The future of warfare will belong to countries that can adapt technologies in real time and build independent defense ecosystems, according to David Zaikin, founder and CEO of Key Elements Group, who spoke at the Jerusalem Post 2026 New York Conference on Tuesday.
During the panel “Security in a Shifting World: Israel, the US, and What Comes Next,” moderated by Jerusalem Post Defense & Tech editor Anna Ahronheim, Zaikin drew on his experience advising Western governments and working with the Ukrainian defense sector to argue that traditional defense procurement models are no longer fit for modern conflicts. “It was shocking to see how the best praised modern Western technologies failed at the battlefield,” Zaikin said. “What we've seen in Ukraine,” he said, “are anecdotal cases where one of the leading drones came to the battlefield, soldiers put it on a truck, they drove 10 miles and the drone didn't take off. It wasn't built to survive the short ride to the battlefield.”
The lesson from Ukraine, he argued, is that speed of adaptation has become more important than lengthy development cycles. “So fast adaptation is the key,” Zaikin said, noting the war has demonstrated that countries can no longer rely solely on purchasing advanced systems from abroad. Instead, they must develop complete defense ecosystems capable of sustaining innovation, production, and deployment during wartime.
Zaikin pointed to growing efforts in Europe and the Gulf states to establish domestic defense industries. “Originally, they wanted to buy drones, but then they understood that they need operators, they need parts, and they need an ecosystem.” “The future belongs to countries which have their own independent ecosystem, production, their own supply chain, connection between financing, policymakers and engineers,” Zaikin said, calling current European defense procurement timelines unsustainable, and arguing that programs taking more than a decade to deliver weapons systems are preparing for wars that no longer exist.
Written in collaboration with Key Elements Group