NATO is unprepared to deal with attacks by cheap, mass-produced drones and urgently needs layered, affordable air defense systems to counter the threat, taking a cue from the experience gained by Ukrainian forces over the past four years.

Experts at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) recently held a debate on the lessons armed forces should take from the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, highlighting that low-cost drones are reshaping how wars are fought.

CEPA describes itself as a nonpartisan, public policy institution, headquartered in Washington, DC.

The takeaway from Iran's tactics is that adversaries are likely to combine precision weapons with cheap, mass-produced drones to overwhelm air defense systems so that the precision weapons can get through. Managing this threat means developing low-cost defensive weapons, produced and used at scale, to complement the interceptor missiles costing millions that are built to target aircraft and ballistic missiles.

"The question is no longer how just to defeat a threat. The question is how to do so to sustainable cost and scale," said Gordon "Skip" Davis, former deputy assistant secretary general for NATO and previously director of operations for US European Command.

He noted a decisive shift in the character of war: Iran has shown that relatively unsophisticated weapons like the Shahed-type drones, which cost $20,000 each, can impose real operational stress on even the most advanced forces such as the US and its regional allies.

Ukraine is ahead of NATO in one critical area – the ability to produce and deploy low-cost systems at scale. It is manufacturing tens of thousands of interceptor drones annually, and delivering them to frontline units at rates exceeding 1,500 per day.

Instead of relying solely on expensive interceptors, Ukraine has built a layered system in which cheap one-way interceptor drones - costing as little as $2,000 - now account for the majority of drone takedowns across the country. This is typified by the small Bullet model produced by defense firm General Cherry (General Chereshnya), which can reach speeds of up to 310 km per hour (192 mph), engage targets at a distance of up to 20 km (12 miles), and operate at altitudes of up to 6 km (about 4 miles).

Davis said NATO should take several lessons from this - integrated air and missile defenses must be layered and cost-effective, not reliant purely on high-end interceptors. It must field attritable and autonomous systems en masse, not in niche roles, and this means having the industrial capacity to produce them and "magazine depth" – meaning having stockpiles available.

"The overarching conclusion, in my view, is that NATO must move from a model built around technological superiority to one built around integrated systems, scalable production and rapid adaptation," he stated.

Jason Israel, senior fellow for Defense Technology Initiative at CEPA, said software and interoperability were another vital piece of the puzzle. By this he means the various drones operated will need to integrate with command-and-control (C2) systems to coordinate operations.

"That drone that you're using, or the unmanned system that you're using, what software is behind it? Does the software allow it to be interoperable with headquarters?" he asked.

"As we've seen on the US side, the scale of the hardware has not quite gotten there yet, and software, as we know, is relatively easy to scale, but we're not seeing interoperability between the systems to the point that we would need in order to fight as an alliance in the future, and I think that's one of the big questions that I have."

"We can't have 200 different types of drones in the future that don't speak to each other," he added.

Humans also remain a key part of the command chain, and Federico Borsari, CEPA Fellow for Transatlantic Defense and Security, made the point that operators need the right training to respond appropriately.

"The operator is an important task, but needs to be very prepared for any kind of contingency. And so training and rehearsal of realistic situations is increasingly important, and I think this aspect is often overlooked."

Borsari noted that NATO countries are "very interested" in integrating Ukrainian technologies, but even more interested in benefiting from Ukrainian experience.

"Ukrainian forces started to use commercially derived unmanned systems around 2015, when volunteer organizations were helping Ukraine's depleted forces to resist Russian aggression in the Donbas region," he said.

"Over the years they have developed extremely sophisticated and effective tactics, techniques, and procedures, and also concepts of operations that are really the treasure trove at this point for NATO countries."

However, Davis warned that there does not seem to be any great sense of urgency for all this at the political level in many Western nations.

In terms of doctrine, NATO countries also need to be thinking about where the big adversaries, Russia and China, are going with respect to autonomous systems.

"We've got to think about, how do we enable a force that can employ systems that are integrated, that have the right kinds of algorithms, the right kind of computing support, to be able to do the right kinds of targeting with minimal human intervention, and have the capability for rapid in-the-field software changes like we see going on in Ukraine right now," Davis said.

The conclusion is that NATO countries need to radically overhaul and scale up their drone defenses, taking lessons from Ukraine. This doesn't just apply to frontline forces, as the Ukraine and Iran conflicts demonstrated that some nations have no qualms about targeting civilian infrastructure.

Last month, the UK and a handful of European allies launched a program to develop low-cost air defense systems. Low-Cost Effectors & Autonomous Platforms (LEAP) will initially focus on an affordable surface-to-air weapon to counter the threat of drones and missiles, and is aiming to produce something by 2027.

The UK last year beefed up its meager air defenses with the purchase of six new Land Ceptor anti-aircraft missile systems, capable of intercepting cruise missiles, aircraft, and drones. ®