Industrial Resilience in Tactical UAVs: Why Sovereign Capability Matters

European procurement choices over the next budget cycle will determine
whether the tactical UAV layer becomes a credible deterrent capability or an imported dependency.

As Europe rebuilds its defence posture, tactical UAVs can no longer be assessed solely on platform performance.
The ability to design, produce, sustain, scale and adapt these systems inside Europe
has become a capability requirement in its own right.

This whitepaper examines why industrial resilience is now central to tactical UAV procurement,
how lessons from Ukraine expose the risks of component-level dependency,
and what European defence buyers must specify to achieve sovereign capability rather than symbolic autonomy.