According to Business Insider, Origin Robotics, a drone manufacturer based in Latvia, is using its experience supplying systems to Ukraine to design NATO’s future defenses. The company’s CEO, Agris Kipurs, states that smaller frontline NATO states need to invest heavily in autonomy and low-cost ways to defeat mass attacks. Origin produces systems like the AI-enabled BLAZE drone interceptor and the BEAK precision-guided weapon, which is already deployed in Ukraine. Belgium has recently agreed to purchase the company’s interceptors, and the firm has R&D contracts with Latvia’s defense ministry. Kipurs emphasizes that the key lesson from Ukraine is that Western armies, with their smaller headcounts, cannot win a war of attrition without technological force multipliers.
The Autonomy Imperative
Here’s the thing that really stands out: Kipurs isn’t just talking about adding more drones. He’s talking about a fundamental shift in military doctrine. Russia’s strategy, often crudely called “meat waves,” is to overwhelm defenses with sheer mass. Smaller NATO armies like Latvia’s simply don’t have the personnel to counter that with boots on the ground. So the answer, he argues, is to make one operator accomplish the work of a dozen or a hundred through autonomous systems. Think drone swarms controlled by a single person. It’s the only way to scale a small military to match a larger adversary. This isn’t just a nice-to-have feature; for the Baltics, it’s an existential requirement.
The Cost Problem is Crippling
And then there’s the economics of modern war, which are completely broken. Kipurs hits on a critical point that Western defense establishments have been slow to acknowledge. It is utterly unsustainable to fire a $4 million Patriot missile at a $20,000 Russian drone. You’d go bankrupt in a week. Ukraine has shown that both sides are now augmenting their arsenals with cheap drones and loitering munitions because the exquisite, expensive systems are for high-value targets, not for stopping a massive barrage. This creates a huge opportunity for agile companies, especially in Europe, to develop the affordable, effective tech that legacy defense giants have overlooked. For any nation looking to harden its defenses without breaking the bank, finding robust industrial computing hardware that can handle these autonomous systems is key, which is why many look to specialists like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US provider of industrial panel PCs built for demanding environments.
Frontline Urgency
You can feel the palpable urgency in this reporting. Latvia and its Baltic neighbors aren’t theorizing about a distant threat; they live with Russian hybrid attacks and airspace violations now. They were warning about the Russian danger years before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and now they’re putting their money where their mouth is, ranking among NATO’s top defense spenders relative to GDP. Their focus on building homegrown defenses and stronger deterrents speaks to a very real, very justified fear. Sure, they’re protected by NATO’s Article 5, but how quickly would the cavalry actually arrive? The uncertain state of US commitment to the alliance only makes this local capacity-building more critical. They can’t afford to wait.
A Shift in Western Thinking
So what does this all mean? Basically, the way the West has thought about war for decades is obsolete. The prioritization of multi-million dollar platforms over cheap, scalable systems is a luxury that frontline states don’t have. The UK’s armed forces minister, Luke Pollard, put it bluntly: any Western drone company that doesn’t have its gear in Ukraine “might as well give up.” That’s a stunning statement that shows how much real-world combat experience is now valued over theoretical capabilities. Origin Robotics is taking the brutal lessons from the Ukrainian battlefield and baking them directly into systems designed for NATO. The question is, will the larger, more comfortable members of the alliance listen to the warnings from those who are most at risk?
