While Baltic and Nordic countries are taking important steps like withdrawing from earlier treaties banning the use of anti-personnel mines and digging defensive trench networks close to the Russian border, these efforts are relatively isolated.

A conventional armed conflict between Russia and NATO remains unlikely, but the Kremlin can choose from a range of options that stop short of full-scale war while serving Russian interests. At present, Russia’s objective is not seizing NATO territory but causing the collapse of the alliance. This can be achieved by taking advantage of NATO’s reluctance to risk war with Russia, and by capitalizing on the alliance’s slow response to the growing dominance of drone warfare. The Kremlin can also easily escalate its existing hybrid war against the West including cyber attacks, information offensives, sabotage operations, and targeted assassinations.

By defending itself so effectively against Russia’s invasion, Ukraine has already bought NATO precious time. Looking ahead, the Ukrainian military can play a key role in bolstering European security thanks to the country’s unrivaled experience of modern drone warfare and other military innovations. However, Kyiv cannot instill the necessary political will in European capitals or convince Ukraine’s allies to treat the Russian threat with the seriousness it deserves. That must come from Western leaders themselves.

Elena Davlikanova is a senior fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis and Sahaidachny Security Center. Yevhenii Malik is a veteran of the Ukrainian Army’s 36th Marine Brigade.

Ukraine’s recovery cannot wait until Russia’s invasion is over

Anna Morgan — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 13:20:57 +0000

There was something slightly surreal about attending the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome on July 10-11 and talking about reconstruction while my hometown, Kyiv, and many other Ukrainian cities were under relentless Russian bombardment. This jarring reality has helped fuel a degree of scepticism toward the entire concept of staging a recovery conference in the midst of a full-scale war. Some of the criticism aimed at the URC is valid, but much of the negativity misses the bigger picture.

The 2025 URC event was the largest so far in terms of participants and featured solid high-level representation, with national leaders including Georgia Meloni, Friedrich Merz, Pedro Sanchez, Donald Tusk, Maia Sandu, and Petr Pavel among the speakers. All reiterated their backing for the Ukrainian war effort and their support for Ukraine’s EU membership bid. Dozens of agreements were signed pledging international aid and investment.

The size of this year’s conference was particularly significant. Over 6,000 delegates spent two days making connections, sharing experiences, finding new partners, or simply expanding the community of people interested in making Ukraine a success story.

In just two days, I met a wide range of people engaged in efforts to build a better Ukraine. This included Ukrainian veterans leading rehabilitation initiatives, charities expanding their operations in Ukraine, American business owners trying to bring green energy facilities to Ukraine, and Ukrainian architects designing underground shelters. Many law firms were present, offering advice to companies seeking to enter the Ukrainian market. New relationships established in Rome could end up bringing a wide range of benefits to Ukraine.

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The scale of destruction and trauma in today’s Ukraine is daunting. Dozens of towns and cities lie in ruins. Millions have been forced to flee their homes. Every fifth person is a veteran or has a family member who has served in the armed forces, while between 30 and 50 percent of the Ukrainian population require mental health support. Addressing these unprecedented challenges will require huge effort and bold solutions.

Clearly, the top priority is to defend Ukraine and prevent further destruction and loss of life. For the first time, this year’s conference featured a focus on military issues including defense tech innovation and investment in key areas such as drone production. Many participants reiterated that Europe as a whole cannot be truly secure without Ukrainian victory.

Europeans are also increasingly acknowledging the need to learn from Ukraine as they look to defend themselves against the mounting threat posed by Russia. Slowly but surely, the rhetoric is shifting away from humanitarian support for Ukraine as a country under attack, toward recognition of the need to invest in Ukraine as a country that will play a vital role in the future of European security. This change in tone was on full display in Rome.

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Not everything about this year’s conference was ideal. The event would benefit from an extended schedule lasting more than two days. It would also help to have fewer overlapping sessions. The current format meant impressive initiatives often only received a few minutes of attention. Meanwhile, lack of audience interaction felt like a missed opportunity given the thousands of well-informed and experienced professionals in attendance from a diverse range of sectors and different countries.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of this year’s conference was the human dimension. Key themes included the return of refugees, engagement with the Ukrainian diaspora, integration of internally displaced people, and the need for Ukrainian society to prepare for the eventual reintegration of hundreds of thousands of military veterans. Participants also discussed labor shortages and investment in Ukraine’s education system.

