OPINION — Driving through the snow blanketed woods next to a frozen lake I see the first sign of life, smoke rising from the chimney of an old wood hunting lodge. Inside, I meet a group of Ukrainian soldiers, some cooking, some cleaning, and others chopping wood, taking a well-deserved break from the front.
In the wood-paneled dining room, with the glass eyes of squirrels, deer, and other critters peering down from their frozen poses, past the pictures of club members of bygone years showing off their trophies, stands a well-lit but worn-out desk. A bright desk light spotlighting a soldering station, constantly at work, assembling the next iteration of first-person-view (FPV) drones for when the unit goes back to the front.
But these drones look different, armed with two thickly curled wires that resemble horns in front, a manual trigger in lieu of a remote, meant to close a circuit when the drone slams into its target at speed, triggering an explosive blast. Another small change in a war characterized by innovation.
The rapid innovation cycle taking place in the war in Ukraine is changing how war is fought, reviving the efficacy of old technologies like trenches, artillery, and mines through new innovations, pushing governments and their industrial policies that will ultimately decide this conflict and those in the future.
Drones showcase the bleeding edge of the rapid innovation cycle, with new iterations and types flooding the front lines and beyond. The latest FPV drones cost about $300 and, as soldiers on both sides know, bring a disproportionate and accurate amount of danger. Drones, coupled with their innovations, not only provide constant observation, but precise target engagement with the impact of somewhere between a mortar shell to a GPS-guided rocket. These armed kamikaze drones rain in precision explosive capabilities as long as they’re not jammed by countermeasures or taken out by shotguns.
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Moscow, forced to respond to the massive flood of drones along the front lines, has focused its targeting on drone pilots, relying on their own electronic warfare (EW) sensors to determine the pilot’s location, forcing Ukrainians to mask their locations through signal repeaters and false radio emitters. Russians and Ukrainians alike are also flooding the lines with tools and technology aimed to disrupt signals between pilot and drone. A race of countermeasures and counter-countermeasures is taking place, showcasing Russian and Ukrainian strengths and pitfalls with their respective industrial policies.
This is an industrial policy race in which Russia’s centralized government has some critical advantages. They find what works and scale the production rapidly, providing their troops the tools that are needed for success.
Reports have indicated the arrival of a wave of highly resistant jamming antennas installed on a variety of Russian drones that receive software updates every few months. Moscow is also mass-producing vehicle mounted jammers, like ones used in presidential motorcades, providing a half-mile bubble of EW protection for their vehicles, enough time to detect and swerve away from flying drones set on collision trajectories.
Russian’s innovation however, depends on centralized government support, something that can hamper creative and effective solutions and place the onus on a few bureaucrats and commanders to choose the most promising technologies.
Ukraine on the other hand, has the opposite problem. From the onset of the war, hundreds of startups have formed, from workshops to factories, delivering solutions to the warfighter, and this is where the cycle of innovation is optimized.
Soldiers all along the front send Telegram and Signal messages back to the factories, giving near instant feedback to the novel innovation on the next drone or software tool. But with all these cycles occurring in parallel, the rapid innovation loses its advantage in scaling at speed.
The advantages gained in this parallel innovation cycle are hard to scale – especially amongst commercial entities, where collaboration does exist (as the competition is not each other but Russia). Ukraine struggles to track, scale, and deploy effective solutions at a pace necessary to provide a critical advantage on the battlefield.
Moscow now observes and identifies Ukrainian innovations and scales countermeasures faster and more effectively than Ukraine can, so by the time Ukraine’s technologies appear at scale along the front, Russia has already deployed countermeasures. Ukraine has tried to make inroads to support this now well-established innovation ecosystem, but still falls short due to bureaucratic red tape and a lack of long-term economic support and security.
So, what comes next?
The war in Ukraine will likely end in a negotiation somewhere, but the lines that will be drawn will be determined by the ability of the combatants to innovate effectively and scale faster than the other, exploiting their fleeting technical advantage.
And who will ultimately gain the most?
Ukraine, where almost all of the technical innovation is undertaken, seeding what could be a robust defense industry? Or Russia, which brings their most effective solutions to scale the quickest, capitalizing on gains and ultimately enlarging already large borders through land grabs?
The United States, with the lack of a robust government presence in Ukraine, seems to be viewing the war from afar but are they institutionalizing the lessons learned within its own military? Or China, who produces the vast majority of components and supplies being used by either side all while buying discounted gas from Russia and Ukrainian grain?
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