COMMENTARY: co-producing drones together, the idea NATO was waiting for

Ankara, where Ukraine changes the terms of the conversation

Since 2022, the Western debate over support for Ukraine has often revolved around a single question: how much to give, and for how long. At the NATO summit in Ankara, Ukraine proposed to its Alliance partners a joint production of military drones, according to Xinhua, building on the bilateral agreements already signed with more than 20 countries. This proposal fundamentally shifts the question being asked: it is no longer only about how much the West should give, but how much it can co-produce with a partner whose expertise now surpasses that of many established defense industries.

This commentary starts from a simple conviction: this proposal deserves to be taken seriously, not out of sentimental sympathy for a country at war, but because it rests on sound industrial logic, tested under fire, that the West would be wrong to ignore out of excessive bureaucratic caution.

A proposal that did not appear out of nowhere

The joint production proposed in Ankara did not emerge from thin air. It builds on more than 20 bilateral agreements already signed between Ukraine and Western partners on drone matters, some formalized on the very day of the summit with Estonia, the Netherlands, and Denmark. What Kyiv is now proposing is to generalize and institutionalize this model across the entire Atlantic Alliance, rather than letting it develop agreement by agreement, country by country.

This generalization, if realized, would transform the relationship between Ukraine and NATO from a beneficiary-donor relationship into one of full industrial partners. It is a paradigm shift that deserves to be discussed with the gravity it implies, rather than treated as just another agenda item in Ankara.

What strikes me about this proposal is its quiet audacity. Ukraine is not asking for charity, it is offering an equal partnership, built on expertise acquired under the worst possible circumstances. Rejecting this proposal out of excessive caution would be a strategic mistake that history would remember poorly.

From a flow of aid to shared infrastructure

The difference between delivering drones and producing drones together is not merely semantic. A flow of aid, however generous, remains dependent on the annual budget decisions of each Western parliament, vulnerable to political shifts and electoral swings. A joint production infrastructure, by contrast, creates jobs, supply chains, and concrete economic interests in partner countries — realities far harder to dismantle with a single parliamentary vote.

This logic explains why the Ukrainian proposal deserves to be discussed as a major strategic evolution rather than as just another additional request. By embedding factories, jobs, and technical skills across several NATO countries, Ukraine anchors its military support in a durable economic reality, less subject to the shifting winds of Western electoral politics.

A model already proven elsewhere in the defense industry

Joint production of military equipment between multiple countries is not a Ukrainian invention. Similar programs have existed for decades in the Western defense industry, such as the co-production of certain combat aircraft among several European countries. What sets the Ukrainian proposal apart is the speed of iteration it promises, inherited directly from real war experience rather than from simulations or theoretical exercises.

This real war experience is an asset that cannot be bought off a catalog. No Western defense industry, however sophisticated, can claim the same level of operational feedback accumulated by Ukrainian engineers over more than four years of continuous war against Russia.

I often think of this paradox: the best lessons in drone warfare today come from a country that would have preferred never to learn them. The West should welcome this expertise with humility, not with the condescension of those who think they know everything from their air-conditioned conference rooms.

Closing a documented capability gap

Several Western defense analysts have documented, over recent years, a worrying capability gap within NATO in low-cost drone warfare, a field long considered secondary compared to more expensive, more traditional weapons systems. The war in Ukraine has brutally exposed the strategic importance of these cheap devices, capable of saturating costly air defenses at a cost-effectiveness ratio few conventional systems can match.

Joint production with Ukraine would let the West close this gap far faster than by developing equivalent capabilities alone, from scratch. It is a purely pragmatic argument, independent of any consideration of political solidarity with Kyiv, that should be enough to convince even the most reluctant partners to engage further.

A direct response to converging threats

This capability gap is not just about a hypothetical future conflict with Russia. It concerns the full range of threats Western strategists identify as priorities: China, whose regional ambitions in the Asia-Pacific increasingly worry Western military planners, Iran, whose drone capabilities have already been transferred to Russia to strike Ukraine, and North Korea, whose weapons program keeps expanding despite international sanctions.

Facing this cluster of converging threats, joint drone production with Ukraine is not an isolated choice tied to the Russo-Ukrainian conflict alone. It fits into a broader Western preparation for a world where several potential adversaries are simultaneously developing low-cost asymmetric warfare capabilities.

