THIBAUD MORITZ/AFP via Getty Images
- NATO needs cheaper air defenses that can be mass-produced, a top commander told Business Insider.His comments came after fighter jets shot down Russian drones that violated NATO airspace.The incident added urgency to a push to field cost-effective defenses.
Russia's swelling drone threat has NATO scrambling for new defenses cheaper than missiles and jets — and deployable at scale, a top alliance commander told Business Insider.
Adm. Pierre Vandier, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, who oversees modernization efforts, said that the alliance is building something like a Walmart of counter-drone capabilities for member states.
One of the promising solutions being tested is a new interceptor drone, which costs roughly the same as its Russian target and is less expensive than a missile launched from a fighter jet, he said.
"We need to find a mass versus mass solution," Vandier said. "We are working on that, and the goal I've given to my team is a cost-efficient solution in order to match the threat."
His comments came just weeks after Russian drones violated Polish airspace during a large-scale attack against Ukraine. Dutch F-35 stealth fighter jets shot down a number of the drones, likely using air-to-air missiles worth several hundred thousand dollars on the low end, significantly more than the target.
The early September incident, widely condemned across Europe, immediately raised questions about NATO air defenses and the cost-efficiency of using fighter jets and missiles to shoot down cheap drones worth just tens of thousands of dollars.
It's a problem that Ukraine is facing nightly, with its soldiers tasked to protect cities from swarms of dozens or hundreds of Russian drones. Air defenders rely on truck-mounted machine guns, helicopters, self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, and other tools to blast threats out of the sky.
Dutch Ministry of Defense
Vandier described the Russian drone threat as industrial in scale. The country produces around 4,000 a month at its factories, and Western intelligence has warned that Moscow could soon be able to expand its attacks against Ukraine from hundreds of drones a night to thousands.
Several European officials said the recent drone incursion into Polish airspace was a test of NATO and a probe of its air defenses. The alliance's existing air defense network is mainly focused on targeting expensive and complex threats, such as fighter aircraft or missiles, not cheap drones.
Days after the incursion, NATO allies — including Denmark, France, Germany, and the UK — committed to sending additional fighters and a warship to participate in a new mission to defend the alliance's eastern edge.
Almost immediately after that new Eastern Sentry mission began, fighter jets were scrambled to intercept a Russian drone that had violated Romanian airspace. The responding pilots did not shoot it down, and the drone eventually headed back toward Ukraine.
Using a $1 million missile is fine if it's taking down an $80 million jet, Vandier said. But the ability to mass drones in large-scale attacks has created new complications for NATO, as it had done for Ukraine.
NATO was already testing solutions to counter threats like Russia's Geran-2, a one-way attack munition used frequently against Ukraine, that can be cheap and mass-produced. The incursions into NATO airspace last month have, however, added a fresh sense of urgency to these efforts.
One solution that NATO is eyeing right now is autonomous interceptor drones carrying explosive warheads that can hunt down enemy drones and slam into them. The expectation is for the interceptor drone to cost roughly the same as its target — $20,000 to 40,000 — and have a one-to-one kill ratio, or one interceptor per target.
Les Kasyanov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
Vandier said that the interceptor drones need to be produced in large numbers and quickly. First, though, this tech must endure another round of testing later this month before they are presented to NATO allies. Then, it becomes a question of which countries buy the systems and how many are deployed.
"Speed is paramount," Vandier said. NATO countries need something that they can field within weeks or months, not years or decades. Developing this tech is not one and done, though. One of the challenges that Ukraine has had to contend with is that drone technology and tactics are constantly adapting.
"Drones and software change in a matter of weeks," Vandier said. "That means that you don't have a magic bullet that will work for the next 10 years. That means that you need to constantly update. The enemy is updating."
Interceptor drones are not the only solution NATO is looking at; the alliance has also tested radars that can predict trajectories and a wall of small drones to act as a last-resort shield against incoming munitions. And Vandier said directed energy weapons, which use high-power lasers or microwaves, are also under consideration.
NATO militaries do have counter-drone capabilities, and a number of them deployed personnel and systems to Denmark ahead of the European summits this week after the country was forced to temporarily close some of its airports due to drone sightings. However, leadership says more solutions are still needed.
Since the Russian drone incursion into Polish airspace in September, NATO has cast a wider net and expanded its search for more systems. Vandier said the alliance is putting together a "catalogue of solutions" for member states to then browse and purchase for their militaries.
"We are building sort of a c-UAS Walmart," he said, using the term for counter-unmanned aerial systems. "Given the rapid evolution of the threat, the more solutions you have, the more resilience you have, because some solutions may be good today and obsolete tomorrow."
