NATO to cultivate vetted counter-drone vendor pool for nations to pick and choose

RIGA, Latvia — NATO is setting up a marketplace where alliance members can shop for counter-drone systems — a pilot project within a broader push by the organization to speed up procurement and help countries adopt new technology more quickly.The alliance has invited companies to pitch counter-unmanned aerial systems, or C-UAS, by mid-May, and will pick 18 systems in the next one to two months, said Claudio Palestini, NATO head of innovation and technology adoption, in a video briefing with reporters on Monday. The goal is to have contracts in place “by the summer” so nations can start to procure via the marketplace.With the pace of drone innovation in Ukraine measured in weeks, NATO wants to help member countries move on from requirement-based procurement to a mechanism based on challenges and use cases, a methodology Palestini called “very fitting” for some autonomous systems such as aerial drones, unmanned ground vehicles and C-UAS.“When we buy phones or laptops, we don’t go to the suppliers with the requirements of them, but we go to the market,” Palestini said. “We buy what fits best with our needs. And this is the spirit that we want to do.”The marketplace pilot comes after NATO members in June 2025 agreed on the Rapid Adoption Action Plan, seeking to shorten the delay getting cutting-edge technology in the hands of troops. In addition to challenge-based procurement, NATO is looking at new ways of buying such as purchasing capability as a service, as well as leasing models, the head of innovation said.For the C-UAS marketplace, NATO wants solutions for point, area and border defense, with each operational need covered by a static counter system, another that is deployable in for example containers, as well as a fully mobile system, according to Palestini.For the resulting nine use cases, NATO then plans to sign contracts for the solution that is the best value for money, and for the cheapest technically-compliant solution, to offer a total of 18 C-UAS options,