Too few defense contractors are testing their technology in real-world situations against a peer adversary, NATO\u2019s military chief said Thursday, praising companies that are making the effort to work with the Ukrainian military.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose few that have tried it have either learned a lot, or they\u2019ve decided to go home because they can\u2019t compete in that environment. But that is going to be the environment that we face,\u201d said Gen. Alexus Grynkewich<\/a>, who leads U.S. European Command and serves as NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe.<\/p>\n Grynkewich, who was speaking virtually to an industry group in Washington, D.C., urged any companies seeking to sell new products to NATO allies to attend September\u2019s Defense Tech Valley<\/a> conference in Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re bringing in dozens and dozens of companies from across Europe who have co-production or co-licensing agreements and partnerships with the Ukrainians. It\u2019s an incredible opportunity to see what the modern battlefield looks like today, what it might look like tomorrow, and what we might need in the future,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Find partners with expertise<\/strong><\/p>\n NATO allies across Europe are raising defense budgets to meet a new, higher spending pledge. Much of what they buy will go to Ukraine, and much of what they spend will flow to the United States through a recent initiative dubbed the NATO Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List<\/a>, or PURL. The month-old effort<\/a> has already attracted more than $2 billion<\/a> in pledges, with more expected.\u00a0<\/p>\n Grynkewich described how European Command plays a central role in coordinating Ukraine\u2019s requests for future capabilities with European and U.S. inventories.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe Ukrainians will let us know what their requirements are. We then bring that into a combined U.S. European Command-and-NATO working group that elevates those requirements. And then I, as [Supreme Allied Commander], will elevate the requirement and send it back to them at the working group,\u201d he said. \u201cSome things are only going to come from the U.S. factory,\u201d such as PAC-3 missiles.<\/p>\n Grynkewich\u2019s comments suggest that PURL\u2019s pipeline can apply beyond missiles to anything Ukraine needs, including advanced drones. The framework is broad by design, allowing SACEUR and NATO to validate \u201cother critical equipment\u201d that the United States and allies may have or build, such as drones.<\/p>\n At present, Ukraine\u2019s biggest demand is for Patriot interceptors and other key air-defense systems to fend off barrages of missiles and drones. Grynkewich\u2019s comments suggest that the testimony and feedback of Ukraine\u2019s fighters will influence broad decision-making about the future building and stockpiling of weapons, not just for the United States but also for the future of European arms development, the world\u2019s fastest-growing defense market<\/a>.<\/p>\n Grynkewich said new and established defense companies looking to benefit from future budgets would do well to \u201cfigure that out, find the right partners who have that expertise, and get up there and do some real-world testing. The lessons that you can learn from the battlefield of today and other regions of the world are going to be absolutely essential to any future fight in any region of the world, including the Indo-Pacific.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Too few defense contractors are testing their technology in real-world situations against a peer adversary, NATO\u2019s military chief…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-393343","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115137809131711043","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}