Killing is the core function of ‘defense technology’
AI, drones and other tech now permeate the defence industry, but we must not forget the ultimate purpose behind all of it, writes Charles Eberly von Szecsey
I am sure most of us have spent considerable time this year moving through industry conferences where the talk always seems to drift toward the same destination: “Government contracts.” You can sit in the back of the room and listen to panelists speak with an air of new-found virtue, as if the nobility of the work could be measured by the number of contracts won. Newcomers might start to think contract wins are as virtuous as battlefield victories.
These conversations feel far away from what we are actually doing.
War is the horrific conflict of two irreconcilable wills. It is organized violence, carried out until one side breaks. Defence technologies exist to make that violence more effective for us than for the enemy. That is the purpose. We forget it at our peril.
As envoys of this industry to the public, we should not promote the false dream that future war is clean, robotic, or digital. As if enough sensors or enough autonomy will spare us from the human dimension. That belief collapses the moment you stand on a battlespace, in any size or form, anywhere in the world today.
No technology will remove the requirement for human beings to ultimately risk their lives. No algorithm will spare the suffering that gives war its requisite pressure. If there is no fear of loss, no expectation of death, no side will ever yield.
The mistake comes from treating the technology as the story, rather than the violence it is built to deliver.
Some time ago, I was in the headquarters of Ukraine’s 412 Unmanned Systems Battalion (now designated as a Brigade and one of the preeminent defense technology organizations on the planet). A drone technician was showing me a small adjustment they had made to their bomber drones. They reshaped the battery leads, one round and one triangular, so the operator could tell positive from negative in the dark, even with gloves on and fingers numb from the cold. A simple change, born from recorded errors under fire. It was a reminder of what this work actually is. Not a contract. Not a capability roadmap. A small refinement so a young man under artillery pressure can launch an aircraft that will kill another man before that man kills him.
You do not call that “failing fast.” You call it surviving long enough to try again.
This is what gives substance to the phrase “validated in Ukraine.” Sadly, it has started to feel like a throwaway marketing line, potentially increasing adverse selection for the tools we desperately need. Real combat validation means that a young person, under fire, chose that tool over another knowing that the wrong choice might cost their life. That is the weight behind the phrase.
And the integrity we should expect from any company invoking it should be intense. To claim combat validation when it is not true is to mortgage the life of the next young soldier who will trust that claim and pay dearly for it when an inadequate tool is placed in their hands.
We hide behind the word “defence” because it sounds cleaner. Because it spares us from admitting what is required. But if a nation values its sovereignty, it must be willing to kill those who would take it. Every line of code, every drone, every missile is built for that purpose.
In a Brussels meeting in 2023, the Ukrainian CEO of one of our portfolio companies was briefing the flight endurance of his UAS when a NATO official asked abruptly, “Does your technology kill people?” In the debrief afterward, he said was still trying to understand why such a question had arisen. He recalled replying reflexively,“Isn’t that the point of NATO?”
We should stop pretending otherwise.
We work in a field that exists to protect free nations by giving them the power to impose their will on those who threaten them. That power is violence. It has been from the beginning. Those landing at Normandy knew it, and the Ukrainians in Bakhmut, Mariupol, and Avdiivka knew it. Technology does not change the nature of war. It only changes the tools.
Ours should be the business of giving them a better chance.
With that recognition, it may be worth challenging the current en vogue sport of our industry: lambasting defense officials endlessly for their slowness in procurement. Yes, any bureaucracy can move faster. But may we please acknowledge that these officials live with a responsibility most of us outsiders will never shoulder. When they approve a system, they are placing it into the hands of people they have served beside, people whose names they know. They carry the weight of what happens if it fails. And it forces a hard question onto the rest of us: would the VC or the entrepreneur ever want to step forward to shoulder that same responsibility?
If we are honest about that, if we speak clearly about the purpose and the price, we might build a defense ecosystem worthy of the people who carry its tools into battle. Not an industry obsessed with appearances, but one maniacally focused on deterrence and survival.
This is about killing.
Charles is the Chairman of Oedipus Inc, Europe’s first investor-operator dedicated to strategic technologies for national security, supported by a transatlantic partnership of family offices.