NATO accelerates counter-drone testing and capacity

Speaking at a press roundtable on the sidelines of the Drone Summit in Riga, Tarja Jaakkola outlined the scope of NATO’s counter-unmanned aircraft systems package of measures, launched by the Secretary General last October following a series of drone incursions into allied airspace.

The package aims to address the counter-UAS threat across the full spectrum, from airspace deconfliction and new procurement pathways to how NATO plans and fights.

Central to the effort are NATO’s innovation ranges, dedicated facilities where allied nations and industry can test and evaluate counter-UAS solutions in threat-informed conditions. Jaakkola said five such ranges are now in place, in Latvia, Finland, Estonia, the Netherlands and Italy, with Latvia’s Autonomous Systems Competence Center the most active to date.

A testing event held last week at the Latvian range drew companies from ten allied nations and Ukraine, including firms from Latvia, Estonia, Germany, Sweden, the US, UK, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway and Bulgaria. Three further testing events are planned at the Latvian range before the end of the year, bringing the total to five in the facility’s first year of operation.

“The ongoing conflicts in Europe in our neighborhood demonstrate how crucial drone technology is for NATO’s deterrence and defense at times when incursions into our territories of different allies have become a regular phenomenon,” Jaakkola said.

On capability targets, Jaakkola confirmed that counter-UAS is now explicitly included in NATO’s 2025 capability targets, following a review by NATO’s military authorities conducted as part of the counter-UAS package. She said the targets had been shared with security-cleared defence industry for the first time ahead of last summer’s Hague Summit, providing companies with aggregated data on capability needs across areas including air and missile defence, munitions and main battle tanks. “We need to remain at the aggregated level, but we also need to make sure that the information is relevant to the industry,” she said, noting that feedback is being gathered on whether the information is proving useful for industrial planning.

Jaakkola also described a NATO innovation scale-up package currently being negotiated with member nations, designed to help smaller companies with promising solutions but limited manufacturing capacity connect with civilian firms that could provide production facilities or services. She said financing, including capital, loans and guarantees, forms a key part of the package. “We are negotiating the policy framework, and after that we start implementation,” she said.

On the role of the European Union, Jaakkola said EU funding and regulatory power complement NATO’s capability-setting and standards role, pointing to the EU’s defence omnibus initiative as an example of efforts to reduce regulatory barriers to scaling up industrial production.

Asked about engaging Indo-Pacific partners, Jaakkola confirmed that structured dialogues on defence industry are already underway with South Korea, Japan and, most recently, Australia, with innovation ranges identified as a potential area for future collaboration.