The war in Ukraine has reshaped how European militaries think about drones. Before 2022, many counter-UAS discussions focused on protecting fixed sites from small commercial drones or building niche air-defense capabilities. Four years of conflict have demonstrated that drones are now a constant feature of the battlefield, appearing at every echelon and in quantities far greater than many militaries anticipated.
The result has been a wave of changes to European procurement, experimentation, doctrine and force protection. From electronic warfare to interceptor drones, many of the counter-UAS priorities now emerging across Europe can be traced back to lessons learned in Ukraine.
