How to recover from drone deficiency

They say Moscow’s capabilities in various segments of the UAV sector are growing very quickly, while we do not see such growth.

And this is just the beginning. As is known, the Russians plan to fight us for decades. Currently, Russia’s strategy focuses on destroying energy, transport infrastructure, large and even medium-sized enterprises. The thousand Shaheds per day predicted by The Economist is not just about the front lines but more about the rear. The economy in the rear is increasingly under fire, and holding the front will become harder.

What to do?

The answer is very simple and obvious. The technological war will be won by large manufacturers and big development teams. And large manufacturing and development is the competence of big business.

In Russia, the state and government-linked big business have united to create large-scale production facilities and numerous engineering teams. Huge productions have been established on a scale unseen in Ukraine — for example, today this is hundreds of Shaheds daily or thousands of drones over fiber optics.

In Ukraine, everything is different. Here, drone production is mostly carried out by small-scale private companies and the army itself.

In any case, this is often at the level of garage production. Dreaming of technological breakthroughs (for example, more functional fiber optics, laser guidance systems, or products at the level of Mavic 3) under such conditions is difficult.

Big business — only it can handle the task of winning the arms race. Who else but big business has the competence to push the state where it needs to go?

First, it is big business that suffers, and will suffer more and more from Russian drone attacks. For example, owners of port infrastructure, oil depots, or grain storage facilities should have already gathered and organized/financed the work on creating Shahed interceptors two years ago. This would have saved them and us hundreds of millions of dollars.

Second, big business has the best personnel — managers experienced in deploying large-scale manufacturing and organizing technological consortia for developing and integrating necessary solutions.

Big business must unite and organize a military-technological command. Involve the largest volunteer foundations, government institutions, and military representatives. Ultimately, develop a program for the drone industry’s development — a plan on which technologies we intend to dominate the airspace and thus win the war in the coming years.

Business should form a technological command, and not so much cover the problem with their money as properly organize the process. Basically, developments do not necessarily require exorbitant funds — what matters more is systematic work on priorities and division of roles. As for production, significant resources are already allocated by the state and partners — the important thing is that these are spent effectively.

The Russians are very serious — they will try to destroy us to the root. Therefore, owners of the country’s largest assets must not give up and actively engage in their salvation, because right now, the competencies of big business are the most needed in this technology war.

Consider this my petition to Ukrainian top corporations.

Source

About the author: Ihor Lutsenko, journalist, Ukrainian Armed Forces serviceman.

The editorial board does not always share the views expressed by blog authors.