Strategic and Operational Lessons of the War in Ukraine
Abstract: There are important lessons for the UK and NATO to be derived from the Russian war against Ukraine. The conflict continues to evolve, but, in autumn 2025, there was some hope on the Western side of a ceasefire or even a peace settlement. On the Russian side, despite a significant deterioration in the economy, Moscow planned to complete the secondary objective of securing Donbass and consolidating its occupation of Crimea. Its primary objectives remained to seize all of Ukraine as a satellite state of Russia and to ensure close relations with China and North Korea as insurance against the West. Dealing first with this context and the dilemmas, this article is in two parts: one, the operational lessons for the UK, and, two, the strategic lessons. The third and final part of the article examines the options for security guarantees. These are all in a necessarily summarised form. Author contact details are at the end.
The Dilemmas Posed by the War
The second, full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 presented NATO with the dilemma of how to ensure Moscow did not succeed, while avoiding escalation.[1] The means and ways selected by the alliance were to impose sanctions, which could be increased or decreased depending on the level of compliance, and to supply Ukraine with the resources it required. Initially, defensive systems were offered, but, gradually, strike aircraft, long range artillery, and cruise missiles were donated, while Ukrainian troops received training in NATO member states. Meanwhile, the allies would enhance their own defences, increasing their capabilities and munitions capacity. The critical elements were not just the increased scale of the armed forces and the armaments, but also enhancing ‘operational design’, that is, how to fight.
The challenge of studying a conflict in progress to derive lessons is that they evolve, and may seem to change in priority, as the fortunes of the conflict change. At the outset, it was assumed that a Russian joint operational design would be effective, and greater numbers would overwhelm the Ukrainians, forcing them into an insurgency. In fact, the Russians did not achieve air supremacy.[2] This single factor condemned the conflict to a more protracted ground war, with all the emphasis on artillery, trench stalemate, and tactical drone warfare that followed.
In some cases, initial estimates were proven incorrect. Drones were supposed to have provided the means for more rapid operational manoeuvre on the ground. Observations of the Karabagh War (2020) indicated that drones gave the opportunity to strike in depth against air defence and Electronic Warfare (EW) assets. Having blinded and disarmed air defences, the drones could overwhelm artillery batteries and passively camouflaged armour individually. Topography mattered too. In densely forested areas, the Turkish drones supplied to the Azeris were less effective, but the Armenians were unable to prevent the interdiction of their logistics along a narrow mountainous valley to the main positions around the capital Stepanakert, and it was this that gave Azerbaijan its victory. Yet, in February 2022, the prevailing technologies did not seem to be drones, but conventional armour, anti-tank guided missiles, artillery, and air power. The Turkish BT2 drone, so successful in Karabagh, was seen as slow and ineffective in the opening months of the Russian invasion of 2022.
Caveats and Purpose: In Ukraine, both sides fought a more extended conflict, with changing phases of the fighting and adaptation at the tactical level. Lessons were therefore contingent on the immediate period in which they were drawn. This article offers a number of observations while the war is still in progress and therefore cannot be considered definitive. Moreover, due the limitations imposed by a single chapter, the lessons are confined to operational matters, not the tactical ones that have, to date, attracted the most attention.
The purpose of drawing lessons is twofold: to improve preparation for war and military effectiveness. The readiness of a nation for war, what plans it has in place, what measures have been taken, stocks acquired, and supply routes secured depend on an accurate reading of the threat. It refers to the extent to which the public have been prepared in terms of information, personal and local resilience, and their willingness to endure and support their national defence. It is the full range of contingencies, from anticipating inflation and financial needs, to the streamlining of government to execute decisions, acquire expertise and data, and align economic and military needs. Arguably, with some exceptions in northern and eastern Europe, NATO member states have not yet collectively applied this lesson, despite the evidence from Ukraine.
Military effectiveness is the efficacy of communications, surveillance, logistics, firepower, the will to fight of armed forces personnel, mobility, protection, security, intelligence, and mass, compared to an adversary. Effectiveness is itself predicated on the ability to adapt to the dynamics of confrontation, hostile coercion, and armed conflict itself. Far more work has been done in this area, and the operational aspects form the basis of this chapter.
Identifying and learning lessons for adaptation requires an understanding of the distinctiveness of the Ukrainian context, the threat, changes in capabilities and performance over time as each belligerent adapts to the other to find an edge, and then uses this to create an applied approach to one’s own forces. One way this is done is through comparisons with other ‘in-conflict’ analyses.[3] Over- or under-estimation of the quality and performance of forces has nevertheless been a common problem. In Gulf War I in 1990-1991, for example, it was widely anticipated that the Iraqi armed forces would perform better than they did, and a similar verdict was made of the expected Russian offensive of 2022.
Capabilities may be over-estimated because there is a tendency to focus on scale and on announcements of their latest developments.[4] The T-90 has not performed well as many believed it would, and the T-14 Armata has been conspicuous by its absence in the battlespace. Similar Russian pre-war boasts about its uncrewed Uran-9 automated tank have been unfulfilled. But there are other reasons why overestimation occurs. Assessments of corruption, bureaucratised behaviour, indiscipline, factionalism, and the low quality of leadership are difficult to calibrate in terms of their effect or importance. We cannot really know how a force will perform until the ‘audit of battle’ when the systems are really tested and post conflict analysts tend to ‘tidy up’ the performance of armed forces, giving clear lists of factors when, in reality, there may have been several causes of ‘friction’ that impaired performance.
Longer conflicts may not produce better analyses. Not only can the fighting evolve, but protracted campaigns can reinforce and entrench certain assumptions. Equally, very short term events can acquire disproportionate and atypical attention. Assessments of ‘surprise’ attacks too often attribute failure to intelligence assessments when it is the misinterpretation of intelligence that matters most. It is striking how often one hears the accusation that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine represented a failure of deterrence. In fact, not only was Ukraine not a signatory to the NATO Charter, it was the alliance and its deterrence that limited the conflict to Ukraine and Russia and prevented its spread across the continent.
Certain capabilities may be attributed with greater significance in peacetime and then found to be less important when hostilities commerce in earnest. Cyber and EW were expected to be ‘game-changer’ capabilities. Their importance, while significant, appeared only in the context of physical operations. Expectations like these can have serious consequences. Anti-armour guided weapons, Javelins and NLAWs, were sent to Ukraine because it was assumed the Ukrainians would be overrun and would need to conduct an insurgency. What evolved was positional defence and an artillery-led conflict.
There are several observations that can be made of why the analyses of Ukraine’s and Russia’s performance were wrong, and the implications for deriving operational lessons of other conflicts. The first is technology-dominant assumptions are made because Western forces are led by technology as the means for offensive operations and force protection. There is, by contrast, less emphasis on morale and motivation, which has been a significant factor in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Specific doctrinal assumptions are also prevalent in Western writing. This reflects an admiration for Russian doctrine and which led many to believe it would ensure performance was better.[5] In the same way, there was some faith that numerical assessment conferred superiority over the qualitative: production figures, orders of battle, capability lists, logistics and other measurable items were easier to quantify and therefore they made up a larger proportion of the evaluation. Mirror-imaging of NATO systems and thinking can be another distortion. The allies look for the familiar in their adversaries and overlook where they are different and potentially flawed, or better.