My overall conviction is that the Ukraine Recovery Conference has immense value in strengthening Ukraine today and shaping the country’s future. Russia is trying to destroy Ukraine by inflicting death by a thousand cuts. “We need to find 1000 partnerships that will allow Ukraine to persevere in this war of attrition, achieve technological and strategic breakthroughs, and ultimately win this war,” noted my Chatham House colleague Orysia Lutsevych. The URC format can help do just that.

Supporting Ukraine’s wartime recovery and reconstruction is a good way to boost resilience by giving Ukrainians a greater sense of confidence in the future. Crucially, this approach also helps provide urgently needed practical support in a timely fashion. Neither Ukraine nor the country’s partners can afford to wait until the war is over before addressing the many profound security, economic, and social issues arising from Russia’s invasion. The Ukraine Recovery Conference is the best tool to facilitate this process.

Anna Morgan is manager of the Ukraine Forum at Chatham House.

In the Indo-Pacific, US defense industrial partnerships go much deeper than AUKUS submarines

Adam Kozloski, Markus Garlauskas — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 19:15:18 +0000

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This week, Australian and US forces began Talisman Sabre, a major biennial military exercise that sends a powerful message of the two countries’ resolute bilateral ties and joint capabilities. This year’s iteration is being described as the “largest and most sophisticated war fighting exercise ever conducted in Australia,” involving some 35,000 personnel. The successful completion of this major, three-week exercise will hopefully alleviate some of the anxiety that has built up following the US Department of Defense’s recent decision to review the defense industry pact among Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, known as AUKUS.

Much of this anxiety was misplaced in the first place. The US review is not the alliance-busting event that some have portrayed it as. Far from it. It is reasonable and expected that a new US administration would review such an agreement, and it is something that new governments in both the United Kingdom and Australia have also completed. Moreover, the review of AUKUS should be understood as just one part of a larger US effort to accelerate and refine defense industry cooperation to meet shared security goals in the Indo-Pacific.

What else is included in this larger US effort? In a speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in May, for example, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced the first tranche of Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience (PIPIR) projects. It was a decisive move toward deepening US-led defense industrial base cooperation—within the administration’s “America first” framework—to counter China’s looming threat. PIPIR and AUKUS, if employed properly, will be powerful tools to achieve the Trump administration’s vision of ensuring US deterrence against aggression in the Indo-Pacific.

AUKUS: The submarines aren’t the only substance

The first problem is that the AUKUS pact is widely misunderstood. It is not a new trilateral “alliance.” AUKUS does not, for instance, involve new commitments on the use of military force. Nor is it a political coalition, like the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue made up of Australia, India, Japan and the United States. Further, despite the focus of recent media coverage, AUKUS is not just about a new submarine sales deal that cut France out of selling diesel submarines to Australia. AUKUS has two “pillars,” both of which hold important benefits for the United States and particularly its Indo-Pacific Command.

Pillar I is about developing nuclear-powered, but nonnuclear armed, attack submarine capability operating out of Australia. This has already started, with Australians training on nuclear submarine technology with US and UK counterparts, and with US submarines making more port calls at Perth in Western Australia. The next major milestone will be in 2027, when Submarine Rotational Force-West will be established at Perth, initially with US and UK submarines. Then, in the early 2030s, the United States will sell Australia Virginia-class submarines as an interim measure while Australia develops its own nuclear submarine production capability. By the early 2040s, Australia will be building and operating its own subs of the new SSN-AUKUS class, an Australia-UK-US design.

However, concerns are rising that the US industrial base may not be able to produce enough Virginia-class submarines to provide for both Australian and US requirements for Pillar I. Since 2022, the United States has only been able to produce 1.2 Virginia-class submarines a year. It has not reached the targeted procurement rate of two new submarines per year, much less the 2.33 production rate required to provide submarines to Australia. While the US Congress and the Australian government have directed billions of dollars to defense industrial base investments, reaching this production rate in the next few years is a herculean task. However, in the interim, even if Pillar I only results in US and UK attack submarines operating out of Western Australia—much closer to the key flashpoints of the Taiwan Strait and the West Philippine Sea—then it has had a meaningful impact.