One cannot claim to take the Chinese, Iranian, or North Korean threat seriously while neglecting the opportunity to build, with Ukraine, the drone expertise that will prove decisive against those same adversaries. Strategic coherence demands accepting this proposal, not postponing it.

Defense bureaucracy, the enemy of speed

No honest commentary on this proposal can ignore the considerable bureaucratic obstacles that slow, in most Western countries, the rapid rollout of military co-production programs. Budget approval processes, technical certification requirements, intellectual property negotiations, and security concerns tied to sharing sensitive technologies are all real brakes on quickly implementing this joint production.

These obstacles are not pretexts invented by bureaucrats hostile to Ukraine. They reflect legitimate concerns, notably about protecting sensitive technologies against the risk of espionage, a risk the war itself has sharpened as Russia has stepped up attempts to infiltrate Western defense supply chains.

The risk of a slowness that costs lives

The real danger is not that these obstacles exist — they would exist for any program of this scale — but that resolving them takes longer than the situation on the Ukrainian front always allows. Every month of delay in implementing effective joint production potentially translates into reduced capabilities at the front, at a time when Russia continues its offensives and strikes against Ukrainian civilian and military infrastructure.

This is where this commentary turns more critical of the West itself: bureaucratic slowness, however justified on paper, has a concrete human cost that deserves to be named plainly rather than diluted in reassuring diplomatic language.

I understand bureaucratic caution. I do not excuse it when it turns into prolonged inertia. Every month lost in intellectual property negotiations is a month in which the Ukrainian army fights with less than it could have. That reality should weigh more than any administrative form.

Bilateral agreements as proof of concept

The more than 20 bilateral agreements already signed between Ukraine and Western partners, including the three formalized in Ankara with Estonia, the Netherlands, and Denmark, constitute proof of concept that the multilateral joint production proposal is not a utopia disconnected from reality. These bilateral agreements already work, on a smaller scale, on the same principles of technology sharing and industrial capacity as those envisioned for larger-scale production.

Moving from more than twenty separate bilateral agreements to a more integrated multilateral framework represents a logical evolution rather than a leap into the unknown. This is precisely the argument Kyiv appears to have made to its NATO partners in Ankara, drawing on an already tangible track record rather than a theoretical promise.

Coordinated sanctions as a model of multilateral cooperation

The West has already shown, through coordinating economic sanctions against Russia since 2022, its ability to organize complex collective action among many countries with sometimes divergent interests. This capacity for multilateral coordination, mobilized for sanctions, could just as well apply to a joint drone production program, if the political will follows.

The question, then, is not whether the West can coordinate such a program — the sanctions experience proves it can — but whether it wants to do so with the same determination it used to economically isolate Russia. This is a political choice, not an insurmountable technical constraint.

If the West could coordinate economic sanctions of historic scale against Russia, it can coordinate joint drone production with Ukraine. The real obstacle is never technical capacity — it is always, in the end, the political will of those who decide.

An unpredictable ally whose backing remains necessary

Any serious discussion about the future of joint drone production between Ukraine and NATO must reckon with the reality of the current American administration. Donald Trump, present at the Ankara summit where he spoke of "tremendous unity" among allies despite tensions over Iran and Spain, remains a figure whose backing is both indispensable and unpredictable for any large-scale multilateral program involving the United States.

This commentary does not claim Trump is a systematic obstacle to Western support for Ukraine — available facts show an administration that, on the geopolitical and military front, has continued to take firm positions against adversaries like Iran. But his transactional negotiating style introduces structural uncertainty into any long-term multilateral project, including joint drone production, which would require stable American commitment over several years.

Why this paradox must not paralyze the initiative

The uncertainty tied to the American stance must not serve as an excuse for inaction among other NATO members. The bilateral agreements already signed with Estonia, the Netherlands, and Denmark show that it is possible to move forward on this file independently of systematic and immediate American approval. A sufficiently determined European and Canadian coalition could carry the bulk of this joint production, while leaving the door open to fuller American participation should Washington choose to fully commit.

This approach has the advantage of not subordinating Ukraine's industrial future to the whims of a single administration, however powerful. It is a lesson in strategic resilience that Europe, in particular, should draw from the sometimes turbulent transatlantic relations of recent years.

I will say it plainly: on security files concerning Iran and Russia, Trump remains a partner whose firmness often serves Western interests, even if his methods regularly irritate his own allies. But building Ukraine's industrial future on the sole consistency of one man, whoever he may be, would be a miscalculation Europe cannot afford.

