Ukraine proves the West has to develop weapons faster and cheaper, even if they're not perfect: NATO chief
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- NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the alliance makes new weapons too slowly.
- He said Western militaries had focused too much on very high standards that hampered progress.
- "Speed is of the essence, not perfection," Rutte told an event at Davos.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the alliance needs to urgently speed up its development of new weapons.
"We are too slow in innovating," Rutte said at an event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday.
"One of the problems here we have is that the better is the enemy of good: It has to be perfect," Rutte said of the current paradigm.
"But it doesn't have to be perfect."
He pointed to the war production of Ukraine, driven by necessity, as a better model.
Ukraine, he said, will proceed with equipment that is a "six to seven," out of 10 while NATO militaries insist on reaching "nine or 10."
"Speed is of the essence, not perfection," he said, calling on the alliance to focus on "getting speed and enough quality done in the right conjunction."
Ukraine's high-end weaponry from the US and others has been a crucial part of its arsenal.
But only a minority of its troops get that technology. Much of the fighting involves using vast quantities of lower-tech equipment, including decades-old tanks and artillery pieces deployed by both Ukraine and Russia.
Russia now reportedly outpaces Ukraine's NATO allies in its production of key military equipment including shells, having geared its economy towards military production.
Ukraine has also produced large amounts of relatively unsophisticated gear, including adapting commercially available tech for use in war at a tiny fraction of the cost of military versions.
Rutte said at the panel that in Ukraine it isn't unusual for a $400 drone to take out an enemy vehicle that cost millions.
NATO is under pressure from President Donald Trump to boost its spending, and for its non-US members to take a larger role in European defense.
Members have committed to spend 2% of GDP on defense, a threshold many do not meet.
Trump wants members to boost spending to as high as 5%, having accused allies of freeloading off the US in the past.
The US spends around 3.5% of GDP on defense.
Rutte, at the event, said he supported Trump's call for members to invest more in defense and said they needed to focus on innovation — or face even higher defense bills in the future.
"We have to get it into a balance with what the US is spending," Rutte said.
