The war in Ukraine has shown that success in modern combat depends less on superior equipment than on the ability to adapt quickly to changing conditions. To prevail in future conflicts, Western countries must maintain financial flexibility and combine advanced systems with scalable low-tech solutions.
PARIS – When we think about the future of warfare, it’s tempting to imagine a world dominated by advanced technologies: AI-powered drones, hypersonic missiles, and satellites coordinating every move. But the war in Ukraine has shown that high-tech capabilities alone don’t win wars. Victory also depends on low-tech solutions – and on rapidly and cheaply integrating the two.
Western powers have long assumed that their technological edge would guarantee victory in any future conflict. The reasoning is simple: if your weapons are smarter, faster, and more precise, you win.
But the Ukraine war has revealed the limits of this thinking. While high-tech systems can be devastatingly effective, they often provide only a temporary strategic advantage. “Stupid” tech – simple, cheap, and widely available – is just as important.
Drones are a prime example. Cruise missiles may be technological marvels, but in Ukraine, it’s swarms of low-cost commercial drones that are making headlines. This was evident in this month’s “Operation Spider’s Web,” in which Ukraine used low-tech first-person view (FPV) drones to destroy Russian aircraft worth billions of dollars.
Off-the-shelf quadcopters have transformed reconnaissance, targeting, and even direct attacks. Their effectiveness comes not from cutting-edge components but from sheer volume, low cost, and the ingenuity of thousands of innovators who can rapidly scale and modify production. Whenever Russia introduces new countermeasures, new drone variants emerge – a continuous cycle of innovation that keeps them effective.
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