In modern warfare, slow innovation can cost lives

A working prototype sitting in a university hangar is not a battlefield capability. It becomes one only when it is in the hands of the soldier, the sailor, or the airwoman who needs it — with the training, logistics, and infrastructure to support it. "The bottleneck is the system that surrounds the breakthrough,” stated Commodore Henk Doorten, head of knowledge and innovation at the Dutch Ministry of Defense. 

During Defense Tech Day 2026, he took part in a panel discussion. Joining him were Raymond Knops, Chairman of the Netherlands Industry for Defense and Security (NIDV); Hugh Blethyn, NATO's innovation and transformation leader at Joint Force Command Brunssum; and Roy Lindelauf, Professor of Data Science at the Netherlands Defense Academy. The event, organized by NATO Dutch and Belgian startup accelerators part of the DIANA network, gathered an audience of innovators, stakeholders, and investors.

The panel, "Rapid Adoption in a Disruptive World”, stated it clearly: innovation that arrives too late is not an asset but a missed opportunity that could cost lives. As things stand, Procurement queues, validation pathways, and integration hurdles delay the moment when innovation can actually make a difference in the field.

New times call for different frameworks 

NIDV chairman Knops argued that defense procurement was built for a world of tight budgets and slow-moving threats — a world that no longer exists. "We have no time, and we have plenty of money. We have to change our way of working together," he underlined. 

To this end, Knops delved into how the NIDV is working to bring together traditional manufacturers, AI-driven startups, universities, and knowledge institutions around defense tech. The organization saw its membership grow from 180 to 400 members in four years. In this formula, some level of risk has to be accepted — for instance, exhaustive testing is not a must before deployment. "If we don't accept this risk, we will face a far greater one,” Knops said. 

Doorten highlighted how changes are being made to reduce those delays. Dutch armed forces have established dedicated rapid adoption channels, parallel tracks that bypass the normal procurement queue for technology that demonstrates clear operational value. The goal is to compress the journey from working prototype to battle-ready capability from years to months. 

More funding, he was clear, is not the answer, but organization is. "If something is fantastically good in operational testing, I need to be able to fix all the other things just as quickly," he stated. 

AI adoption: fast and responsible 

Among the technologies with the highest potential and complexity is undoubtedly AI. Prof. Lindelauf underlined how AI is already shaping outcomes in the war in Ukraine, where AI-assisted decision-making, autonomous drone systems, and data-driven targeting are impacting the conflict. 

The challenge is to adopt the capabilities AI offers on the battlefield quickly and responsibly at the same time. Responsibility does not require slowness; it requires ethics and operational considerations to be embedded in the development cycle from the start. What works is translating those principles into context-specific guidance — defining the operational environment, identifying the technology in use, and asking precisely what responsible deployment looks like in that setting. 

The professor added a remark. “Be honest. Also to yourself. If you're talking about AI and technology, we should really focus on understanding what's happening — and be honest about it, not just in presentations but to yourself.”

Relevance as a key for success

The DIANA (Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic) network of startup accelerators also aims to play its part in making innovation a military capability. The structure of DIANA, whose open calls challenge innovators to solve real problems, is a step in this direction. 

Blethyn noted how recent DIANA challenges on data-driven decision-making and AI-enabled task force operations are producing technology designed for deployment from day one. His message to innovators was straightforward: make it operationally relevant, and persevere. "If you make it relevant," he said, "you have a far higher chance of succeeding."

Prevailing organizations, whether militaries or companies, are those willing to test quickly, fail honestly, and adapt continuously, panel members agreed. The battle for the future battlefield tech may be decided not in the engagement itself, but in the gap between what is invented and what actually reaches the field. Yet, closing the gap might be a matter of survival.