Group think and social conformity can influence assessments and what should be derived as ‘lessons’. ‘experts’ are celebrated, especially when they are making public statements, and it would take a courageous individual in the period 2023-2025 to claim that drones were not going to be significant in warfare in the 2030s. The ubiquity of drones in the combat in Donbas seems to present overwhelming evidence of their importance, but it is just as likely that counter-drone technologies will evolve in the coming years, such that, as a single system, it will be insufficient to effect a ‘decisive’ result in every future encounter. We need to just as cautious when it comes to emotional attachment to certain ideas. We need scientific rigour to prise ourselves away from what we want to see, what lessons we want to learn because of their reinforcement effect on strongly-held preferences, and because their ‘fit’ to existing organisations and practices.
The Operational Context
Having repeatedly denied any hostile intent, Russia issued an ultimatum to NATO and separately to the United States in December 2021 calling for the demilitarization of eastern Europe. After a build up of many months, and an attempt at a false flag of Ukrainian ‘attack’, Russia launched a coup de main against Kyiv with road columns of land forces, following the models used in Prague (1968), Kabul (1979), and Chechnya (1992). Russian failed to secure air supremacy. Four of the five ground axes were checked and only Kherson was taken. Russia’s ‘special military operation’ in the Donbas also failed. The Russian army withdrew to consolidate, ending the first phase of the war.
In the second phase, Russia launched offensives to try and take more of Donbas. Ukraine launched its own offensive in summer 2023. Neither acquired a breakthrough against defensive trench lines and minefields that extended into depth. A stalemated, grinding ground war developed. The huge losses in Russian armoured vehicles, specifically 3,000 MBTs, and the introduction of long-range artillery for Ukraine converted the Russian offensives into artillery and infantry led attacks. Tactics evolved with a greater emphasis on EW, drones, and dispersed, small unit assaults. Russia repeated costly attacks through the winter of 2023 and summer of 2024. By the autumn the casualty toll on the Russian side was approaching 1,000 men a day.
The was a constant concern about the risk of nuclear weapon use by Russia against Ukraine and the condition of nuclear power stations, particularly Zaporizhzhia. News outlets, including state media, made periodic threats about the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine and NATO member states. Mobile launchers were moved into occupied Ukraine and into Belarus. An Oreshnik intermediate range missile, with multiple warheads, was first used against Ukraine in 2024 in an obvious effort at signalling. Bizarrely, Sergei Shoigu demanded to know why the West was planning to release a radiological weapon against Russia, that had no basis in fact, but which indicated the failures of intelligence in the Russian apparatus. NATOs nuclear arsenal would make any attempt by Russia to use its own nuclear weapons catastrophic and counter-productive, which implies a conventional conflict remains the focus on NATOs forces.
Aside from the threat and deployment of nuclear weapons, and fears of the fracturing of nuclear power stations, the conflict was characterized by widespread Russian attacks on civilians and critical national infrastructure (CNI), part of a deliberate policy of demoralization to break the Ukrainian will to fight. This programme of terror extended to attacks on first responders, atrocities, such as those at Bucha, the theft of thousands of children, and other forms of ethnic cleansing, provoked a charge from the International Criminal Court against Vladimir Putin for war crimes, and, potentially, crimes against humanity. In any conflict for NATO against Russia, it is clear that civilians would be targeted by the Kremlin.
Despite Russian indifference to the charges, it was evident that low morale had plagued the Russian armed forces from the start. Inadequate equipment, rations, munitions, and bad leadership were the most significant themes, but high casualties and lack of progress made matters worse. These latter two factors forced Russia to mobilize part of its population, mostly from the impoverished peripheral provinces, and seek new resources from partners, namely Iran, DPRK, and China. Iranian drones were supplied until Israel’s attack on Iran in 2025 slowed the supply. North Korea provided artillery, shells, and a division of troops, but these all performed badly. China assisted with dual use technologies, made available manufacturing space, and was rumoured to have sent 18,000 PLA personnel to assist in logistics, targeting, and even combat operations. In Russia, with the state offering massive injects of revenue, war production was increased to a point where munitions statistics exceeded that of NATO.
Russia’s offensive operations ground on from 2023 to 2025, and, once its armoured forces had been destroyed in their thousands, old variants were drawn out of stocks. Artillery was also increased in density, and became the biggest killer on the battlefield, but the ‘de-modernisation’ of the Russian army meant a greater reliance on infantry-led assaults. Waves of battalion and company strength proved ineffective, so small groups were deployed. These too were picked off. Russian desertions exceeded 20,000 by 2025, and there were episodes of indiscipline and surrender. Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Private Military Company, attempted a putsch to address the conditions but he was later assassinated. The Russian army’s response was to the increased the numbers, and to pipe the mobiks (mobilised men) through the training faster, leading to more ill-trained men becoming casualties. Punishment beatings, murder of men refusing to go forward, and a raft of incentives and pay-outs for families maintained the ‘meatgrinder’ approach.
Ukraine achieved a startling breakout on a new front at Kursk in 2024, and the Russians took months to seal off and neutralise the incursion. Ukraine also retaliated against strikes on its CNI with its own sabotage in depth, against airbases, munitions factories, and artillery and drone production facilities. On the Donbas front, the numbers of defenders dwindled until replenished with new trained personnel, but attrition continued. The endurance of the Ukrainians continued to attract admiration, but Western stocks began to run down. Worse, the Trump administration of 2024, having made clear its intention to end the conflict and therefore all US aid to Ukraine, began to treat the Ukrainians and the Russians with equivalence, which many saw as a reward for Moscow’s aggression. Talks between Washington and Moscow produced no progress, and the Europeans, warned by the Americans that they should provide for their own defence, looked anxiously at their own tiny arsenals and enabler capabilities. It looked as though Europe and Canada would have to deter Russia alone. These elements combined compelled NATO to look more carefully at how the war was being fought, and how it must adapt its own forces and operational design to the immediate threat.
Part 1: Operational Lessons
The operational themes addressed here are, first, command and control across wide fronts; and second, the issues of intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, and, with it, precision, navigation, and timing which are dependent on space. The third area is that of the human dimension of operations: personnel, recruitment, mobilisation; and then intelligence and security. The next area is concerned with actual operational art in the ‘close’ battle, with observations on firepower, manoeuvre, and tactics, and crucially the importance of EW and Uncrewed Air Systems (UAS). This is followed by a section on the ‘deep’ battle: long range fires and missiles (including HIMARS and ATACMS), with drones operating against logistics, ports, and CNI. This brings us to the question of air operations and air defence (air, ground based, and Integrated Air and Missile defence (IAMD)). The seventh area is logistics, especially munitions; then information operations, and, then interoperability, battlefield repair, and improvisation. The final sections are concerned with maritime, Uncrewed Maritime Systems (UMS), and counter-maritime warfare; and training, especially progression from tactical to formation training.
Lesson 1 Command and Control: The lesson from Ukraine’s war against Russia is that command and control must be maintained, in the teeth of EW, across a wide frontage and in depth. The Ukrainian Donbas front is 420 km long and the ‘close’ battle zone is circa 30 kilometres deep. There are approximately 75,000 to 100,000 troops in the fighting zones, outnumbered by over 120,000 Russian and their partner forces. For the Ukrainians, operational command is devolved to divisional and brigade level, while independent tactical command is necessarily exercised below battalion, company, and platoon level. The Ukrainian Kursk incursion operation was planned and executed at a national level, but much of the fighting remains small scale. There are nightly struggles to bring up munitions, rations, and replacements, and to evacuate the casualties, tactical issues which are reflected in NATO training. There have been shortcomings in the experience of commanders to exercise joint operations and even combined arms manoeuvre, which was exposed in the summer offensive of 2023, although experience has taught the survivors what works and what does not. Initially, tactical level communications were made with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) platforms (such as smartphones) complete with enabling software, but this gave way to encrypted communication.
