The Baltic states need more drone-detection radars. Europe's defence bottlenecks may slow them down

Recent drone incursions along NATO's eastern flank have reinforced the Baltic states' push to strengthen their air defences.

But defence experts say a shortage of equipment and specialised personnel across Europe could slow efforts to close critical gaps in drone detection and response.

"The industrial capacity is the main constraining factor," Tomas Jermalavičius, head of studies at Estonia's International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS), told Euronews Next.

As countries across Europe invest heavily in air and missile defence, they are competing for the same radar systems, electronic warfare capabilities and counter-drone technologies from a small handful of providers, experts said.

The result is growing procurement backlogs, rising costs and delivery times that can stretch for years, Jermalavičius said.

‘No country can provide 100% coverage at all times’

To act against a drone, a military needs tracking sensors, effectors to shoot down the drone and an “overarching architecture” that lets operators fully understand what is going on in the air, typically by combining images from a camera feed, as well as radar and acoustic sensor data on a set of screens.

“If there is a lack or gap in any of these elements … then the counter is more difficult,” Federico Borsari, a defence analyst at the Centre for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), told Euronews Next.

The first bottleneck for the Baltic countries is still detecting the drones, he said.

Drones are read differently on current European long and medium-range radar detection systems than other targets, such as aircraft or cruise missiles, because they are made of materials that make it harder to spot them, Jermalavičius said.

“They fly low, they fly slow,” Jermalavičius said. “Drones often can be confused with larger birds or a flock of birds.”

Militaries sometimes deploy fighter jets to get an aerial view of the threat to give them more information about whether they should shoot it down, but doing so is extremely expensive, Borsari said.

The priority for the Baltics, according to Jermalavičius, is to invest more in short and very-short range radios to help track the drones more effectively.

“With a shorter range [radar], the picture is more accurate, it allows for easier identification of what we’re dealing with,” he said, noting that sometimes the longer-range radar systems lose track of where drones often fly into airspace.

They could also integrate a new range of short-range radars into the existing system that the Baltic Air Police have, which includes ground-based early-warning and surveillance radars to detect aircraft, drones and missiles in all three countries, he said.

However, Jermalavičius said there is a limit to how many drones can be deployed at once, so “we have to prioritise very brutally where they would be deployed.”

Despite this, short-range missiles are not a perfect solution to stop every single drone incursion, he said. If a government were to invest only in short-range radar, they could risk under-investing in other areas, such as more cost-effective missiles to intercept the drones.

“No country can provide a 100% coverage at all times, in all places, of all potential targets against all types of threats,” Jermalavičius said. “There will be a drone which will always get through no matter what.

Countries like the Baltics and Poland, along the eastern flank of the NATO alliance, know that they need to make these investments but that “it’s not something you can build overnight,” Borsari explained.

The Baltics should also be weighing short-term radar investments with buying new technologies, such as high-energy lasers that are affordable and very effective against drones, Borsari said.

‘Everyone’s competing for the same equipment’

However, there are many barriers to getting these short-term radars in place throughout the Baltic defence line, both experts said.

Jermalavičius said it can take up to 24 months to produce and deliver a single radar system, which means the availability of companies greatly determines when and whether the Baltics and the rest of Europe get short-range radars.

“Europe in general faces massive air defence gaps which are pretty chronic,” Jermalavičius said. “Everybody’s competing for the same equipment … so everybody goes to the same vendors, the same producers … and then it becomes a very tight race.”

There are other types of equipment that drone detection also needs, such as acoustic sensors, electro-optical and infrared sensors, which are lacking throughout Europe, Jermalavičius said.

Another difficulty for building the tech needed for drone detections is a shortage in expertise and staff, Jermalavičius and Borsari both said.

“We are small countries, our labour markets are very competitive, these are very technical professions, so availability of qualified personnel who could be equipped and put into operational duties is another major constraining factor,” Jermalavičius explained.

Effective drone response also includes an interconnected system where a threat in one Baltic country can be detected in another.The Baltics have a “very well integrated” air surveillance system, called Boltnet, that shares threat detection between the countries, Jermalavičius said.

If an Estonian radar in Boltnet detects a threat and tracks it, the information is shared with Latvian and Lithuanian air surveillance operators as well as NATO’s integrated air and missile defence systems to coordinate a response.

However, Jermalavičius highlighted that Boltnet also needs to integrate “other actors” on the ground, such as Baltic Air Policing or the Territorial Defence Forces, to better respond to drone detection.