The New Defense Post #23

Welcome back to the #23 edition of The New Defense Post!

In this edition, we’ll cover:

Modern armies are designed to scale from a simple base pattern. From small units to the highest levels of command, the same organizational logic is repeated, replicated from one echelon to the next, with size changing but structure remaining largely the same.

In his 2021 War on the Rocks article, Michael Shurkin gave this model a name: the “homothetic army”. The term may sound academic, but it captures a fundamental flaw in traditional military structures: forces built as scaled-up replicas of a rigid template, with fixed hierarchies, predictable roles, and unchanging relationships between unit size and function. 

While this structure has shaped how traditional military organizations have been organized over the past centuries, its limits are now increasingly evident. As Shurkin notes, “Homothety denotes fixity or rigidity of shape”, a liability in the age of ever-present drones and a transparent battlefield.

We were joined by Guillaume Lerouge for this guest article. He is a Paris-based defense-tech investor and partner at Hexa, and one of the earliest backers of Harmattan AI, France’s first defense-tech unicorn, as well as Alta Ares. You can read more about Guillaume in this recent interview.

Read the full interview on The New Defense Post

🗣 Maj Gen Michael Traut, Head of German Space Command: “We not only want to be able to detect missiles early, but we want to be able to fight them early.” (Financial Times)

📰 Our Take: Strategic independence is becoming the new catch phrase for European defense tech. It’s not about having the capabilities but having the possibility to have them available, no matter what, and independently of other countries.

The U.S. distancing itself from global struggles is a key driver behind this movement to acquire sovereign strategic capabilities, high-end systems, and intelligence assets. China, on the other hand, is providing large quantities of cheap electronic components that are vital for the modern battlefield. Think thermal cameras, electric motors for FPVs, and other electronics.

Smart readers are probably starting to see an opportunity to solve this issue. As a hint: it involves building critical components and systems in Europe ;), just as SWEBAL is doing with TNT and Odd Systems with thermal cameras.

🗣 Maurits Korthals Altes, CEO of Intelic: “By integrating DroneShield’s detections directly into Nexus, we shorten reaction times and reduce complexity for operators.”(Intelic AI)

🗣 Oleg Vornik, CEO of DroneShield: “What’s needed is a layered approach that combines detection, electronic attack, and interceptors, and that can be integrated openly so forces can respond at scale.”(Intelic AI)

📰 Our Take: Europe’s counter-drone market is finally shifting from “best sensor” or “best jammer” to a harder problem: stitching the entire kill chain together without vendor lock-in.

Having a “modular model” in defense where different systems from different vendors are interconnected is very hard to pull off, as it can indirectly create vulnerabilities that hostile actors might exploit. However, if done the right way, it avoids the huge risk of locking into a single large vendor. If that vendor fails to deliver across its system family, it also locks out all other vendors who might have better products but cannot integrate into a closed ecosystem.

It’s no mystery that in Ukraine, there isn’t a single large drone manufacturer with near-monopoly status. Many systems must communicate with each other and operate as part of a larger command-and-control framework. If war breaks out, having the ability to rapidly add new vendors becomes fundamental.

If you want to know more about Intelic, you can find our interview with Maurits Korthals Altes here.

📰 Our Take: €60k won’t finance a heavy hardware scale-up, but help to get some basic things figured out, like defense-specific compliance work, early prototyping, and to start getting in contact with both MoDs and

The underrated angle: MaJoR is explicitly encouraging Ukrainian applicants, which could create a rare “knowledge transfer lane” into EU defense supply chains.

Project Europe and Heartcore Capital are hosting a Berlin lock-in night where founders and top engineers team up to ship real products, not just exchange business cards.

Project Europe’s latest cohort includes four defense/dual-use startups, and they’ve confirmed to The New Defense Post that defense-tech–focused founders and builders are welcome. 😉

FYI — the location is spectacular

To register: https://lock-in-artefact.lovable.app/

Poland signs a major counter-drone deal with Kongsberg (Norway) — reported as a NOK 16B (~$1.7B) order for drone-defense systems, part of broader air-defense upgrades (Reuters)

France blocks Eutelsat ground-antenna sale on security grounds — the state stepped in to prevent the sale of a dual-use “strategic asset,” underlining how central sovereign comms have become. (Reuters)

Industry integration moves (counter-UAS): HENSOLDT + TYTAN cooperation — agreement to integrate interceptor drones with sensors and C2 software into an operational counter-drone setup (The Defense Post)

EU defense innovation funding: the EU’s EDF MaJoR project opened its first cascade funding call (European Union)

Modern operations depend on fast, resilient communications just as much as they do on drones or sensors. But at the tactical edge, networks are routinely contested: spectrum is crowded, GPS is often unreliable on the frontline, and jamming or interception is a constant threat.

If you rely on civilian communications, you risk having your position discovered by enemy direction-finding systems, which on the frontline can mean FPVs being directed at your location and artillery called in on you. At the same time, unprotected communications can be easily intercepted, providing valuable intelligence to the enemy.

And if what you’re trying to communicate with is a drone, enemy EW systems will often disrupt your signal, causing it to crash or miss its target. This is why you need communications that are built for the battlefield.

A new wave of defense-tech companies is rebuilding tactical connectivity around secure, rapidly deployable, software-defined networks that keep working when infrastructure fails.

HIMERA is emblematic of this shift, developing electronic-warfare–resistant tactical communications aimed at keeping teams connected under heavy interference and at a fraction of the price of their competitors. You can find our interview with Misha here.

Teletactica tackles a similar problem set with rugged, jamming-resistant systems designed for high-interference and low-infrastructure environments with a focus on mobile platforms like drones and unmanned ground vehicles, where reliable links are mission-critical. You can find our interview with Yevhen here.

A comparable European example is Wayren, which has described its approach as a hybrid mesh that can bridge otherwise incompatible networks and synchronize data across whatever links are available (cellular, satellite, radio).

The message from battlefield innovators and frontline startups is clear. Tactical communications is evolving to be more adaptive and network-agnostic, able to survive jamming, while keeping the troops and systems connected.

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