Lesson 2 Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) coupled with space surveillance and Precision, Navigation, and Timing for accurate targeting (PNT) proved essential in the conflict and would be regarded as a key lesson for NATO and its adversaries. It was increasingly difficult to ‘hide’ in the Ukrainian battlespace: troops dug in for protection, dispersed into tactical units, and rarely concentrated force even in offensive operations. Troops occupied entrenchments that offered the smallest possible aperture to discourage detection and drone attack. Thermal imaging made movement at night as hazardous as by day. Artillery, which could be located, tracked, and destroyed using space intelligence or by loitering drones, developed the tactics of ‘shoot and scoot’. It was vital to be able to relocate at frequent intervals and NATO began to look at its towed artillery as obsolete. The UK, for example, dispensed with its slow moving self-propelled artillery and adopted the more manoeuvrable Archer gun, developed in Sweden. The ISR Ukrainians developed had to be real-time: there was no time to develop a full picture. The rapid distribution of a common situational awareness, the geographical layout of friendly and enemy forces, the extent of minefields, the most common routes and infrastructure, and the distribution of one’s own and hostile logistics were required down to the tactical level. Rapid fire support was developed by “dropping pins” in map applications, increasing the lethality of traditional artillery and other fire support. That said, tactical communications attracted unwelcome hostile EW and artillery fire. Using drones instead created tactical situational awareness for subunits that did not then have to use radios, however vehicle-to-dismounted unit communications did still have to use radio and consequently was only used in the immediate tactical environment in contact.
The verdict is therefore that NATO forces need to focus on concealment, deception, and dispersal throughout the operational system, from front line units to base areas, rolling replenishment locations to medical facilities. High levels of mobility or dug in defences would be the requirement for NATO land forces if, and it is a critical if, air supremacy was not guaranteed. With air superiority, NATO formations would continue to orchestrate combined arms and joint fire and manoeuvre, utilising the ‘on demand’ all-domain battle concept, where fires are delivered by the nearest available systems, regardless of their formal hierarchy of command. It is this speed of devolved command and delivery of fires and other effects which will be the lesson derived, rather than trying to emulate the Ukrainian experience. There are some important features though in terms of UK air base security and port security, which require urgent examination, not least how such facilities are more easily damage when aircraft are mustered in concentrations, there is no live air defence, and there is weak security, as at Brize Norton.
Lesson 3 The Human Dimension: There are also distinct considerations between Ukraine and NATO with regard to personnel, in terms of recruitment, mobilisation, and management. Russia has mobilised a significant number of populations from peripheral and minority areas of the Russian Federation, and proportionally far fewer ‘ethnic’ Russians from central and western Russia. Fewer Chechens have been recruited. In terms of losses, there is a direct correlation with these areas of recruitment, the highest casualty toll falling on the fringes of the Russian Federation and not the ethnic Russian population, on which Putin relies for his strongest support: Moscow is eager to ensure that there is no opposition from Russians in the heartlands. Families of casualties are compensated, and military service represents a lucrative alternative for many minorities or periphery populations, but fraud is rife. By contrast, Ukrainians have deliberately recruited from older men and avoided conscription of the young, on the grounds that they are the future talent the nation needs for recovery. Casualties on both sides have been heavy, with the Russians suffering over a million killed, wounded, and missing by mid-2025.
The lesson for NATO is troubling. Its forces are volunteer professionals and there is a cadre of reservists, most abundant proportionally in Finland and Poland, but smallest in the westernmost nations. With over two million personnel and a mobilisation capacity of over five million, NATO dwarfs the Russian armed forces, even when they are mobilised to 1.5 million. However, the idea of a war of protracted operations, with its drain on personnel and national wealth, is not attractive to member states. The need to take those of fighting age out of civilian industries and the usual resistance by a minority of Left-wing, progressive organisations would be politically uncomfortable, even if it is feasible.
Intelligence and security have been hallmarks of the war in Ukraine. Indeed, the war may have even taken its form as a consequence of Russia’s intelligence failures. Not only did it underestimate Ukrainian resistance, it also failed to anticipate Western support to Ukrainian forces. Russia has struggled to prevent sabotage attacks deep inside Russia, including attacks on its defence industrial base, airfields, and munitions supplies. However, for both sides, battlespace intelligence is better where it can prevail with drones. Operational security has been strictly enforced, but even then, social media and commercial space surveillance has made it far more difficult to conceal movements. Russia’s transfer of arms and ammunition by rail, for example, was widely filmed and broadcast. Building up forces for offensive operations is hard to conceal.
Lesson 4 Operational Art in the Close Battle: The area that has attracted the most attention in NATO has been the operational art of the ‘Close’ Battle, specifically the use of firepower, manoeuvre, and the effectiveness of tactics. At the commencement of the 2022 invasion, Russia’s armed forces used five ground axes, accompanied by air power to try and overwhelm the Ukrainian defences. They attempted an airmobile coup de main that would be reinforced by a rapid ground move from forming up points on the Belarussian and Russian borders. The airmobile operation was defeated at Hostomel by rapid reaction forces and concealed air defence.
In the Battle of Antonov Airport, on 24 February 2022, Ukrainian air defences prevented large scale Russian parachute or air assault landings. The Russian light para VDVs lost 16 helicopters destroyed to Javelin hand-held systems. Then, Ukraine’s 4th Rapid Response Brigade (National Guard) & the Ukrainian 45th Spetsnaz Brigade retook the airport with close air support provided by Ukrainian regular troops. The areas was still contested some seven days later, but the failure of the air assault marked Russia’s inability to secure Ukraine’s capital. The key point for NATO is that pre-positioned and mobile air defence denied the achievement of Russia’s strategic objective, while signals intelligence provided early warning of the invasion and axis of the Russian attack.
Russian ground forces attempted to move at speed, but small battalion tactical groups (BTGs) broke down, became strung out, were ambushed along the line of march, and eventually held up, to the extent the entire force had to be withdrawn. Russia had sacrificed overmatching fires for speed, hoping to replicate the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Kherson was overrun from the south, but no other forces made such progress, and the other urban areas remained in Ukrainian hands. Unsupported Russian armoured columns were picked off. Eventually Kherson was abandoned in favour of a consolidation in the eastern provinces.
NATO has examined Ukraine’s ability to defeat Russian air and ground offensives, looking to emulate the destruction of road columns with Special Forces, air power, integrated armour, and carefully sited ground units, all informed by a single sensing grid. NATOs air superiority makes it more likely that even a Russian attempt at surprise attack would be destroyed.
Thwarted in 2022, Russia constructed deep defensive belts of mines and entrenchments to absorb an expected Ukrainian counter-offensive. Ukrainian tactics differed little from Russian in that combined arms manoeuvre was limited to tactical events, not operational ones at formation level. The Ukrainians had no greater success than the Russians in establishing control of the air against Russian air defences. Their lack of experience in air-land coordination prevented either side from asserting a decisive advantage, and Ukraine lacked the scale of NATOs air forces. The result was a degeneration into a attritional land campaign, which NATO would seek to avoid.
