11 – The Need to Change Procurement: Dynamic Procedures for Effective Results
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11.1 – The Current Procedure
NATO acquires military capabilities through a multi-level procurement system involving national governments, NATO common-funded programmes, and specialized NATO agencies. While most military equipment is purchased directly by member states, NATO coordinates common requirements, interoperability standards, and certain collective acquisitions.
The process begins with the identification and validation of operational requirements, ensuring that proposed capabilities are necessary, feasible, and adequately funded. NATO then conducts market analysis through industry engagement, Requests for Information (RFIs), and research activities to identify available technologies and assess risks and costs.
Procurement is generally carried out through competitive processes to guarantee transparency, fairness, and value for money. Depending on the circumstances, acquisitions may involve open competition, restricted competition, or sole-source contracts when justified by operational or security needs.
Proposals are evaluated based on criteria such as operational effectiveness, technical performance, lifecycle costs, and overall value, rather than solely on the lowest price. After contract award, NATO closely manages programme execution through testing, reviews, acceptance procedures, configuration management, and performance monitoring.
The entire acquisition system is founded on key principles: transparency, competition, interoperability, accountability, and value for money, ensuring that NATO can effectively develop and sustain military capabilities across the Alliance.
However, the increasing pace of technological innovation, particularly in areas such as unmanned systems, autonomous capabilities, artificial intelligence, and counter-UAS technologies, is placing growing pressure on traditional acquisition cycles. Systems that may evolve significantly within months are often introduced through procurement processes designed for capability lifecycles measured in years. As a result, NATO and Allied nations are increasingly exploring more agile approaches, including rapid acquisition initiatives, experimentation campaigns, prototype evaluation, and test-before-buy methodologies. These efforts seek to reduce the gap between technological innovation and operational fielding while maintaining the governance, transparency, and accountability requirements that characterize NATO procurement activities.
11.2 – The Need for Procurement Transformation
Recent conflicts have demonstrated that technological innovation is increasingly occurring at a pace that challenges traditional acquisition timelines. Unmanned systems, electronic warfare tools, software-defined capabilities, artificial intelligence applications, and counter-UAS solutions can evolve substantially within months.
This growing mismatch between the speed of technological change and the speed of acquisition presents a significant challenge for military organizations. In many cases, technologies may already be approaching obsolescence by the time formal procurement processes are completed. Consequently, the ability to adapt operational capabilities rapidly is becoming as important as the capabilities themselves.
The ongoing war in Ukraine provides a particularly relevant example of this phenomenon. Throughout the conflict, innovation has frequently emerged from the tactical level rather than through centralized development programmes. Front-line units have repeatedly identified operational problems, adapted commercially available technologies, modified existing systems, and developed new employment concepts in response to immediate battlefield requirements. Successful solutions have then been observed, validated, and disseminated through higher headquarters based on demonstrated operational effectiveness rather than through lengthy development cycles.
This model represents a significant departure from traditional top-down acquisition approaches. Rather than beginning with a centrally defined requirement and progressing through a structured procurement process, capability development often starts with operational experimentation conducted by the units directly facing the problem. Battlefield effectiveness becomes the primary validation mechanism.
The lessons emerging from Ukraine suggest that future military competitiveness may depend not only on the ability to acquire advanced technologies, but also on the ability to identify useful innovations rapidly, evaluate them under operational conditions, and distribute them across the force at a speed comparable to that of adversaries.
Such an approach would require greater authority at lower command levels, stronger links between operational units and acquisition organizations, simplified mechanisms for limited-scale procurement, and more effective systems for capturing and disseminating lessons learned. Most importantly, it would require a cultural shift in which innovation is not viewed solely as a product of centralized programmes, but also as a process that can emerge from operational units themselves.
The question is no longer whether military organizations can acquire new technologies. The question is whether they can do so at the speed required by contemporary warfare.
11 – The Need to Change Procurement: Dynamic Procedures for Effective Results
11.1 – The Current Procedure
NATO acquires military capabilities through a multi-level procurement system involving national governments, NATO common-funded programmes, and specialized NATO agencies. While most military equipment is purchased directly by member states, NATO coordinates common requirements, interoperability standards, and certain collective acquisitions.
The process begins with the identification and validation of operational requirements, ensuring that proposed capabilities are necessary, feasible, and adequately funded. NATO then conducts market analysis through industry engagement, Requests for Information (RFIs), and research activities to identify available technologies and assess risks and costs.
Procurement is generally carried out through competitive processes to guarantee transparency, fairness, and value for money. Depending on the circumstances, acquisitions may involve open competition, restricted competition, or sole-source contracts when justified by operational or security needs.
Proposals are evaluated based on criteria such as operational effectiveness, technical performance, lifecycle costs, and overall value, rather than solely on the lowest price. After contract award, NATO closely manages programme execution through testing, reviews, acceptance procedures, configuration management, and performance monitoring.
The entire acquisition system is founded on key principles: transparency, competition, interoperability, accountability, and value for money, ensuring that NATO can effectively develop and sustain military capabilities across the Alliance.
However, the increasing pace of technological innovation, particularly in areas such as unmanned systems, autonomous capabilities, artificial intelligence, and counter-UAS technologies, is placing growing pressure on traditional acquisition cycles. Systems that may evolve significantly within months are often introduced through procurement processes designed for capability lifecycles measured in years. As a result, NATO and Allied nations are increasingly exploring more agile approaches, including rapid acquisition initiatives, experimentation campaigns, prototype evaluation, and test-before-buy methodologies. These efforts seek to reduce the gap between technological innovation and operational fielding while maintaining the governance, transparency, and accountability requirements that characterize NATO procurement activities.
11.2 – The Need for Procurement Transformation
Recent conflicts have demonstrated that technological innovation is increasingly occurring at a pace that challenges traditional acquisition timelines. Unmanned systems, electronic warfare tools, software-defined capabilities, artificial intelligence applications, and counter-UAS solutions can evolve substantially within months.
This growing mismatch between the speed of technological change and the speed of acquisition presents a significant challenge for military organizations. In many cases, technologies may already be approaching obsolescence by the time formal procurement processes are completed. Consequently, the ability to adapt operational capabilities rapidly is becoming as important as the capabilities themselves.
The ongoing war in Ukraine provides a particularly relevant example of this phenomenon. Throughout the conflict, innovation has frequently emerged from the tactical level rather than through centralized development programmes. Front-line units have repeatedly identified operational problems, adapted commercially available technologies, modified existing systems, and developed new employment concepts in response to immediate battlefield requirements. Successful solutions have then been observed, validated, and disseminated through higher headquarters based on demonstrated operational effectiveness rather than through lengthy development cycles.
This model represents a significant departure from traditional top-down acquisition approaches. Rather than beginning with a centrally defined requirement and progressing through a structured procurement process, capability development often starts with operational experimentation conducted by the units directly facing the problem. Battlefield effectiveness becomes the primary validation mechanism.
The lessons emerging from Ukraine suggest that future military competitiveness may depend not only on the ability to acquire advanced technologies, but also on the ability to identify useful innovations rapidly, evaluate them under operational conditions, and distribute them across the force at a speed comparable to that of adversaries.
Such an approach would require greater authority at lower command levels, stronger links between operational units and acquisition organizations, simplified mechanisms for limited-scale procurement, and more effective systems for capturing and disseminating lessons learned. Most importantly, it would require a cultural shift in which innovation is not viewed solely as a product of centralized programmes, but also as a process that can emerge from operational units themselves.
The question is no longer whether military organizations can acquire new technologies. The question is whether they can do so at the speed required by contemporary warfare.