When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the smaller, less resourced Ukrainian military fought back in part thanks to innovative commercial tech, according to top execs.
“We saw an underdog military be able to fight toe-to-toe, and push back aggressively against a superior military force that was relying on doctrine and mass,” said David Gauthier, the chief strategy officer at GXO, Inc., who headed NGA’s commercial operations office when the war began.
Gauthier made the remarks at an event hosted by CSIS, which looked at space and data lessons from the conflict. Here’s what’s top of mind:
- Move fast… Military theorists love speedy decision-making—and it’s gotten even faster thanks to “commercial imagery and algorithmic warfare,” Gauthier said. “If you have a superiority in the data, you have a huge advantage,” Ukrainian Minister for Digital Transformation Giorgi Tskhakaia added.
- …and break things. “Bringing broadband to the frontline, we can deliver the imagery directly to those people who are pulling triggers, and they can decide for themselves how to integrate that into their tactics,” Gauthier explained.
- But not for long. Tskhakaia cautioned that it only takes six to 12 months before an opponent figures out how to disrupt new tech, so constant improvement is vital.
Policy matters, too: “Our job is to open the market,” Tskhakaia said. “When the war started, seven companies were producing drones…now there’s more than 500 different companies” thanks to reduced red tape and lower taxes, plus the ability to rapidly iterate based on real-time feedback from the battlefield.
How much will it matter? Under the Trump administration, the US has moved from backing Ukraine to insulting its prime minister, pausing defense funding that mainly went to US suppliers, and supporting Russia in UN resolutions. With the US limiting access to commercial space data, European space and defense firms are starting to play a larger role in the conflict as NATO countries question their reliance on the US private sector.
