In a world where the global security environment and military technologies change rapidly, NATO also has changed, according to the Alliance’s digital transformation chief. Modernization and innovation today must be constant and swift, said French Armament Corps Maj. Gen. Dominique Luzeaux, who is also the special advisor to NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation. He spoke at the June 2026 Defense One Tech Summit in Arlington, Virginia, the website Defense One reported.
Defense systems transformation goes beyond simply deploying drones. Luzeaux noted Ukraine’s expanded use of unmanned ground, air, surface and undersea systems in its war against Russia as an example of this rapid change.
“What is important is to have an integrated, multidomain robotic ecosystem,” Luzeaux said. “Because it’s not just one drone making the difference. It’s all the drones being together, the right number, at the right place, at the right time, making a true difference.”
Another lesson from the Ukraine war is shorter innovation cycles, which are often replacing the traditional long, platform-centered modernization efforts of the past, he said. “What is important is the orchestration between the different assets,” he said.
“If we look at Ukraine in the first year,” he said, they were mostly using Soviet weapons and “more or less losing the battle.”
But they learned to evolve, and then Russian forces followed suit.
“After two years, the Russians also had changed their own innovation cycles, and then it was innovation cycle against innovation cycle. In order to not lose everything, Ukraine had to go from system-oriented innovation to a much wider innovation — not to innovate [just] on the tactical, or very strict tactical, platform level, but to have a more global [approach] and to be able to do strategic, operational, and tactical levels together,” he said, according Defense One.
The Alliance is working quickly to incorporate those principles. NATO’s Allied Command Transformation (ACT), the Alliance’s strategic warfare development command, is tasked with contributing “to preserving the peace, security and territorial integrity of Alliance member states by leading the strategic warfare development of military structure, forces, capabilities and doctrines,” according to NATO’s website. The command’s innovation work includes:
- Task Force X: a specialized initiative launched in 2025 to enhance NATO’s maritime security by quickly adopting autonomous systems and artificial intelligence to improve situational awareness.
- Innovation Challenge: a twice-yearly scenario-based exercise focused on solving common operational problems for NATO and its members efficiently and cost-effectively.
- Artificial intelligence: the advancement of operationally relevant, practical AI solutions and prototypes serving as proof-of-concepts showcasing how AI can accelerate decision-making, unlock operational efficiencies and strengthen situational awareness.
- Space integration: NATO’s space domain vision is anchored in three priorities: integrating space into multidomain operations, strengthening and sustaining resilient space capabilities, and ensuring operational readiness in the face of emerging threats.
Transformation in the Alliance has never been more important, French Navy Adm. Pierre Vandier, ACT’s supreme allied commander, said in a June 2026 webcast from the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. In the past, defense systems needs were defined “in a stable world where the magnitude of the fight was somehow limited.” During this time, there wasn’t much focus on interoperability among NATO’s member nations. “Today, we are confronted with large scale protracted conflicts, so we need to have the industry which is able to deal with this,” Vandier said. “We’ve seen how Russia has changed its way of warfighting. It’s now a demand signal to change because if we don’t, we will fight the older enemy and not today’s enemy and the future enemy.”