NATO members have pledged to increase their defense budgets to 5 percent of gross domestic product over the next decade, more than double their previous 2 percent target. The sheer scale of that target has created a structural incentive to order expensive weapons systems rather than the cheap drones that have reshaped modern warfare, "Hvylya" reports, citing The Atlantic's investigation.

The logic is straightforward: to meet NATO's spending targets quickly, European politicians and military planners need to allocate billions of dollars in a hurry. Ordering what the industry calls "exquisite" systems - state-of-the-art tanks, ballistic missiles, warships, and fighter jets - is the fastest way to move the needle. "Most drones are too cheap to move the needle toward NATO's gargantuan spending targets," The Atlantic's Simon Shuster wrote after visiting Rheinmetall's factories in Germany.

Rheinmetall, Europe's defense giant, has told its investors that it expects sales to grow by at least 40 percent this year. The company was already in talks to sell weapons worth 80 billion euros last month, adding to a backlog of orders expected to top 135 billion euros by the end of 2026. "This would be the highest order intake ever," CEO Armin Papperger said. "But everybody knows that this is not enough. We need at the end of the day 400, 500, or more - 600 billion!"

Meanwhile, the evidence from Ukraine paints a starkly different picture. Nearly all tanks that Russia had at the start of its 2022 invasion were destroyed by spring of last year. General Christopher Cavoli, then head of U.S. European Command, testified that Russia lost an estimated 3,000 tanks in one year alone, along with 9,000 armored vehicles and 13,000 artillery systems. The primary weapon used to inflict this damage was the suicide drone, which costs about $400 to make.

One of the few contracts that does channel serious money into drone technology is the $20 billion deal that the Pentagon signed this month with Anduril, an American defense-technology company. Oleksandr Kamyshin, the Ukrainian official overseeing his country's weapons industry, put that figure in context. That amount "could probably buy all the drones Ukraine produces," he said. But as a general rule, Western militaries give the largest contracts to established manufacturers producing conventional weapons.

"Hvylya" earlier explored why Europe fears the consequences of navigating a world without American security guarantees.