The gradual deterioration of Russia’s forces and its wasteful area fires reduced the Russian land elements to attempting surges of fires and infantry-led assaults in 4 to 40 man groups. Casualties were correspondingly heavy. This prompted the need for a partial mobilization and inducements to provincial men, as well as prison populations, to join the army. Russia resorted to employing Wagner and other private military companies (PMCs) in order to compensate for deficiencies in its conventional military forces. Wagner was used as a shock formation but suffered the same shortages and losses as other units. Wagner even complained that regular logistics were leaving them disadvantaged. PMCs were encouraged to carry out extrajudicial punishment against Russians and minorities. Khadyrov’s Chechens acted as enforcers behind the lines and far from the fighting fronts. Ukraine put far more emphasis on force protection and utilised UAS technology from the outset to augment its firepower. By remaining on the defensive, while asserting small tactical offensive operations, the fighting involved Russian attempts to break through or incrementally regain small areas of ground. As a consequence, individual villages became the scene of intense close quarter combat. NATO armoured vehicles performed well, especially the MBT Leopard II, the UK’s Challenger, and the US Bradley Armoured Fighting Vehicle.
In the Battle of Bakhmut, which commenced on 1 August 2022, a major Russian offensive, involving 50,000 troops including those of Wagner Group, 130 MBTs, and 140 heavy guns, was defeated when Ukraine used a kill zone to attrit Russian forces. Targeting was precise, locating individual vehicles. The casualties inflicted were heavy, with Russian losses at 60,000, although Ukrainian losses reached 20,000. Interestingly, there was no intrinsic operational value to the terrain, although the loss of Bakhmut would place north-south lines of communication at risk. For NATO, it was a demonstration of how they would themselves conduct a defensive battle. Even more successful, in terms of losses inflicted, was the Battle for Mariupol. The city was subjected to intense bombardment that turned the central sector into ruins, but the Ukrainian garrison held out for weeks, using mine facilities to protect civilians and continue their defence. Nevertheless, other than positional defence, NATOs preference is for air manoeuvre, increasing in range, volume, and depth, to destroy Russian forces systemically, along their lines of communication, command and control, logistics, gun lines, communications infrastructure, and unit cohesion.
The Battle of Avdiivka, just north of Donetsk, was a fortified Ukrainian stronghold, established in 2014 during the first Russian incursions. Its strategic position and industrial infrastructure made it a key objective and the Russian offensive intensified in late 2023 and continued through 2024. After months of relentless artillery bombardment, airstrikes, and infantry assaults, Russian troops captured Avdiivka on 17 February 2024. Avdiivka was left in ruins. Ukrainian forces, heavily outnumbered and outgunned, conducted a fighting withdrawal to preserve manpower, and repeated their intention of simply inflicting as many casualties as possible. From a Russian perspective, the capture of Avdiivka was considered a symbolic achievement. They consolidated control on the Donetsk front and released forces for operations further west, but the cost had been significant. This indicates that Russia will accept heavy losses for a location it considers prestigious rather than purely operationally significant. On the other side,
Avdiivka’s fall galvanised Ukrainians and was a cause celebre for the calls for more military assistance. International opinion was appalled by the damage done by Russia’s operations in eastern Ukraine and donations of war materials were stepped up. The same would be true of any NATO member state’s urban areas, such as the capitals of the Baltic, the cities of Poland and Romania, or Türkiye.
The fighting in Ukraine increased the emphasis on precision fires, forcing the belligerents into distributed and decentralized postures, reducing the ability to mass for operational level breakthroughs. The close battle was initially characterized by the extensive use of Javelin, NLAWs, and mortars. This was superseded by UAS, for tactical sensing and targeting, sometimes enabled by satellite. The development and enhancement of commercial drones as FPV (first person view), armed with small grenades or heavier calibre artillery was hugely important at the tactical level for strike and surveillance, but the attrition rate of drones was very high. The dispersed nature of the battlespace did mean they were used in abundance as swarms. Tactical groups of three were more common, and drones were used to fly deliberately into EW areas so that where they fell, the limit of Electronic Counter Measures (ECMs) could be plotted. A drone versus drone battle occurred in June 2023. Despite all the attention paid to FPVs, artillery was still responsible for most casualties. Nevertheless, drones were useful in being used to locate targets, and guide artillery onto their targets.
One development of the EW-ECM battle against drones, and the constant switch of frequencies and types, was the introduction of spools of lightweight fibre optic cables. These were used to fly drones, free of ECM interdiction onto short range targets. Spools of ever-increasing range had to be considered against the payload that could be carried. One unexpected consequence of the use of this technique was that the ‘no-man’s land’ between the front lines became bedecked with the gossamer trails of cables, all of which could entangle troops attempting to patrol across the space. Command wire drones have been used to defeat EW bubbles.
NATO tended to pay less attention to tactical EW, but the rapid evolution of FPV drones, in various roles, and the need to constantly patch and update systems made this a vital lesson of the war in Ukraine. Moreover, it was evident to the Ukrainians that they needed to layer their attack and defence, with drones, ATACAMs or HIMARs long range precision artillery, coordinated with short range air defence. There were reports of frequent blue-on-blue interdictions, given the density of drone and EW operations, but the Ukrainians believed this was a price worth paying for a more comprehensive defence.
In terms of firepower, the operational consumption of munitions has been high for area weapons, but NATO works on the basis of greater precision and therefore a smaller logistics load and logistical flow. NATO relies on a ‘first round, first hit’, on burst communications to reduce its electronic signature for enemy targeting, and is looking towards more automated systems, including faster and more numerous UAS. However, the volumes of production needed by Ukraine alone have exceeded the entirety of NATOs capacity in 2025. This implies that the alliance would need to mass produce drones ready to be adapted rapidly in the event of conflict of a similar character. Many NATO officers and governments are eager to generate cheaper alternative firepower, since the ubiquitous use of precision weapons, which are very expensive and which were a product of the era of counter-insurgency, are considered unsustainable costs if required en masse. Interestingly, Ukraine demonstrated that adaptation of older technologies, and innovative use of cheap, new tech’ was effective.
Precision remained important, but it was also observed that cluster munitions returned to the battlefield, as did the extensive use of mines. Several NATO nations, bordering Russia, called for the abrogation of the 1997 Ottawa agreement that banned anti-personnel mines.
NATO forces noted that fixed positions were hit hard, and they concluded that mobility of fires and personnel was essential. Alongside self-propelled artillery and multi-launched rocket systems, there was discussion of new materials that could be developed to reduce weight, whilst maintaining protection. Ukrainians remain vulnerable in the open battlespace, but high protection reduces mobility. This is always a trade-off. The solution to date has been protected fixed locations, concealed where possible, then brief periods of very high mobility protected by intense fires. Ukrainians, for example, abandoned open trenches manned with company groups. Instead, drone operators were concealed in small bunkers, and sniper pairs, or small mortar teams would provide direct and indirect fires alongside UAS. Fire control from units further in depth was regarded as essential. This change came about through high rates of attrition and the inability to hold fixed lines under intense Russian fire.
