Why EU leaders really want Zelensky’s ‘drone wisdom’

Kiev has been crashing UAVs in the Baltics – and now they want him to share his know-how? So the Baltic and Nordic countries recently hosted a regional summit. And Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky dropped by, having apparently traded his lawn ops uniform for that of a nightclub bouncer. If the Western press is to be believed, he was there to “share drone technology” with them. Who better to lead their defense initiatives than a guy who keeps crashing his drones into their countries? The Associated Press headlined that Zelensky says he’s now “ready” to open his great lockbox of wisdom. So reading all this, you’d think that he’d been summonsed there as some sort of sage, who has technological knowledge that these European nations simply cannot be without or otherwise procure. The Ukrainians themselves are scrambling so hard to be a part of this success that it now takes a literal army of recruiters with shovels to pry them away from their TVs these days. Can’t really blame them – special events are always better on TV than in person: Taylor Swift, Woodstock, wars… The Western press has been making much of Ukraine’s drone expertise, with the talking point now being that the student, Ukraine, has now become the master. All the biggest and best-paid weapons development minds on the planet working for Western defense contractors, endlessly flush with taxpayer generosity – and we’re supposed to believe that none can hold a candle to Ukraine and its drones. Read more Drone-watching: How Ukraine keeps hitting its EU backers Do you think that’s for lack of skill? Or maybe just because it’s not comparatively profitable enough for their shareholders? Requiring a state cash injection of billions to make one aircraft carrier or fighter jet is a better business proposition for these companies’ investors than consumer-style drones that are – by definition and necessity – cheap and easy to come by or rig up, to the point that teenagers have been doing it.

The goal of defense contractors is to make money – not to win wars. Wars are inevitably won these days by lower tech guerrilla warfare, despite always beginning with an opening act of big-gun shock and awe. It’s not that Ukraine has special tech that the major players can’t produce – it’s that the big guys can’t see a profit motive for doing so, compared to providing their more conventional hardware. The day that they do, they won’t need Ukraine or Zelensky. But this notion of the West needing Ukraine for its defense conveniently provides a nice excuse to keep the cash flowing from Europe into this concept of Ukraine being the frontline defender of all of Europe. Small problem, though. They can’t seem to control their own weapons when the Western training wheels come off their operations. Western officials have been pretty careful when talking about drones straying into the Baltics and Nordics, routinely neglecting to mention the actual citizenship of these drones. Clearly it’s because they’re Ukrainian and it’s inconvenient to include that minor detail when they’re trying to make the Ukrainians look like weapons geniuses. So instead, these Western officials keep spinning that aggravating fact by specifying that the stray drones are from the conflict with Russia – an elegant obfuscation. Read more Kiev admitted launching drones at NATO member – media A few weeks ago, Zelensky’s own foreign minister admitted that the drones were indeed Ukrainian. He was quick to blame Russia anyway, and a talking point was born. Here’s Zelensky performing the latest script. “Russia changes direction of the drones by different systems, including systems of electronic warfare… They can change the direction to divide us