AUKUS Pillar II, meanwhile, is a much broader effort at defense industrial cooperation in a range of important areas. This includes long-range fires, quantum computing, unmanned underwater vehicles, electronic warfare capabilities, and artificial intelligence, pooling the advanced research efforts of all three countries to deliver new capabilities in the short term. These baskets of capability are not as simple and powerfully symbolic as new nuclear subs, but they are very important. In fact, there’s a strong argument that the focus and funds for AUKUS should shift away from the signature submarine programs to build out these new systems right away. Further, unlike Pillar I, Pillar II has a real prospect of including additional regional allies in specific Pillar II projects beyond the original three partners. Unlike AUKUS Pillar I, which has hard production limitations focused on a very expensive platform type with a long production timeline, Pillar II is bearing fruit quickly. One example of an AUKUS Pillar II capability is the imminent deployment of a “trilateral algorithm” to share classified information from P-8 sonobuoys across each country’s systems, increasing the range and maritime domain awareness of allied anti-submarine warfare efforts.

PIPIR: Leveraging regional US partnerships

PIPIR is less prominent than AUKUS, but it is more expansive and may prove to be even more important. Since its founding in May 2024, PIPIR has evolved from an agreed-upon concept to a plan of action in recent weeks. Announced in late May, the first set of marquee projects shows how the United States looks across the region at opportunities to save taxpayer money and improve US sustainment capability. For example, one new project aims to “establish repair capability and capacity for P-8 radar systems in Australia.” The P-8 is a critical aircraft for anti-submarine warfare and for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. Currently, repair efforts on the radar system are limited to the continental United States. The ability to repair both US and partner P-8 radar systems out of range of most China’s missiles will enhance both deterrence and sustainment capabilities in the event of a conflict.

Another new project involves identifying standards for small unmanned aerial systems and secure supply chains for production. Currently, China controls nearly 90 percent of the commercial drone market, and the Department of Defense’s innovation unit claims that “China could shut [the drone industry] down globally for a year.” Efforts to build ally and partner supply chains are essential for deterrence and lethality. The commander of US Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral Samuel Paparo, has continued to emphasize the importance of the “Hellscape” concept of massed unmanned systems to fight China. This new PIPIR project will help buttress the Department of Defense’s Replicator Initiative to ensure “Hellscape” is a credible option that is truly free of Chinese components.

Other PIPIR efforts include expanding in-theater ship repair, cooperation with Australia to produce artillery shells and guided missiles, and even coproduction with India on “equipment needed to deter aggression.” Hegseth’s public release of these projects indicates that partners and allies in the region are confident about PIPIR and the United States’ commitment to its success, with likely even more cooperation occurring behind closed doors.

The way forward

Together, PIPIR and AUKUS Pillar II could prove to be vital to deterrence and defense in the Indo-Pacific. While diplomatic messages and military exercises are immediate, visible, and necessary to shore up deterrence in the near term, aligning defense on industrial capabilities to match China’s massive armament program is the more important strategic move for the years ahead. The US Navy has acknowledged that China has 230 times more shipbuilding capacity than the United States. To provide both a qualitative and quantitative response to China’s push to become a “world class” military power, the need for the United States to integrate the industrial capacity and comparative technological advantages of allies and partners in the region has never been greater. Pitting the US defense industry against China’s without the help of Washington’s allies and partners, is a recipe for the failure of deterrence and, perhaps, catastrophic defeat. As US President Donald Trump has put it in the past, “America first does not mean America alone.”

Further defense industrial cooperation and integration can yield immense and local benefits for the US warfighter. However, these benefits must be carefully balanced with the need to ensure that the US government is not replacing US capacity and jobs with foreign ones to cut costs and speed up timelines. The Trump administration’s recently announced review of AUKUS, and its likely already completed review of PIPIR, under an “America first” framework, will be critical to mitigating this risk. A revitalized AUKUS and PIPIR model can create coproduction and cooperative models, allowing the United States to bring its strengths to the table. The better the United States can work with its regional partners on munitions and systems of mutual use, such as addressing the meager supply of 155mm artillery shells, the more effectively Washington can equip its warfighters to deter, and if necessary, win a prolonged war.