An observation here is that Russia’s willingness to absorb the very high rates of casualties means that an attritional strategy has not worked and is unlikely to work against the Kremlin’s forces. Instead, it would be far better to concentrate on the dislocation and destruction of Russian formations in decisive operations. Destroying Russian command and control, inflicting a cauldron battle with faster and more precise fires, and the utter systemic dismantling of the Russian ability to command, move, resupply, and communicate is required through a NATO counter-offensive operational posture.
The relatively static character of the conflict made EW a very significant aspect of operations. There was a far greater density of deployed assets than NATO uses, with large numbers in use, but Ukrainian and Russian operations were not curtailed entirely by EW. It created limitations in radio use, but the detection EW became more of an indicator that one was being targeted as much as it was a jamming tool. Ther result was a selective use of radio communications rather a full reliance on ‘reversionary modes’, older forms of communications.
Satellite communications were valuable to Ukraine. The commercial Starlink gave Ukraine secure communications, and, at the outbreak of the conflict, Ukraine moved its national records and other vital data to the Cloud, thwarting Russian cyber operations. By contrast, shortages of tactical communications in Russian army meant use of insecure means, and interception of their communication in occupied areas was not only used operationally but also broadcast on social media to disclose misconduct and alleged war crimes. Some 42,000 Starlink terminals had been deployed in Ukraine by 2025, assisting with artillery targeting, tactical communications, and drone operations. The only concern for the Ukrainians was the fickle decisions of Starlink’s owner, Elon Musk. He was dissatisfied with President Zelensky and threatened to withdraw the facility. Despite subsequent assurances, Ukraine augmented its satellite communications with Eutelsat’s OneWeb and the EU’s IRIS.
For NATO, satellite communications are vital, and act as the critical enabler for its firepower, navigation, missile guidance, and intelligence. To that end, space is as important as its ports, air bases, and headquarters. Russia and China are aware of this and have developed manoeuvrable space vehicles and anti-satellite (ASAT) missiles. Damaging satellites would increase the debris fields considerably and could act as a double-edged sword, but in November 2021, Moscow fired an ASAT to destroy the Kosmos-1408 satellite, producing over 1500 trackable items of debris capable of damaging or destroying other satellites. In 2024, the United announced that Russia was developing a nuclear armed ASAT, which would do even greater damage and which is in breach of international agreements. NATO should be prepared for Russia to conduct self-destructive anti-satellite operations, perhaps as a last-ditch act of neutralising Western technological advantages.
Lesson 5 The Deep Battle: A striking characteristic of Russia’s war, taken very seriously by NATO, has been ‘Deep Battle’ long range fires and drone strikes against logistics, ports, and critical infrastructure. A campaign of sabotage has also been evident, with attacks on rail lines, power stations, air bases, and even Moscow itself. A variety of weapon systems have been used in these tasks including HIMARS, ATACMS, and Excalibur, which can deliver 155mm precision-guided artillery projectiles over 80 kms with a precision of 2m. The drones capable of carrying heavier payloads are now regarded as ‘flying artillery’, contrasting with the short-range FPV, ‘flying IED’. In addition, Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bombs (GLSDB), with a range of 150 km, and Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM), which converts ‘dumb’ ammunition into a GPS guided weapon with a range of circa 70km, and cruise missiles, like the air-launched Storm Shadow (SCALP-EG) with a range of 250km, increases the vulnerability of rear-area critical infrastructure, command and control nodes, communications centres, and even hardened facilities.
The implication for NATO is an extension of the ‘close’ battlespace into depth and rear areas, including the UK homeland. It offers the opportunity to consider much greater ranges for fires to be delivered into the heart of an adversary’s formations and logistical tail. It implies a more dispersed manoeuvre space, which, in turn, posits that high mobility and speed would be required. Additionally, it suggests that the future battlespace relies above all on air power, either at low altitude or at higher elevations. The ability to absorb attrition from air defence systems, to swarm through with vast numbers of uncrewed and disposable platforms and missiles, or to create stealth delivery systems, is vital. Close fighting may be reduced to dense terrain, such as urban areas, but the logistical needs of these areas of intense combat would themselves become vulnerable to air interdiction.
Lesson 6 Air Operations and Air Defence: The inability to assert air supremacy defined the character of the Russian war in Ukraine. Air defence, either in the air, as ground based (GBAD) or in the form of integrated air and missile defence (IAMD), has proven highly effective. Western systems have proven highly effective and there have been interesting conversions, such as the AIM9, but there are far too few and munition stocks are in short supply for Ukraine. The result has been some significant levels of destruction of Ukrainian urban areas as platforms are needed on the frontlines or at critical nodes. For NATO, there is a serious implication. Given the prevalence of missile and drone attacks, a densely-layered air defence is essential, at least in the initial stages of a conflict, until NATO can go onto the counter-offensive. Even then, an effective missile defence would be required. Short range counter-UAS measures are needed to protect air bases, ports, and government headquarters against drone strikes. The dispersal of platforms, fuel, and munitions is essential.
NATO officers have, for some time, recognised that they may have to fight out of their homelands to even get to the scene of the most intense fighting. The notion that expeditionary forces can be launched without interdiction is certainly over. To that end, it is somewhat surprising to find that many naval and air bases lack sufficient ground security, counter-missile, drone, and other anti-aircraft artillery (AAA), and that its approaches are not well defended.
Lesson 7 Logistics: The protection of logistics has been a feature of the war in Ukraine. Russian mobile logistics were insufficient in scale to sustain the force size deployed and many columns were vulnerable to Ukrainian special forces operations. Moreover, Ukrainian long range fires drove Russian logistics further into depth, with their ammunition depots forced to locate some 120-200km from the forward edge of the battle area. Casualty evacuation was equally precarious on both sides, but especially for Ukrainians as their wounded were targeted deliberately. Some issues never change, however. The movement of liquids remains most difficult for all logisticians, with implications for the delivery of fuel, water, and blood. Some Ukrainian stocks had been dispersed prior to the war, and such a distribution would benefit NATO, but efficiency is more important than delivering greater volumes. Here, new technology may assist NATO: 3d-printing of parts would greatly aid NATO forces especially given the proliferation of advanced weapons with specific components.
Lesson 8 Information Operations: A striking feature of Ukraine’s war effort has been its information operations (IO) and counter-IO. Ukrainian official messaging was successful, with a decentralized production of social media content showing the destruction of enemy forces for the purpose of undermining their adversary’s morale while boosting the confidence of their own forces and population. These products also encouraged donor nations to assist and proved that Ukraine was not a lost cause. Nevertheless, the main information effort is centralised. Combat camera footage and tactical incidents are fed back up the chain of command and processed by the teams in Kyiv and elsewhere. This ensures that tactical units are not overburdened and allows for a smooth and professionally produced set of messages.
A great volume of content has been produced on Telegram, YouTube, and other social media as method of delivery to Ukrainian, Russian, and international viewers. Individual Ukrainian (and selected Russian) soldiers and units are allowed to create social media channels which draw large numbers of followers. However, the majority of Russian consumers of information use terrestrial television, not social media or internet content and the effects are difficult to measure. That said, Russian soldiers and units have short-circuited their chain of command by broadcasting their complaints and concerns online, creating negative publicity which demands political attention from the Kremlin. The regime has sought to suppress these incidents. The most challenging element for the regime has been the approach to take with Russian mil-bloggers. While important in the domestic spreading of the Kremlin’s narrative, they have also been critical of the conduct of certain officers and tactics. They are a powerful tool which Putin outflanked by inviting them to assist in the war effort more directly, and the appeal to their patriotism appeared to work.
