Dr. Joshua E. Segal (“Bugsy”) recently described the “point of the pointy end of the spear” in relation to Ukraine’s rapid battlefield innovation and the integration of artificial intelligence in drone warfare. Segal, a retired naval intelligence officer and former arms control negotiator, serves as an advisor to senior Department of Defense leaders and is a Non-Resident Fellow at GLOBSEC (Segal, n.d.). His recent observations emphasize the speed at which Ukraine is adapting commercial and military technology to counter Russian and Iranian-designed threats, contrasting this agility with the slower acquisition processes of the United States and its NATO allies.
Background of Joshua E. Segal
Dr. Segal has over 30 years of experience in national security policy, intelligence, and arms control. From 1989 to 2000, he served as a policy representative on bilateral and multilateral arms control negotiations, including the Chemical Weapons Convention (Foreign Policy Research Institute, n.d.). After September 11, 2001, he served as an active-duty Naval Officer, retiring in 2020 after assignments with U.S. Special Operations Command and the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of the Navy for Policy (Foreign Policy Research Institute, n.d.). He is currently the Vice President for Defense, Plans, and Strategy at Deft9 Solutions and an adjunct professor at Tulane University, where he teaches Information Warfare and open-source intelligence (OSINT) tradecraft (Foreign Policy Research Institute, n.d.; Information Professionals Association, 2024).
The “Pointy End of the Spear”: Ukraine’s Rapid Innovation
Segal’s recent commentary focuses on the concept of “setting the theater” and the necessity for rapid technological adaptation in modern warfare. He argues that the United States defense sector is failing to meet 21st-century challenges due to its reliance on expensive, exquisite weapon systems with long development cycles (Segal, 2026a). In contrast, Ukraine has embraced a “good enough” philosophy, rapidly fielding inexpensive, effective systems to counter threats like the Iranian-designed Shahed drones (Segal, 2026b).
Ukraine’s innovation ecosystem, heavily supported by the government tech agency Brave1, allows for real-time research and development. Developers test solutions directly on the battlefield and implement them within weeks or months, a process that takes years in the United States and Europe (Segal, 2025). This rapid iteration is driven by the necessity of countering pervasive Russian electronic warfare, which frequently renders U.S. precision weapons ineffective shortly after deployment (Segal, 2026a).
Cost-Per-Kill and Asymmetric Warfare
A central theme in Segal’s analysis is the economic asymmetry of drone warfare. Adversaries like Iran and Russia use inexpensive drones to exhaust the expensive interceptor stockpiles of the United States and its allies. For example, Raytheon’s Coyote interceptor costs between $35,000 and $125,000 per munition, while the Shahed drones they target cost a fraction of that amount (Segal, 2026a).
Ukraine has countered this by developing advanced interceptors that cost between $1,250 and $2,500, achieving thousands of kills on the battlefield (Segal, 2025). These include systems like the General Cherry Bullet, Sting, and Octopus drones, which utilize artificial intelligence for terminal guidance and image recognition, allowing them to operate in jammed electronic environments (Segal, 2026b). Furthermore, Ukraine has deployed AI-enabled gun turrets, such as the Sky Sentinel, which uses machine learning to identify and track targets, reducing the need for human intervention and lowering the cost per kill (Segal, 2026a).
U.S. and Allied Defense Gaps
Segal documents that during NATO exercises, small teams of Ukrainian troops acting as adversaries have decisively defeated larger NATO forces by employing decentralized structures, real-time data sharing, and coordinated drone strikes (Segal, 2026c). In Exercise Hedgehog, conducted in March 2025 in Estonia, a team of 10 Ukrainian troops defeated the equivalent of two NATO brigades from nearly a dozen nations by combining reconnaissance, first-person-view (FPV) strikes, and bomber drones (Segal, 2026c). During NATO’s REPMUS/Dynamic Messenger 2025 naval exercises off Portugal, Ukrainian forces again acted as adversary and successfully simulated the sinking of NATO vessels using Magura-type unmanned surface drones (Segal, 2026c).
