Why speed is becoming the new defence advantage

Defence institutions are struggling to adapt to the pace of modern warfare

A Ukrainian soldier, wearing a virtual-reality headset, guides a drone along a rural road. On his screen, a Russian soldier runs, turns and fires his rifle. The shot misses. The drone closes in. The image goes dark on impact.

Before Russia invaded in 2022, only a handful of Ukrainian companies made drones. Now, hundreds do, producing tens of thousands each month. In Ukraine, small companies compress development cycles from years to weeks. Using relatively cheap systems (hundreds or thousands of dollars for a drone, compared with millions for a tank), they test in combat, iterate quickly and outperform expensive platforms built for another era.

Modern war rewards speed in design, production and deployment. Military advantage increasingly depends on the ability to learn, adapt and field new capabilities faster than an adversary. That does not mean the disappearance of high-end systems. Modern defence increasingly requires two tracks at once: smaller numbers of advanced platforms alongside larger volumes of cheaper, expendable and rapidly replaceable systems.

“War has this way of clarifying what's necessary.”

Condoleezza Rice, 66th US secretary of state

Built for another era

America faces its own test of speed and adaptability. Its procurement system works differently: decisions often take years, and oversight designed to reduce risk can act as a brake on progress. Much of the system was built for an era of long development cycles and highly specialised platforms. Software, autonomy and artificial intelligence (AI), however, now evolve far faster than traditional acquisition timelines can absorb.

"War has this way of clarifying what's necessary," says Condoleezza Rice, 66th US secretary of state.

War can compress decision-making that would otherwise take years. The urgency is now reshaping how military technologies are developed and deployed.

Paul Nakasone, who served as commander of United States Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency, acknowledges that rapid development of AI systems may come at the cost of security.

"Are we going to have the most secure models and be the last to market?" he asks. Or: "Are we going to be the first to market and have very, very less-than-secure models? There has to be a balance."

Gary Steele, CEO of Shield AI, a defence-tech company focused on autonomous systems, argues that defence procurement has long prioritised expensive and highly specialised systems over speed and iteration. But today’s pace of technological change is forcing a rethink.

"What has to change is the broad thinking around the role that autonomy can play, the role that AI can play on the battlefield and the speed with which we need to get there. Some of this is policy. Some of this is cultural,” he explains.

This implies a move away from highly prescriptive procurement towards a model that defines mission outcomes while giving companies greater freedom to iterate quickly and adapt systems in the field. Newer defence-tech companies are prominent in this change in emphasis.

“What has to change is the broad thinking around the role that autonomy can play, the role that AI can play on the battlefield and the speed with which we need to get there. Some of this is policy. Some of this is cultural.”

Gary Steele, CEO of Shield AI, a defence-tech company focused on autonomous systems

Built to iterate

The technology sector, with its willingness to challenge entrenched systems, offers one model for how defence may evolve. Divergent Technologies, based in southern California, uses AI-driven design, advanced manufacturing and automated assembly to produce metal structures, including missile airframes, more rapidly while shifting production between different products as demand changes.

"We're in a position in the world right now, where time has become very, very important," says Lukas Czinger, co-founder and CEO of Divergent. The advantage, he argues, lies in compressing production cycles and scaling output.

The urgency reflects a broader concern that rival powers may prove better able to scale industrial production and deploy new technologies quickly.

US technology companies are increasingly moving into defence. Palantir has become a Pentagon mainstay, and a new generation of start-ups is emerging. “Many of the companies we are working with didn't exist five years ago in terms of the systems that they're trying to build,” says Derek Chollet, who heads JPMorganChase’s Center for Geopolitics.

The bank’s US$1.5trn Security and Resiliency Initiative reflects that broader shift, directing capital towards industries critical to economic security and industrial resilience, from critical minerals and advanced manufacturing to defence systems and frontier technologies.

Faster procurement alone cannot solve every constraint. AI and robotics may accelerate production and decision-making for prime defence contractors as well as new entrants, but the central test is whether defence institutions can test, approve, buy and deploy new technologies quickly enough. Labour shortages and fragile supply chains still limit how rapidly systems can scale.

The swarms of drones defending Ukraine took flight in a country at war, where procurement decisions were made in the heat of battle and systems refined in real time. Imperfection was tolerated in exchange for speed.

Necessity similarly forced America's hand a generation ago, when a crisis drove rapid capability upgrades. "On September 10th, we had not decided to arm Predator," Ms Rice recalled, speaking of the Predator drone programme during her time as national security adviser, before the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. "On September 12th, we armed Predator."

Today, the capabilities needed to meet the current moment already exist. The question is whether America’s institutions can adapt quickly enough to deploy them.

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