For NATO, it is clear that the old-fashioned communique and official statements are not appealing. Information warfare is effective when targeted, but it is a contested environment. Russian narratives propagate the idea they are combatting genocide, NATO-Nazism, and making humanitarian efforts, but they are also hubristic, nationalistic, and extremist. Ukrainian narratives have emphasised a heroic self defence, defiance of the odds and precision in their military operations. It is clear that NATO would be attacked in the information environment with a variety of accusations, no doubt centred on civilian casualties, aggression, and other false flags. Robust preparation for this narrative and the creation of specific, professional media organisations would be advisable.
Lesson 9 Interoperability: One of the charges against NATO is its insistence on exquisite systems and its lack of interoperability. The reliance on very expensive and small numbers of platforms and munitions has led to accusations of waste and unsustainable cost differentials in combat operations. Not only is there a need for standardisation across NATO, with a streamlining of variants of MBTs, AFVs, ISR platforms, and communications, but there is also a need to develop a battlefield robustness to repair and improvisation.
Lesson 10 Battlespace Improvisation and Repair: As Ukraine has demonstrated, the acquisition and requisition of civilian resources is vital, equipment needs to be serviceable and not perfect, and weapons need to be robust and effective rather than of the latest type. The humble drone, a relatively cheap technology, has been as effective as infantry weapons have been. A precise artillery round is ideal but area fires by mortars can be sufficient and cheaper in suppression. Special Forces launched raids deep inside Russia using commercial vehicles and converted short-range drones at a fraction of the cost of a cruise missile, and which inflicted millions of dollars’ worth of damage.
Lesson 11 Maritime Domain Operations: Improvisation was essential for Ukraine in the maritime domain because it lacked a navy and was threatened in the Black Sea with amphibious assault and sea-launched missiles. Operationally, the Russian mine and surface blockade of Ukraine’s coast prevented the release of grain on which a portion of the economy depended. By innovation and improvisation, Ukraine developed uncrewed maritime systems (UMS) and made attacks on the Russian surface fleet. Many UMS do not get through, suggesting that mass is required. Anti-ship missiles proved particularly effective against Russian ships, which forced them to withdraw to the eastern Black Sea and the Sea of Asov. This implies they are valuable in Baltic and North Atlantic coastal defence, but so is the need to counter them. Mines and countermine operations became a major aspect of the war, just as they would be for NATO. It is also worth noting that marine operations were interdicted, which made either landings or sustainment incredible difficult. Littoral access will be a serious consideration for NATO as a result. The war also demonstrated that islands are vulnerable if unsupported but land-based missiles proved highly effective and were responsible for the destruction and sinking of the Russian missile ship, the Moskva. For NATO, the war has shown that maritime munition stocks are required in greater volumes, and at sea reloading is essential. The war has nevertheless not amplified a NATO concern about its vital sea lines of communication across the Atlantic and its undersea CNI, which is vulnerable yet critical.
Lesson 12 Training and Regeneration of Force: Operational training and progression, delivered by NATO nations, has been vital to Ukraine’s ability to sustain its defence. Initially, Ukrainian training programmes were faster than NATO ones and there were demands that training times be cut to get as many through the programmes as possible. By contrast, Russian training was inadequate and sometimes no-existent, giving just the most basic instruction on weapons. It is striking that Ukraine managed to retain reserved occupations for industry as well as military deployment, anticipating that this would likely be a long conflict. NATO trains a select volunteer force but it would do well to examine the relative numbers needed for essential industries and the skills and trades required to service a larger, mobilised NATO military force. European training for Ukraine has come under the EU Military Assistance Mission Ukraine (EUMAM), with a target of 75,000 Ukrainian troops between 2022 and 2025. The UK had its own Operation Interflex with over 56,000 Ukrainian soldiers trained as of mid-2025. Notably, its training teams included instructors from Canada, Sweden, Finland, and Australia. The NATO’s Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU) was established in 2024 in Germany, and this sought to develop specific specialisms in drone warfare and air defence. The United States had its Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine (JMTG-U) and trained 156,000 Ukrainian troops. In addition, the US offered specialised training for the Patriot missile system, F-16 pilot and technician, Bradley and Stryker vehicle crews, and, through the U.S. Army Europe & Africa (7th ATC), training on artillery, such as HIMARS and M777 howitzers. These models have been instructive, illustrating how many personnel NATO would need to set aside from its combat forces to deliver training to 2nd and 3rd echelon strategic reservists.
Conclusions on Operational Lessons
Operational lessons from Ukraine will continue to develop and change, depending on the progress of the conflict and its priorities. In conventional forces and in its nuclear arsenal NATO outnumbers and outclasses Russia, its most immediate threat. However, if Russia used nuclear weapons against Ukraine, NATO member states would certainly look to their civil defence and place a greater emphasis on battlespace measures to limit the effects of blast and radiation. The risk is always that NATO will select the lessons it finds the most likely to reach consensus, and the prevalence of drones, long range fires, electronic warfare, and air defence in the Ukraine conflict could distort the alliance’s operational design. Drawing on a single conflict has significant limits so a comparative approach is more effective, but, even then, one has to guard against deriving lessons that were suitable only to a specific context. The Ukraine war was primarily a ground war because of a failure of either side to acquire air superiority. NATOs context is very distinct, with greater air power, a large oceanic setting, the narrow land defences of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the very specific topography of the Mediterranean or Türkiye’s eastern and southern borders.
A Russia-NATO conflict would be fought along a land front of over 3,500 km, and to a depth of 800 km, with maritime operations across the entire northern Atlantic and the Arctic. It would require a massive mobilisation programme and the regearing of industry to mass produce munitions, drones, and automated weapons. Operationally, the standing forces in NATO would inflict serious destruction on Russian armed forces, and the subsequent manoeuvre of its forces would require decision makers to determine where to limit and terminate their counter-offensive.
Operational commanders require clear direction and rules of engagement, in all domains, including space. They will need, as the war in Ukraine has indicated, secure satellite communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and perhaps AI-enabled data filtering. That ISR picture will determine the targeting, but the automated deployment of an all-domain battlespace management will release commanders from the burdens of detailed target acquisition and planning. The Russia-Ukraine conflict has demonstrated the potential for devolved command, tactical initiative, and the power of long range weapon systems. It is also the case that NATO commanders would have to consider how to manage attrition of their logistics and combat fleets, their personnel, and their sensor-shooter munitions stocks. Morale and motivation, leadership, protection of medical facilities and evacuation of the wounded, and other human elements are constant in the nature of war, and the Ukrainian-Russian experience has brought this back into sharper focus after years of attention on the ‘third offset’ technological solutions. Perhaps this is the most significant lesson of the war overall, namely, the human dimension.
Part II Strategic Lessons and Future UK Preparedness
The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has illuminated several key lessons for the UK and for NATO, reaffirming the alliance’s relevance in preserving security and stability in Europe while highlighting areas that require adaptation to meet the evolving challenges posed by Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China. The war has tested NATO's ability to respond to crises, underscored the importance of collective defence, and reinforced the need for modernisation across its military and strategic frameworks. There are several lessons that the UK and NATO can derive from this conflict to strengthen its position as a bulwark of international defence and security.