Segal notes that the United States and Gulf allies failed to apply lessons from Ukraine in their preparations for the conflict with Iran. When an Iranian Shahed drone struck the U.S. Navy’s nerve center in Bahrain during daylight hours, it demonstrated that defenses adequate for traditional threats were insufficient against the low-cost, high-volume drone tactics pioneered in Ukraine (Segal, 2026b). Segal also documents unconfirmed reports that in one incident, a partner nation exhausted eight PAC-3 interceptors to destroy a single Shahed drone (Segal, 2026c).
Segal’s Documented Activities and Roles
Segal’s role as a “pointy end of the spear” practitioner is documented across several domains. He is a former Director of the Intelligence Operations Center at U.S. European Command and served as a Senior Levant Strategic Planner and liaison officer to Israel from 2009 to 2013 (Foreign Policy Research Institute, n.d.). He teaches OSINT tradecraft and advises the Special Operations Design Thinking cadre for Joint Special Operations University (Foreign Policy Research Institute, n.d.). He regularly travels to Ukraine to study battlefield developments and has spoken at the Kyiv International Cyber Resilience Forum 2026 on “The Asymmetries of Cognitive Warfare: Defence, Deterrence, Offence” (Kyiv International Cyber Resilience Forum, 2026). He is also a member of Iron Gate Capital’s Technical Advisory Board (Segal, 2026a).
References
Foreign Policy Research Institute. (n.d.). Joshua Segal. Foreign Policy Research Institute. https://www.fpri.org/contributor/joshua-segal/
Information Professionals Association. (2024, May 29). #192 Dr. Josh “Bugsy” Segal on the American Maginot Line. The Cognitive Crucible. The Cognitive Crucible Episode #192 Dr. Josh "Bugsy" Segal on the American Maginot Line
Information Professionals Association. (2025, February 19). #219 Dr. Josh Segal on Are We Losing the War? Lethality, Deterrence, and Information. The Cognitive Crucible. The Cognitive Crucible Episode #219 Dr. Josh Segal on Are We Losing the War? Lethality, Deterrence, and Information
Information Professionals Association. (2025, December 23). #237 Josh “Bugsy” Segal on Ukraine, Electronic Warfare, and Fast Battlefield Innovation. The Cognitive Crucible. The Cognitive Crucible Episode #237 Josh “Bugsy” Segal on Ukraine, Electronic Warfare, and Fast Battlefield Innovation
Kyiv International Cyber Resilience Forum. (2026). KICRF 2026 Agenda. Kyiv International Cyber Resilience Forum. KYIV INTERNATIONAL CYBER RESILIENCE FORUM 2026 – Agenda
Segal, J. (n.d.). Joshua Segal. Kyiv International Cyber Resilience Forum. Київський Міжнародний Форум з Кіберстійкості 2026
Segal, J. (2025, May 6). Innovation, Dynamism, and Tech Acquisition at the Southern Border. Deft9 Solutions. News and Analysis
Segal, J. (2025, November 30). Ukraine offers a roadmap for faster and cheaper battlefield innovation. The Washington Times. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/nov/30/ukraine-offers-roadmap-faster-cheaper-battlefield-innovation/
Segal, J. (2026a, March 25). U.S. defense sector failing to meet 21st-century challenges. The Washington Times. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/mar/25/us-defense-sector-failing-meet-21st-century-challenges/
Segal, J. (2026b, March 5). Better Late Than Never, US and Allies Race toward Ukrainian Counter-Shahed Tech. Foreign Policy Research Institute. https://www.fpri.org/article/2026/03/better-late-than-never-us-and-allies-race-toward-ukrainian-counter-shahed-tech/
Segal, J. (2026c, April 14). U.S. and NATO Need To Learn From Ukraine. RealClearDefense. U.S. and NATO Need To Learn From Ukraine | RealClearDefense
AI generated