As the Trump administration prepares a national security strategy to help restore US greatness, regional defense industrial base partnerships must play a central role in restoring domestic manufacturing and increasing US lethality and deterrence. The early successes of AUKUS Pillar II and the announcement of marquee PIPIR projects have built a solid foundation for what should be an even more ambitious program of integration and cooperation.

Adam Kozloski is a nonresident senior fellow at the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and at the N7 Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. He previously served as an aide in the United States Senate, supporting Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committee members, including as Senator Joni Ernst’s foreign policy advisor.

Markus Garlauskas is the director of the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, leading the Council’s Tiger Project on War and Deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. He is a former senior US government official with two decades of service as an intelligence officer and strategist, including twelve years stationed overseas in the region. He posts as @Mister_G_2 on X.

The Tiger Project, an Atlantic Council effort, develops new insights and actionable recommendations for the United States, as well as its allies and partners, to deter and counter aggression in the Indo-Pacific. Explore our collection of work, including expert commentary, multimedia content, and in-depth analysis, on strategic defense and deterrence issues in the region.

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Russia’s bombing campaign is killing record numbers of Ukrainian civilians

Peter Dickinson — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 10:33:17 +0000

As Russia’s bombing campaign against Ukrainian cities continues to intensify, the civilian death toll is rapidly rising. June 2025 saw the highest monthly casualties among the Ukrainian civilian population in more than three years, according to new data from the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. Losses included 232 deaths with a further 1343 Ukrainians injured, UN officials reported.

This sharp rise in Ukrainian civilian casualties is the result of a Russian air offensive that has expanded dramatically in scope since late 2024. During June, the number of drones and missiles launched at Ukrainian targets was ten times higher than the volume one year earlier.

“Civilians across Ukraine are facing levels of suffering we have not seen in over three years,” commented UN Monitoring Mission head Danielle Bell. “The surge in long-range missile and drone strikes across the country has brought even more death and destruction to civilians far away from the frontline.”

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The trend of increasingly deadly Russian bombardments continues to gain momentum at an alarming rate with a series of record-breaking aerial attacks in early July, each featuring more than 500 drones along with cruise and ballistic missiles. Based on the current trajectory, analysts warn that Russia will soon be able to conduct regular bombing raids involving in excess of 1000 drones.

Russia has managed to increase the scale of its bombing operations thanks to progress made since 2023 in the domestic production of drones. During the first year of the full-scale invasion, Iran supplied Russia with the long-range Shahed drones used to bomb Ukraine. Moscow has since reduced its reliance on the Iranians by securing the necessary Shahed drone blueprints from Tehran and establishing production lines inside the Russian Federation.

A growing number of dedicated Russian facilities are now manufacturing thousands of drones each month for the invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin has reportedly imported laborers from a number of Asian and African countries to bolster the workforce in these factories. China has also been accused of providing vital components in large quantities.

In addition to ongoing increases in output, Russia has also introduced a series of upgrades to Iran’s Shahed drones. The most recent models are faster and able to operate at higher altitudes, making them significantly more difficult to intercept. They are equipped with video cameras and in some cases utilize AI technologies, paving the way for autonomous flight operation and target selection. Crucially, the new generation of Russian bomber drones can also carry much larger warheads, leading to far greater destruction and loss of life.

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The escalation in Russia’s air war comes as Putin’s army struggles to make progress on the ground while suffering catastrophic losses. The Russian military has held the battlefield initiative since early 2024, but has managed to seize less than one percent of additional Ukrainian territory during this period, raising doubts over Putin’s ability to achieve his maximalist war aims. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently reported that the Russian army had lost over 100,000 soldiers during the first half of 2025 alone.

With no sign of an imminent breakthrough along the frontlines of the war, Putin’s bombardment strategy appears aimed at terrorizing the Ukrainian civilian population and undermining the country’s will to resist. The US-based Institute for the Study of War recently assessed that Russia’s ongoing large-scale air strikes seek to degrade Ukrainian and Western morale while underscoring Ukraine’s need for continued Western support.