Lesson 1: The Importance of Collective Defence
The war in Ukraine has underscored the critical role of Article 5 of NATO’s treaty, which enshrines the principle of collective defence. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia not only threatened the sovereignty of an independent state but also sent shockwaves through neighbouring nations, particularly those bordering or near Russia. Countries like Poland and the Baltic states have been reminded of the existential importance of NATO’s commitment to respond collectively to aggression against any member state. The war has also stressed the requirements and obligations of article 3, where member states are expected to provide for their own defence.[6]
The war has reinforced NATO's necessity for unity and cohesion among member states. The alliance must continue to foster trust and solidarity, as internal divisions could undermine the strength of its collective defence posture and that will come through regular military, naval, and air exercises, intelligence sharing, and diplomatic engagements. The war has reminded NATO of the value of deterrence, ensuring that potential adversaries recognise the serious repercussions of encroaching on NATO territory. In this, the UK has a critical leadership role to play. As a major maritime, air, and nuclear power, with expeditionary forces, it cannot afford to falter in its commitments to a fully capable armed force since other member states will see the UK’s posture as the guidance for their own force reductions or enhancements.
Lesson 2: Deterrence and Forward Presence
One evident takeaway from Ukraine is the need for robust deterrence mechanisms. Russia’s calculated risk in invading Ukraine suggests that its leaders were willing to challenge regional stability despite international opposition and potential consequences. NATO must bolster its deterrence strategy, including the forward positioning of troops and equipment in vulnerable regions, particularly Eastern Europe. It must examine the full implications of deterrence not as something that the UK necessarily does, but what the adversary thinks. Too much emphasis is currently placed on ‘maintaining a deterrent posture’ instead of considering the imposition of doubt or frictions and dilemmas onto the Russians and their confederates.
Enhanced rotational deployments and permanent infrastructure upgrades in frontline nations could serve as a visible deterrent to aggression, especially ones in areas the Russian consider sensitive such as the Arctic, High North Atlantic, Baltic, Black Sea and Caucasus, Central Asia, and Eat Asia. The UK also needs to develop a deep strike, global strike capability in a conventional format. It should give serious consideration to CBRN defence. The war has also demonstrated the importance of rapid mobility, with troops able to respond swiftly to threats wherever they arise and the UK should maintain its skills and capabilities in rapid reaction forces, but not just as ‘light’ elements but with the ability to demonstrate and deploy overwhelming force.
Above all, the UK and its allies need to demonstrate, not just state, their resolve. Russia will continue to harass, probe, and push, where it can, if it meets no resistance or reaction. Robust actions by the UK will assert escalation dominance and force the Russians to back down. Game theory experiments and strategic behavioural studies indicate that the power taking the strategic initiative, and shows it is willing to assert is more likely to succeed that those that avert a ‘tit for tat’ approach.
Lesson 3: Modernisation of Military Capabilities
The Ukraine conflict has highlighted the changing dynamics of warfare, where traditional large-scale ground and air offensives coexist with advanced cyber-attacks, drone warfare, and disinformation campaigns. The U K and NATO must accelerate the modernisation of their forces to match the evolving nature of conflicts witnessed in Ukraine. This modernisation should be matched by mass, not only in reserve personnel numbers, but more importantly in precision firepower. The UK armed forces must be able to acquire, engage, and neutralise targets faster than any of its adversaries.
The war has emphasised the importance of cyber operations, despite a low profile in public discourse. Russia’s tactics included cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure, military systems, and civilian networks in Ukraine, but some of this was averted by moving substantial civilian (government and commercial) activity to the Cloud and the use of encrypted satellite communications. The UK and NATO must prioritise cybersecurity as a key part of its integrated defence strategy, ensuring through UK capacity building that member states are equipped to both prevent and counter cyber threats effectively, not only with defensive cyber security, but the ability to collect intelligence, use AI analytical techniques to fill in the gaps, and deploy offensive cyber capabilities when required to shut down or disrupt known hostile targets or infrastructure.
Drone and anti-drone systems have received extensive coverage in open sources. The widespread use of drones in Ukraine, both for reconnaissance and combat, has demonstrated their value in the battlespace. Conversely, the ability to neutralise enemy drones has become equally crucial. NATO must invest in developing advanced drone technologies and counter-drone systems to maintain its edge in this domain, but it must also recognise the sheer volume of such devices that are required and the need to constant update them. In other words, the strategic implication of drone warfare is not just the capability of individual UAS and UMS systems, but the ability to generate capacity, both in terms of physical air frames and the skilled personnel to operate them. Drone Assault Regiments are required. Large scale drone swarms suitable for naval operations and deep strike, and long range systems for the air domain are needed.
On the other hand, the chief problem of uncrewed systems’ payload versus distance will remain a constant trade-off. NATO needs longer ranges for its systems and not just the short range FPVs. Drone warfare has to contend with a variety of challenges, from ECM to cold and humidity. Like submarine and anti-submarine warfare, there is going to be a surge of incremental developments in the short term, but UAS and UMS, and ground UAV are here to stay. Missile technologies will circumvent much of what drones can achieve, because the killer is the payload as much as precision and manoeuvrability. The IDF have demonstrated that the sheer weight of precision fires still trumps drones, and mobile precision artillery has accounted for more casualties than drones in the relatively static warfare conditions in Ukraine.
Integrated Command and Control Systems are needed to coordinate multinational forces efficiently. The conflict in Ukraine highlights the need for seamless communication systems that allow different units in all domains to operate with synergy and to be able to call in fires or ISR from any asset, as the ‘Uber service of the battlespace’. NATO’s Smart Defence initiative must continue to integrate advanced command and control technologies.
Lesson 4: The Role of Hybrid Warfare
Hybrid warfare, combining conventional military tactics with cyber-attacks, propaganda, and economic pressures, has been a hallmark of the Ukraine conflict. NATO must develop strategies to counter hybrid threats that aim to destabilise societies and erode trust in democratic institutions, and this will demand robust legislation, rapid reaction capabilities, and the willingness to use them, and specialised counter-propaganda institutions (not military, but specialist civilian agencies). The UK must have greater resilience against disinformation which is a pernicious and extensive problem causing significant social division at a time when civil cohesion is vital for a robust defence. Russia’s use of disinformation campaigns has shown how media manipulation can sow discord and confusion among populations. NATO must invest in counter-disinformation initiatives that protect public opinion and reinforce truth, and, again, these should be in the hands of specialist civil agencies, not military or MOD ones.
Of even greater significance is the need for the protection of energy infrastructure. Energy vulnerabilities became apparent in the Ukraine war, with attacks on pipelines and energy facilities exacerbating civilian suffering. NATO must ensure that critical infrastructure in member states is resilient and secure against such threats, and this requires an extensive, AI-enabled array of seabed sensors, loitering air and space surveillance, rapid and robust kinetic and electronic counter-measures against any attacks, sabotage, or interference with energy infrastructure, and a ‘tit-for-tat’ strategic response. Until Russia, North Korea, and China experience the penalties of attacks, they will continue: there must be a cost imposition to deter.
Lesson 5: Strengthening Partnerships
The war in Ukraine has demonstrated the value of partnerships beyond NATO’s immediate membership. Collaborating with non-member states, such as Ukraine itself, and organisations like the European Union has proven essential in mounting a unified response. In considering support for aspiring members, NATO and Europe in particular can no longer vacillate and find excuses to avoid giving Russia or China offence. Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO highlight the necessity of supporting aspiring members through training, equipment, and political backing while managing, not avoiding, the delicate balance of not provoking further aggression from adversaries.
