Move Fast and Don’t Break Things: A Conversation About Balancing Speed and Security in DefenseTech

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Europe has understood the need to bolster its collective defense. Then came the Munich Security Conference in February. 

There, US Vice President JD Vance, in the words of Guardian newspaper, “questioned whether current European values warranted defence by the US.”

Vance’s remarks were a clarifying moment, according to Stanislaw Kastory, co-founder and GP of DefenceTech investment fund Expeditions: “We needed JD Vance to come to Munich and tell us, you are on your own.” 

Stanislaw was speaking at the recent Endeavor x The Recursive Side Event at Slush as part of a panel on how the European DefenceTech sector can meet the current, perilous moment. He and his fellow panelists, Artem Moroz, Head of Investor Relations and Deputy Head of Partnerships at Ukrainian DefenceTech platform BRAVE1, Nikolaos Mengos, Director, CEO Office & International Relations at the Hellenic Centre for Defence Innovation, and moderator Georgia Prassinos, Communications & Marketing Director at HCDI, discussed how to accelerate European DefenseTech while still ensuring safety and security. 

As Prassinos cleverly put it, the question facing the European defence community is a twist on Facebook’s infamous early motto: “How do you move fast without breaking things?” 

A new mindset for European defense 

It’s a question the European defense officials have been unfortunately slow to tackle, according to Artem.  

“The war started not three years ago, but in 2014,” he reminded the audience, referring to Russia’s seizure of Crimea and support for separatists in the Donbas region. At first Ukraine’s leaders hoped for a negotiated settlement and relied on traditional military approaches. As we all now know, that didn’t work.  

“We were extremely wrong and we are now paying the price,” he continued. European leaders have learned from that failure and are now embracing a new mindset. 

They now understand “that it's close to impossible for us to compete with Russia in conventional weapons, in manpower. And not only because of the quantities, but just because the cost of life in Russia is so low and we don't want to follow this approach,” Artem explained. They are betting on technology and innovation instead. 

Similar shifts are underway elsewhere on the continent, including through the formation of the HCDI 15 months ago. Its goal of strengthening the DefenseTech sector is a new idea in Greece. When he started with the organization, Nikolaos “didn't even know what venture capital is or what a startup is,” he admitted. 

But a lot has changed in a little more than a year. “There are a lot like me now that are striving to change the classical approach of the armed forces,” he said. From the old, sluggish client-buyer model, the focus is now how to be more collaborative and risk-tolerant.  

“We're talking about human lives,” he emphasized. So “you have to calculate the risk of not taking the risk.” 

Getting the flywheel turning 

The key to striking a new balance between protecting human life, making big bets on new technology, and maintaining standards and economic discipline is building a feedback loop between soldiers in the field and the government officials, technologists, and businesses that supply them, the panelists agreed.  

The first step is nurturing a homegrown DefenceTech sector. “It is widely accepted that we should buy from Europe rather than US companies,” Stanislaw underlined. Beyond this fundamental truth, it is also essential to build channels for builders and the battlefield to communicate seamlessly. 

“Inside BRAVE1, we have our own military unit on the frontlines that is a very important source of data and information. In addition, we have a team whom we call ‘mathematicians of war,’ who try to find all the different open source information on what Russians are doing,” Artem explained. “Taking all this data, we analyze what tactics actually work, what technologies are needed, and what changes we need.”  

Getting information from the battlefield to technologists is important, but so is getting technology to the battlefield. That’s why innovation to speed procurement is equally essential. 

“We created what we call Amazon for the military, where military [members] can go online, log in through their secure credentials and have access to almost 3,000 products directly from the manufacturer instead of asking the minister of defense and waiting six months. Now, on average it takes 12 days for the military to get the solutions they need to the frontline,” Artem reported. 

Having the right kind of founders working in the space also helps, Stanislaw stressed. “We really need people who understand how the technology works, but also understand the reality of modern war,” he said, and “they need to have relationships with governments.”

More experiments, more security

Whether it’s better drones, radar solutions, or advances in quantum computing, new technologies will doubtlessly change the face of modern warfare and determine which countries, with which values, dictate events. But when it comes to ensuring Europe’s peace and security, systems that allow for experimentation, quick implementation, and the ability to adjust to ever-shifting frontline realities are even more important than specific technologies, the panelists agreed.  

New ideas and relatively untested technology might seem risky when lives are at stake, but in Artem’s words: “the cost of not being fast enough is, in a lot of cases, higher than the cost of investing small and then seeing what are the results.” 

In today’s world, predicting the exact tech that will have an impact far in advance is nearly impossible, so as Nikolaos put it, when it comes to innovation, “the important thing is that we have a mechanism there and the mentality to embrace it.”

A call to action for governments and founders 

Achieving this flywheel of innovation requires action from both governments and founders.The panel ended with a call for both. 

Founders and engineers need to “understand that there is a business for them. There are ears that they're willing to hear them and understand their needs and help them translate what they have to offer,” Nikolaos said, addressing those, like him, on the government side of the equation. 

Artem, for his part, closed with a plea for private sector talent to not be squeamish about getting involved in DefenseTech.  

“If you want peace, you need to be prepared. You need to be strong. That is the foundation. Based on that, you can build all the beautiful innovations, the civil sector, and live a great life. But it all starts with actually having this deterrence. Defense is great. It's actually about saving lives, and it actually lets all of us live the values that we have,” he concluded.