Ukrainian officials have reached similar conclusions regarding the Kremlin’s intentions. “The Russians are intensifying terror against cities and communities to increasingly intimidate our people,” commented Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on July 13. “Russian terror against the rear is an attempt to break the nation,” stated Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office. “Russia can’t achieve Putin’s goals on the frontline, so it keeps targeting civilians.”

The recent geographical expansion of Russia’s nightly bombing raids certainly seems to support these claims and appears designed to demoralize the entire Ukrainian population by sending a message that nowhere in Ukraine is now safe. Key targets in early July included cities in western Ukraine that had little previous experience of major bombardment such as Lutsk and Chernivtsi.

Ukraine is now seeking to address Russia’s terror bombing strategy with a combination of technological innovation, expanded military capabilities, and increased Western support. While additional air defense systems like US-made Patriots are a priority, Kyiv is developing and testing its own domestically produced interceptor drones as the most cost-effective way to combat Russia’s massive drone raids.

Long-range weapons are also vital as Ukraine seeks to strike back. Some commentators believe Ukraine can never have enough air defenses to neutralize the threat posed by Russia’s ever-expanding bombardments. They argue that the only way to stop Putin from bombing Ukrainian cities is by boosting Ukraine’s ability to hit targets deep inside Russia including production facilities and launch sites.

With Putin’s war machine cranking out missiles and drones in even greater quantities, larger Russian raids in the coming months are inevitable. The Ukrainian authorities must urgently come up with effective solutions before the civilian death toll rises further. Putin appears to believe he can bomb Ukraine into submission. While there is currently no indication that the civilian population is approaching breaking point, the horror of Russia’s increasingly deadly air raids is weighing heavy on the war-weary nation.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Aerial drones are only part of Ukraine’s expanding unmanned arsenal. The Ukrainian military uses ground drones to storm enemy trenches, deliver supplies to the front lines, and evacuate wounded soldiers from hot spots. At sea, Ukrainian marine drones have forced the Russian Black Sea Fleet to abandon its home base in Russian-occupied Crimea. Remarkably, Ukrainian marine drones armed with missiles have also reportedly managed to destroy Russian helicopters and fighter jets. Together, these air, land, and sea drones are able to threaten every part of Putin’s war machine.

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So far, drones have helped Ukraine to hold the line against Russia’s invasion. But holding is not winning. Meanwhile, the Kremlin is catching up. Indeed, rapidly growing domestic production of Shaheds and unjammable fiber optic drones have recently allowed Russia to seize the initiative from Ukraine in the drone war. In order to reverse this trend and open up a pathway toward ending Russia’s invasion, Kyiv’s Western partners must help Ukraine dramatically scale up drone production.

This year, Ukraine aims to produce around four million drones of all types, more than double last year’s total. Partner countries also plan to expand deliveries. A twenty-nation Drone Coalition co-chaired by Latvia and the UK has pledged €2.75 billion to supply an additional one million drones in 2025. However, progress has been slow as members rely on their own limited drone production capabilities.

The so-called Danish model of military aid offers a faster and more cost-effective alternative. Under this approach, Copenhagen pools donor funds, including windfall interest from frozen Russian assets, to procure drones and other military equipment directly from Ukrainian manufacturers. Total disbursements via this streamlined pipeline are expected to reach €1.5 billion in 2025.

Even if Kyiv and Western partners meet their current targets, overall output of around five million drones is only half the annual total necessary to shift the battlefield balance in Ukraine’s favor. With ten million drones per year, Ukraine could maximize the power of drone swarms to overwhelm Russia’s air defenses and knock out supply lines faster than Moscow could patch them up. This could realistically alter the course of the war and force Putin to retreat.

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Ukraine’s drone industry has already demonstrated that it can scale up production quickly and cheaply. What started as garage tinkering using mostly Chinese-imported parts has evolved into a robust industry relying primarily on domestic and Western components. For several years, Ukraine has been mass-producing drones that rival Western models in effectiveness at a fraction of the cost.

Innovation cycles are equally impressive. Thanks to rapid battlefield feedback and streamlined procurement, Ukraine’s agile approach to innovation easily surpasses the far slower development cycles in the West. New drone variants roll off production lines in weeks rather than months. Airframes produced by industrial-grade 3D printers enable rapid prototyping and redesign without costly retooling.

