The war in Ukraine has offered NATO planners invaluable insight into the Russian military. NATO can use these insights to improve its tactics and strategy in preparation for any future war with Russia. What are the lessons learned?
Much has been said about Russian forces’ failures, but they have also shown some strengths. Although its casualties approach or perhaps exceed 20,000 killed in action, Russia has been able to maintain some offensive action for more than two months. The first lesson is thus that Vladimir Putin has a very high tolerance for losses.
Considering the heavy costs and low likelihood of success that now attach to Russia’s military prospects in Ukraine and the escalating economic costs of Western sanctions, Putin might have been expected to suspend major combat operations by now. So far, however, Putin remains committed to highly ambitious goals. He is as likely to escalate this situation as he is to deescalate — perhaps more likely.
So also does Putin retain confident authority in the Kremlin. The Russian president has launched a major crackdown on intelligence and military officials he believes have failed, but the Russian elite and most of the Russian population remain united in support of the war. A good example comes from the experience of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Although his forces have suffered exceptionally high casualty rates for very limited strategic gains in Ukraine, Kadyrov’s frustration with the lack of progress in Ukraine seems only to have motivated his desire for a total war against Kyiv.
The lesson: NATO must assume that any significant battlefield successes it secured in war might not easily translate into Russian interest in a ceasefire. A strategy of cautious defense, then, might offer less support for the pursuit of restored peace than a strategy of aggressive counteroffensives. Indeed, Russia’s willingness to dangle nuclear escalation serves as a reminder that NATO’s operationally resolved nuclear deterrent remains absolutely critical. NATO can deter Russian nuclear escalation, but only by showing that NATO’s nuclear forces are ready and superior. (President Joe Biden should take his example from former British Prime Minister Theresa May.)
Other lessons are more positive. For one, Russian command and control, intelligence and targeting, and logistics efforts have been shown to be utterly inadequate. Corruption, mismanagement, and poor leadership have combined in variously disastrous ways for Putin’s war machine. Some Russian vehicles have even been using tires from the Soviet era, for example. But these failures suggest that Putin’s near-term ability to conduct a sustained offensive against NATO territory is doubtful, at least until he can redesign and reconstitute his forces.
Estonia’s small size and its location wedged between Russia and the Black Sea make it most vulnerable.
Still, NATO may now assess that alongside a rapid airborne reinforcement, as exercised this time last year, it could defend Estonia for longer than previously anticipated against a major Russian offensive. This is especially true if those forces are, like the British army element in Estonia, well armed with light anti-tank and anti-air weapons. Both of those weapons have proven devastating to Russian forces in Ukraine, although stock depletion is a serious concern.
As an extension, NATO may also believe that it could shift some of the air and naval forces toward targeting Russian logistics and command nodes at depth instead of supporting its own ground operations. Ukraine has shown that targeting Russian rear forces can lead to a rapid collapse of Russian offensive momentum. If NATO ground forces can hold out without heavy support from above, the forces above can focus on hitting Russian rear lines right from the start. The inadequacy of Russian electronic warfare, air defense, and air superiority efforts may also lead NATO to embrace a higher risk tolerance in using older aircraft and other assets against Russian forces at the outbreak of war. By flooding the zone with as many fighter, bomber, and gunship aircraft as soon as possible, NATO may believe it has a good chance of blunting any Russian offensive right from the start.
This would represent a shift in thinking. Before the war in Ukraine, NATO assumed that mobile and potent Russian air defense bubbles and fighter squadrons would limit the early response to an invasion to the most advanced aircraft. Ukraine’s experience suggests many more NATO aircraft could operate with acceptable risk closer to Russian air defense and air assets than previously believed.
The failure of Russian air, artillery, and missile forces to suppress heavier Ukrainian armored and artillery units will also have attracted NATO’s attention.
NATO may now forward deploy more armored and artillery units to Estonia and other vulnerable allied states in the belief that they will be more survivable than previously assumed. The utility of these forces has been emphasized by Russia’s perhaps necessary (think of those old tires) use of delineated highways, roads, and overt, single lines of approach. Multiple launch rocket systems such as the U.S. HIMARS-guided munition units, for example, would feasibly lay waste to these massed forces.
NATO may also assess that Putin’s loss of strategic assets, such as the Moskva cruiser and apparently the Admiral Makarov, may deter him from using similar assets in a war with NATO. After all, if Ukraine can take out these jewels of the Russian navy, NATO certainly will be able to do so. Putin’s hesitation would mean a reduced Russian focus on a Baltic Sea encirclement strategy for Estonia and/or the Baltics. That would enable NATO to resupply the Baltic States more easily from the sea and isolate Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, a de facto fortress territory.
There will be many lessons learned from Ukraine by many different actors. China, for one, is paying very close attention to Ukraine’s successes and the West’s isolation of Russia. But for NATO, Russia’s aggression has clearly given cause for a significant rethink of posture and strategy.
