Ukraine has shown that the power grid, fuel network, and people who keep them running are part of the battlefield.

When NATO leaders agreed at The Hague in 2025 to a new defense investment target, the headline was 5 percent of GDP. But one of the most consequential parts of that commitment sits outside traditional military spending: up to 1.5 percent of GDP for critical infrastructure, networks, civil preparedness, resilience, innovation, and the defense industrial base.

Expected delays in U.S. Patriot deliveries to Poland have exposed a critical vulnerability in NATO’s reliance on traditional Foreign Military Sales for high-end air defense. Coupled with the unsustainable cost-exchange ratio of firing multi-million-dollar interceptors at cheap Russian drones, frontline states are pivoting from off-the-shelf procurement to localized industrial co-production of low-cost counter-UAS networks. If Washington wants to maintain its defense market dominance in Central Europe, U.S. primes must urgently establish joint manufacturing and maintenance hubs on allied soil.

​At this week’s Warsaw Security Forum, two seemingly separate announcements revealed a structural shift in how NATO’s frontline states plan to defend their skies. On Tuesday, just as a senior Polish military commander warned that scheduled deliveries of U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems to Poland are expected to face delays, Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz issued a blunt ultimatum to international defense primes: future contracts depend on establishing manufacturing and maintenance facilities inside Europe. Hours later, Norwegian defense group Kongsberg answered that call, unveiling a $51 million investment to build a new counter-drone production plant in northern Poland.