A posture that has shifted since the war's early months

There is a notable difference in posture between the Ukraine that, in the spring of 2022, urgently asked for defensive weapons just to survive the first weeks of the Russian invasion, and the Ukraine that, in July 2026, proposes to its NATO partners a joint production built on its own industrial know-how. This shift in posture reflects a profound transformation of Ukraine's place in the Western security architecture.

This renewed confidence is not misplaced arrogance. It rests on tangible results: documented strikes against Russian military-industrial infrastructure thousands of kilometers away, technological innovations recognized by numerous Western defense analysts, and an operational record that has forced even the most skeptical to acknowledge the value of Ukrainian know-how in drone warfare.

A lesson in humility for some Western circles

This proposal should also prompt some Western circles, sometimes quick to underestimate the industrial capabilities of Eastern European countries, to reconsider their assumptions. Ukraine is no longer just a country receiving aid: it has become, in this specific field, an actor whose expertise surpasses that of some founding NATO members. Recognizing this reality is not an act of rhetorical charity, it is a factual assessment that should guide future decisions.

Accepting this joint production proposal would mean accepting that the traditional hierarchy between wealthy donors and wartime recipients no longer matches the industrial reality on the ground. It is a conceptual adjustment the West must make, for its own strategic benefit as much as for Ukraine's.

There is something deeply satisfying about watching Ukraine, invaded and battered since 2022, partly dictate the technological terms of its own relationship with the West. This reversal of posture may be one of this war's least visible, but most lasting, victories.

Defense budgets creating new room to maneuver

The Ukrainian proposal for joint production finds a particularly favorable context in the widespread increase in defense budgets observed among European NATO countries and Canada, which rank among the most dynamic contributors in recent years according to Alliance-published data. This budgetary increase creates new financial room to maneuver that could be directed straight toward co-production programs with Ukraine rather than toward standard acquisitions from traditional suppliers.

Canada in particular, whose commitment to Ukraine has translated into steady support since 2022, could play a facilitating role in this kind of program, drawing on its own industrial capabilities and its position as a trusted partner within the Atlantic Alliance. Germany, for its part, has a substantial defense industrial base that could significantly accelerate production scale if it chose to fully commit to this kind of cooperation.

Economic weight as a lever of persuasion

The economic case for this joint production grows stronger as defense budgets increase: every additional euro or dollar invested in a drone capability co-produced with Ukraine represents an investment in a technology already proven in combat, rather than a bet on systems still theoretical or insufficiently tested in real conditions.

This logic should weigh heavily on upcoming budget decisions by European and Canadian defense ministries, in a context where every defense dollar must now be justified to publics attentive to the efficiency of public spending on collective security.

The defense spending figures announced in Ankara must not remain mere statistics in a NATO report. They should translate concretely into investments in the joint production Kyiv is proposing. Otherwise, those extra billions will be nothing more than an accounting exercise with no real impact on the balance of power against Russia.

What the West risks by delaying its answer

The Ukrainian proposal for joint military drone production, presented in Ankara building on more than twenty bilateral agreements already signed, is not just another line in a summit communiqué. It is a concrete strategic opportunity for NATO to close a documented capability gap, strengthen its preparedness against the converging threats posed by Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, and anchor its support for Ukraine in a durable economic reality rather than fragile annual budget votes.

Delaying a response to this proposal, out of excessive bureaucratic caution or lack of political will, would carry a cost history will judge harshly. The time the West spends deliberating is time Russia uses to continue its offensives against Ukraine and to strengthen its own alliances with regimes hostile to the international order.

A test of the sincerity of Western support

How NATO responds to this proposal will serve as a revealing test of the sincerity of Western support for Ukraine over the long run. Support limited to occasional equipment deliveries, however generous, is not the same as a structural commitment to joint production that durably ties together the industrial and security interests of both parties.

This commentary therefore closes on a firm conviction: accepting this proposal is not a charitable gesture toward a struggling ally, it is an obvious strategic choice for a West that claims to defend a rules-based international order against adversaries who, for their part, never hesitate to coordinate their own military and industrial efforts.

I close this commentary with a simple question posed to every Western capital still hesitating: how much longer will it take the West to recognize that Ukraine is no longer just the country it helps, but the country with which it should be building the future of its own defense.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

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