Ukrainian officials have repeatedly stressed that the country has the spare capacity to produce drones in far greater numbers. They estimate that scaling up drone production from current levels to ten million units per year is realistic but would require an additional €10 billion over two years. To meet that goal, Ukraine’s allies should launch a dedicated drone initiative.

This initiative would draw on the Danish model, with funding for Ukrainian drone production coming from a variety of sources including bilateral grants, windfall interest from frozen Russian assets, and low-interest loans from the EU’s SAFE instrument, which aims to bolster Europe’s defense-related industrial capacity. Most orders would flow directly to Ukraine’s drone manufacturers, significantly reducing costs, cutting delivery times, and minimizing logistical risks.

In parallel, the EU should rapidly establish a unified defense market that includes Ukraine. This means integrating Kyiv into the European innovation ecosystem and fostering collaboration between Western industry and Ukraine’s vibrant defense tech ecosystem. Ukrainian drone producers would gain from European orders and investments, while the EU would benefit from Ukraine’s battle-tested technologies, production capacity, and agile innovation mindset. Strengthening Ukraine as an allied drone superpower is clearly a strategic investment in the continent’s long-term security.

History shows that transformative technologies define entire eras of warfare. Artillery was the decisive weapon during World War I, while tanks, combined with air power, ruled the battlefield a generation later in World War II. The 1991 Gulf War marked the next leap: The ascendancy of precision-guided air power.

Today, the dominance of drones is rewriting military doctrine and looks set to shape conflicts for years to come. Ukraine has the technology, talent, and industrial potential to prevail in the war with Russia, but currently lacks the funding to scale drone production to the necessary levels.

Failure to act now will prolong the war in Ukraine, erode Western security, and embolden autocrats worldwide. The stakes have never been higher; the solution has rarely been clearer. The young Ukrainian drone operators in that dimly lit command room understand this very well. Ukraine’s Western partners must now also grasp the new military realities. By funding a massive Ukrainian drone surge, they can thwart Russia’s invasion and safeguard Europe.

Mark Boris Andrijanič is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a member of the Governing Board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, and a former Minister for Digital Transformation of Slovenia.

Ukraine can benefit from growing tech ties between Gulf states and the US

Anatoly Motkin — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 14:38:11 +0000

The recent conflict between Israel and Iran has shaken Middle Eastern security assumptions and set the stage for new strategic alignments across the region. Amid escalating threats and shifting power dynamics, the United States and Gulf nations have moved swiftly to fortify a different kind of alliance; one anchored not in oil prices or arms sales, but in cooperation to develop and implement cutting-edge technologies.

This emerging US-Gulf tech partnership is not only a response to regional instability, but also a platform for global influence. For Ukraine, it presents a strategically exciting opportunity to deepen engagement with both Washington and the Gulf nations, while also advancing the country’s own recovery and integration into established international innovation networks.

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The Gulf’s recalibration following the unprecedented recent escalation in hostilities between Israel and Iran has reinforced the urgency of technological self-sufficiency and digital resilience. From Riyadh to Abu Dhabi, national strategies such as Saudi Vision 2030 and the UAE’s AI agenda are gaining new importance.

The United States, meanwhile, is seeking reliable partners to counter the rise of authoritarian tech ecosystems led by China, Russia, and Iran. These converging interests are creating a new basis for cooperation that is focused on issues such as semiconductors, AI, cybersecurity, energy transition, and space innovation.

The current shift has potentially long-lasting geopolitical implications. In contrast to China’s closed and tightly state-controlled tech model, the US-Gulf partnership emphasizes transparency, interoperability, and market access.

The Gulf’s geographic position and capital resources make it an ideal hub for restructured supply chains and next-generation infrastructure. In this context, the recent Israel-Iran conflict has served as both catalyst and justification for deeper American-Gulf integration, particularly in terms of dual-use technologies with civilian and defense applications.

For Ukraine, the relevance of this rapidly evolving geopolitical landscape is immediate and multi-dimensional. Ukrainian battlefield-tested technologies in electronic warfare, counter-drone systems, and cyber defense all directly address the concerns of Gulf nations regarding growing regional threats.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s agritech innovation can support Gulf food security strategies in what are increasingly arid environments. The country’s globally respected software talent and cybersecurity expertize can also offer value to American firms operating in the Gulf.

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