Direction:

Tech

Crisis as a Brutal Product Manager

Authors

Valeriya Ionan

Publication date and time:

Apr 20, 2026, 12:55

Reading time:

3 min

The core premise of the column is that crisis acts as a brutal but highly effective product manager. Systems that previously relied on long bureaucratic cycles and rigid procurement processes were stress-tested by reality. The approaches that couldn't survive failed rapidly, while viable solutions evolved over weeks, sometimes days.

Ionan highlights specific data to illustrate this transformation. Since the full-scale invasion, the number of drone manufacturers in Ukraine has surged from just 7 to over 500, and electronic warfare companies have grown from 2 to roughly 200. The Brave1 defense tech cluster, designed to directly connect the frontline with innovators, now encompasses over 3,000 companies and features a marketplace of more than 1,000 validated solutions.

This massive shift was driven by a fundamental change in philosophy. In mature economies, long procurement cycles are often viewed as a proxy for stability and accountability. However, in a high-velocity environment, this becomes a structural vulnerability. When threats evolve daily, technologies that take years to procure become obsolete before they reach the battlefield. To counter this, Ukraine opened its defense sector to private innovation, drastically shortening the path from development to deployment.

Based on Ukraine's experience, Ionan outlines four critical lessons for governments looking to modernize their own defense ecosystems:

First, bureaucracies must be "hacked" from within. Instead of hiding behind outdated processes, policymakers must find workarounds and redesign systems. In today's landscape, the inability to adapt bureaucratic structures becomes a state's biggest strategic constraint.

Second, states need to open markets in a tangible way. The role of the government is not to manually pick winners, but to create an environment where businesses can experiment and compete. Only true market dynamics can drive sustainable, self-driven innovation scaling.

Third, there must be a working dialogue between government and business. This means moving beyond symbolic roundtables and hackathons that produce reports instead of results. It requires active mechanisms, like defense tech clusters, that continuously solve actual problems and identify capability gaps.

Fourth, innovation requires a clear champion. Functional ecosystems do not emerge organically. There must be a specific institution or leader with the mandate, authority, and responsibility to align stakeholders and accelerate decision-making.

Read the full column by Valeriya Ionan on the Atlantic Council website: 🔗 What Ukraine’s wartime tech ecosystem can teach the rest of the world