{"id":3219,"date":"2026-07-13T16:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T16:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/3219\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T16:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T16:30:10","slug":"how-ukraine-exposed-israels-drone-production-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/3219\/","title":{"rendered":"How Ukraine exposed Israel’s drone production problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2025, during an operation in northern Gaza, Alex\u2019s unit needed to identify a target inside a building before breaching. His commander told him to send up a drone. Alex pulled out a 10-inch Xtend<\/a> (cost to the army \u2013 roughly NIS 3,500). It went up, found the target, and came back. He sent it up again at the end of the operation to clear the area. This time it didn\u2019t return.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Something knocked it out, a shot maybe, or electronic jamming. He was reprimanded for losing advanced combat equipment. When his officer requested a replacement from logistics, the answer came back: nothing in stock right now. The last IDF procurement order was 12,000 units. They\u2019d need a few days to resupply the brigade.<\/p>\n

Target drones<\/p>\n

Now meet Alexei, who grew up in Kharkiv. He was born in 2002, the same year as Alex. He enlisted in a combat unit when Russia invaded his country.<\/p>\n

In 2025, on a typical operation, Alexei went out with a backpack containing three small FPV drones<\/a>, the kind soldiers call \u201ctarget drones,\u201d each worth about a hundred dollars \u2013 including the explosive payload.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He deployed the first one, destroyed a Russian sniper position, and didn\u2019t expect it back. He deployed the second. Same outcome. He returned to base with one drone left. His commander heard the debrief and smiled.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake five more from the stockroom,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you need more, we\u2019ll order 50. There\u2019s plenty.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there was plenty. Ukraine produces roughly 7,000 FPV drones a day. That\u2019s 200,000 a month, and between one and two million a year, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky\u2019s<\/a> own account.<\/p>\n

Alexei is surrounded by abundance. He can lose a drone, leave a drone, write off a drone over a technical doubt, and find a fresh stack waiting at the start of every week.<\/p>\n

Alex is not.<\/p>\n

Supply chain problems<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s last drone procurement order, signed in 2025, was 12,000 units. That is roughly what Ukraine produces in less than two days. And of those 12,000, most are not fully Israeli. The video transmitters are made in Hong Kong. The propellers come from China. The server motors from Taiwan. What the IDF calls \u201cblue and white\u201d runs on Asian supply chains.<\/p>\n

This is not a story about capability. Israel builds some of the most sophisticated defense technology in the world. Iron Dome has interception rates without precedent in the history of air defense systems.<\/p>\n

The Arrow system executed the first operational intercept of ballistic missiles at scale, ever. Israeli F-35s flew strike missions over Iran at ranges exceeding 2,000 kilometers. These are things no other country\u2019s defense industry can claim.<\/p>\n

The problem is not the top of the stack; it\u2019s the volume.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn Elbit Skylark miniature unmanned aerial vehicle (mini UAV) used by the Israeli army for surveillance flies after being launched from a position along the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel. (credit: JACK GUEZ\/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)<\/p>\n

The drone is the defining weapon of the wars being fought right now. Israel has known this since early 2022. It has engineers, entrepreneurs, and technology. And yet, four years after the world understood what mass drone production means on a battlefield, Israel still does not produce at scale \u2013 not for export, and often not even for its own soldiers.<\/p>\n

This is a structural failure.<\/p>\n

Legacy players<\/p>\n

Ninety-five percent of Israeli defense industry sales flow through three companies. Two of them are fully state-owned. The dominant procurement model is cost-plus contracting, meaning manufacturers get their production costs covered plus a fixed profit margin.<\/p>\n

The incentive created is the opposite of efficiency: the more expensive the process, the larger the absolute profit. Startups with better, cheaper solutions cannot clear the procurement entry requirements, which are built around the legacy players. The revolving door between senior IDF and MAFAT officials and the boardrooms of those same companies ensures the system protects itself.<\/p>\n

The result is an industry that is world-class but expensive and complicated, and structurally unable to produce the cheap and abundant.<\/p>\n

There is a window here, and it is closing. The global defense market is undergoing its largest expansion since the end of World War II. NATO\u2019s spending target just moved from 2% to 5% of GDP.<\/p>\n

Germany is committing to a $6.5 billion Arrow 3 deal, the largest defense export in Israeli history, precisely because it needs Israeli technology to protect itself from Russian ballistic missiles. Greece blocked EU sanctions on Israel in Brussels \u2013 not out of sentiment, but because its entire air defense modernization program runs on Israeli systems.<\/p>\n

Structural dependence, when built correctly, is more durable than political friendship. It survives elections.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s defense industries are impressive, breaking new export records and set to continue doing so for the foreseeable future. But like a startup that built a telemedicine solution just before COVID-19 hit, we need to recognize that the world has changed around us in ways that make yesterday\u2019s targets inadequate.<\/p>\n

Exceeding last year\u2019s numbers is not good enough when the potential has expanded by an order of magnitude. The targets need to be reset accordingly.<\/p>\n

Israel has three assets no other country can offer simultaneously: its best and brightest serve, innovate, and are proud to be part of the defense community, human capital forged in real combat units; technology proven under live fire at scale; and a record in the field that every serious defense buyer studies.<\/p>\n

These are not permanent advantages. Rheinmetall is targeting 50 billion euros in revenue by 2030. Anduril, a company that didn\u2019t exist a decade ago, is doubling revenues year over year and will soon outpace Israel\u2019s three largest defense firms combined.<\/p>\n

South Korea built a defense export industry worth $17 billion annually from a standing start, without a single one of Israel\u2019s natural advantages, simply through coherent national planning and private capital.<\/p>\n

The window is open. The question is whether we will rise to the moment.<\/p>\n

That requires procurement reform, the elimination of cost-plus contracting, a DIU-equivalent that can on-board startups in weeks rather than years, and a national industrial plan that treats defense exports as strategic infrastructure rather than a side effect of military spending. These are not radical ideas. They are the minimum required to play at the level the moment demands.<\/p>\n

Alex is out of the army now, or will be soon. The stockroom in his brigade is still running short. The next embargo is coming, from somewhere, for some reason that will feel new and will not be. The question is whether Israel will have built something the world cannot afford to sanction by then.<\/p>\n

This piece draws on a chapter from my new book, Moonshots for Israel: 12 Big Ideas for a Small Nation<\/a>. Out now in Hebrew from Sella Meir, and coming out in English later this year.<\/p>\n

Judah Taub is founder and managing partner of Hetz Ventures, former Israeli intelligence officer, and adviser to governments on AI, cybersecurity and defense strategy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2025, during an operation in northern Gaza, Alex\u2019s unit needed to identify a target inside a building…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14,212,23,528,2081,2082,25,26],"class_list":["post-3219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-defence-industry","tag-defense-tech","tag-drone","tag-fpv-drones","tag-jerusalem-report","tag-lebanon-israel-war","tag-taiwan","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/defence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}