With 32 Member States, NATO General Admits the West is Struggling to Match Russia
JAKARTA — NATO has acknowledged that the West faces serious challenges in the modern arms race. The North Atlantic defence alliance believes that Western weapon systems and defence industries are no longer designed to confront high-intensity warfare such as the conflict in Ukraine or the escalating tensions in the Middle East.
The warning was delivered by NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, Admiral Pierre Vandier, only days after NATO leaders agreed on new defence investments worth tens of billions of US dollars. In an interview with Fox News following the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, some time ago, Vandier even admitted that the advantage in weapons production no longer lies with the West. “Today, the mathematical equation does not favour the West,” said Vandier.
The statement signals that NATO is beginning to view the Russia-Ukraine war not merely as a regional conflict, but as a laboratory that is transforming the way modern warfare is conducted. Thousands of cheap drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles repeatedly launched by Russia have tested the limits of Western air defence systems, which were built to face a far smaller number of threats.
At the summit, NATO committed to purchasing around 900 Patriot missiles and allocating more than 40 billion US dollars over five years to strengthen its ability to counter drone attacks. For Vandier, however, this step is not enough.
According to him, the biggest problem lies in the Western defence industry model, which is unable to produce weapons in large quantities at an efficient cost.
“It is impossible to produce 50,000 Patriot missiles in a year. We do not have supply chains to support it, and economically it makes no sense,” he said.
For this reason, Vandier believes NATO must abandon the old paradigm of relying on interceptor missiles worth millions of dollars to destroy drones worth only tens of thousands of dollars.
He proposed a layered defence approach. Drones, loitering munitions and other cheap targets should be countered with low-cost weapons that can be mass-produced, while Patriot missiles and Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) systems should remain focused on strategic threats such as ballistic missiles.
“You need cheap weapons that can be mass-produced to destroy cheap weapons that come in large waves. Sophisticated weapons are still needed, but only to confront genuinely complex threats such as ballistic missiles,” said Vandier.