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Days aft NATO friends committed tens of billions of dollars to caller aerial and rocket defenses, nan alliance’s apical translator commandant warned that nan West must fundamentally redesign its weapons and business guidelines to withstand attacks astatine nan standard now being demonstrated successful Ukraine and nan Middle East.
"Today, nan mathematics is not successful favour of nan West," Adm. Pierre Vandier, NATO’s ultimate allied commandant for transformation, told Fox News Digital successful an exclusive question and reply pursuing nan alliance’s acme successful Ankara, Turkey, successful early July.
A U.S.-made MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air rocket is launched during a live-fire workout astatine nan Chiupeng rocket guidelines successful Pingtung County connected Aug. 20, 2024, Adm. Pierre Vandier ( )
The acme produced commitments to get 900 Patriot missiles and put much than $40 cardinal successful counter-drone capabilities passim 5 years.
But Vandier based on that simply buying much of nan West’s existing weapons will not lick nan underlying problem.
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Russia’s nightly barrages against Ukraine person exposed an air-defense exemplary designed for smaller numbers of incoming threats. The U.S.-Iran conflict has simultaneously intensified request for nan high-end interceptors needed to conclusion ballistic missiles, including Patriots and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) that cannot quickly beryllium replaced.
"There is nary measurement to nutrient 50,000 Patriots a year," Vandier said. "We don’t person nan proviso chain, and it’s not worthy doing that fixed nan costs of nan weapon."
Instead, Vandier said NATO needs a layered operation of defenses: cheaper weapons that tin beryllium mass-produced to antagonistic waves of drones, while preserving precocious interceptors for ballistic missiles and different blase threats.
A U.S.-made MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air rocket is launched during a live-fire workout astatine nan Chiupeng rocket guidelines successful Pingtung County Aug. 20, 2024. (Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images)
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"You request to person attritable, low-cost, mass-produced weapons to conscionable termination nan low-cost weapons that are coming by large waves," Vandier said. "And past you request still nan exquisite, analyzable weapons to termination nan astir analyzable weapons, arsenic ballistic missiles."
Trump announced astatine nan acme that nan United States would assistance Ukraine a licence to manufacture Patriot interceptors, perchance allowing Kyiv to build much of nan weapons it urgently needs to take sides against Russian ballistic missiles.
But asked whether nan announcement changed his appraisal that Patriots unsocial could not protect Europe passim nan adjacent 5 years, Vandier pointed to a deeper obstacle: Western weapons were designed astir an business guidelines that nary longer exists.
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"The creation needs to change," Vandier said. "We are astatine a infinitesimal wherever immoderate worldly will beryllium redesigned nether unit to beryllium mass-produced."
NATO besides is attempting to transform against a threat that is changing successful existent time. Asked astir a caller Russian live-fire workout connected Lake Peipus, betwixt Estonia and Russia, which Estonia’s defense curate assessed was apt believe against Ukrainian-style naval drones, Vandier said Russia has demonstrated an expertise to sorb battlefield lessons and set "on a play basis."
"War — if you do not adapt, you die," Vandier said. "All your encephalon is astir really you outmatch, outpace, outrun nan enemy. And truthful Russia is not that bad astatine that."
"For NATO now, it’s a mobility of velocity of adaptation," Vandier said. "It’s a mind game."
Ukraine’s defense industry, meanwhile, is progressively mounting nan gait for nan larger Western manufacturers that erstwhile supplied astir of its weapons, Vandier said. Ukrainian companies person been capable to develop, section and modify systems quickly successful consequence to changes connected nan battlefield.
President Donald Trump said nan United States would nonstop much Patriot missiles to Ukraine during a gathering pinch NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte successful nan Oval Office connected July 14, 2025. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
"The very agile and fast-evolving business guidelines successful Ukraine is now giving nan gait to nan European and Western industry," Vandier said.
But nan technological title is not confined to drones and aerial defenses. Vandier warned that nan illness of nan Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty has reopened a broader title complete long-range missiles successful Europe, arsenic Russia and NATO friends activity weapons tin of holding targets farther down force lines astatine risk.
The 1987 pact prohibited nan United States and Russia from possessing ground-launched missiles pinch ranges betwixt 500 and 5,500 kilometers. The first Trump management withdrew from nan statement successful 2019 aft accusing Moscow of violating it, an allegation Russia denied.
Rescuers behaviour hunt and rescue operations astatine a multi-storey residential building damaged successful a monolithic Russian rocket and drone onslaught successful nan Darnytskyi territory of Kyiv, Ukraine, connected July 2, 2026. Russian forces launched a large-scale onslaught connected nan metropolis utilizing onslaught drones and various types of missiles. Private homes, flat buildings, an emergency aesculapian substation, and a edifice building were damaged (Kyrylo Chubotin/Ukrinform)
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Vandier said nan disappearance of those limits has produced a play of "complete strategical instability," pinch some sides nether unit to create caller capabilities to sphere deterrence.
"The Pandora’s container is unfastened again," Vandier said, "and we’ll effort to adjacent it down 1 day."