Broadening alliances will be a valuable solution to the alignment of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. The conflict in Ukraine has underscored the importance of NATO's relationships with other global powers, including Japan, Australia, and South Korea, to address threats extending beyond Europe’s borders. Building strong alliances strengthens NATO’s position as a global security leader. These alliances need to be visibly strong, through high level diplomacy, large scale exercises, regular visits, exchanges, military education, trading links, and personal chemistry between leaders.
Lesson 6: The Necessity of Energy Independence
Russia’s strategic use of energy resources as leverage in the conflict has showcased the geopolitical vulnerabilities associated with energy dependence. NATO member states must invest in renewable energy, especially the reliable form of nuclear power, diversify supply chains, and develop contingency plans to ensure energy security during crises. Work is clearly underway in this respect, although it is incomplete.
Lesson 7: Importance of Prepared Civilian Populations
The resilience shown by Ukraine’s civilian population, including their ability to organise and support military efforts, has been a cornerstone of their resistance. NATO must work with member states to prepare civilian populations for potential crises, enhancing their ability to respond to disruptions and contribute to national defence.
Conclusion on the Strategic Lessons: The UK’s Strategic Situation
The conclusions of the UK’s position will make uncomfortable reading but sometimes a critical review is necessary.
The UK’s traditional grand strategy was to ensure no one power dominated the continent of Europe, and, since its power was diminished by the rise of the Superpowers, it sought to remain close to, and, indeed, enmeshed with, the United States. The Americans were to be kept ‘in’ to Europe, and the Russians ‘out’. The traditional ways were to act as the paymaster and quartermaster of continental partners until, after 1945, the UK economy was bankrupted by the war. For the first time, the UK entered into an alliance that, in advance of conflict, amounted to a ‘continental commitment.’ Where the UK’s strategy went wrong before was to attempt a continental commitment prematurely, that is, before it possessed the mass and means to enforce its power in Europe.
The traditional defence policy was to maintain the security of supply chains by possessing naval power that could defeat any adversary. What the UK understood was that possession or denial of the flows of communications and resources gave it access to the globe and wealth from it. When the UK lost its ability to control flows, its wealth was diminished. The compensatory approach was to join economic groups. It had possessed a ‘sterling bloc’ but the United States dismantled it, finally finishing it off in 1956. Instead, in 1973, after the ‘oil shock’ energy crisis, the UK joined the EEC and then developed its own energy supply through North Sea oil and gas.
Today, despite the opportunities to exploit its energy supplies through fracking, it has embarked on the self-inflicted damage of ‘net zero’ agenda. Coupled with the low productivity of its own, and European industries, with the sell-out to cheap manufacturing in China, it has left itself dependent and economically weakened.
Diplomatically, the US isolationist turn has left the UK facing its own form of isolation. It faces a choice of continuing to seek out positive global links or adopt a narrow and negative pleading to Europe for re-entry into a weakened continental bloc. Its insistence on demanding social values change and on net zero in the world has diminished its influence in the continents of South America, Africa, and Asia.
Militarily, the UK possesses armed forces and munitions configured for low intensity conflict, constabulary maritime activity, and air policing. It identified the need for capability modernisation and expansion of munitions, but rearmament has not so far been achieved despite the war in Ukraine. It currently lags behind Europe in munitions production.
The UK’s defence spending is historically low and its forces lack mass. It would struggle to regenerate its forces with a very small industrial base and low manufacturing capacity. New tech options remain fragile and are not scaled.
The UK population lacks social cohesion and strata of the population who would normally have served express significant dissatisfaction with the bureaucratised and directive policies of successive governments. Despite a successful scientific community, there are too many blockers, still, to UK free enterprise which is the mechanism to unleash growth. The UK cannot spend its way of its current fiscal crisis and state-ownership is proven amongst economists to be a brake on growth. The UK must simply reduce its costs, increase productivity, and free up its business sector.
In short, in a high-intensity conflict the UK would soon exhaust its professional forces, munitions, and its platforms, and there is almost no reserve capacity. To make matters worse, all the European nations make the same assumption, specifically, that in the event of armed conflict they could rely on their allies and therefore take risk on the forces’ size. It is a false economy. Governments have been resistant to defence spending believing the public would not support it and that it would create a burden on a struggling economy. This assumption is false, since rearmament, like infrastructure investment, can grow the economy over time as long as it is not excessive.
III The Question of Security Guarantees
Diplomatically, there has been discussion of what security guarantees could be offered to Ukraine, sufficient to deter Russia from further aggression, in the event, which is currently considered unlikely by Russia specialists, of a peace accord.
The UK armed forces are already committed in penny packets along a ‘front’ that is 3,600 miles long, from northern Norway to Oman. This includes the Royal Marine and RN presence in the High North, the Enhanced Forward Presence in Estonia, which absorbs a brigade equivalent through rotation and training (although a BG is deployed), with the RN in the Baltic. There are deployments to Cyprus and the Gulf, primarily air and maritime. While NATO provides the bulk of the force, the Europeans lack the full complement of enablers to ensure that these formations and platforms are able to fight effectively.
A deployment by the UK to Ukraine would likely require a minimum of a brigade and a squadron of RAF, which, in essence, requires a training and rotation of a UK division and an air group. While its declared presence would be peacekeeping, it would need to be ready to fight since the Russians would be eager to probe and discredit the force. Assurances that the force would not be required to fight have been made in the past and would soon be exposed, as they were in Helmand, Afghanistan in the summer of 2006.
The Russians have declared that they would not accept a UK and European force in Ukraine. Russian mobilisation continues and its economy is now geared to war. There have been many assumptions about the deterioration of the Russian economy and armed forces since 2022. Russia has adopted mitigation measures as expected. Its hydrocarbon economy has proven useful in absorbing the costs of war. Despite high inflation, the Russians have made use of Chinese industries; North Korean munitions, artillery, and forces; Iranian drones; and impoverished regional populations of the Russian Federation for manpower. Ukrainian efforts to damage Russian CNI have been marginally effective. Russia could seek to test and potentially attack a British force, believing that the United States might not back a European contingent.
Recommendations
1. The UK should not deploy forces to Ukraine unless they are ready to fight and there is sufficient mass in a European force of two Corps strength. Since they are not (yet), it is vital to buy time to regenerate force through rearmament. In the short term, therefore, the UK should seek to draw Russia into multiple geographical dilemmas – Africa, the Middle East, the Arctic. The UK should avoid a premature deployment until its forces are ready in terms of AD, EW, fires, mobility, space-based comms and ISR, and deep strike. At most, the UK could concentrate on maritime security in the Black Sea. The UK could provide a Corps headquarters but the bulk of the force, which should be ‘heavy’, should consist of air power to deny access to Ukrainian air space and a ground force of eight European brigades, with all the enablers. This would be the size of force needed to convince Moscow that the Europeans are serious about Ukraine’s security. It will need to be accompanied by a fast track membership to NATO.
2. The UK should seize Russian financial assets to use on its own rearmament programme. Its munitions industries are a priority area and should not be left only to private industry: a national body should be established and a public ownership created. It would do well to end its thin spread of financing and invest more strongly in fewer sure bets of technology and industry. Most new tech and start ups for military technologies are too fragile to scale, and the Primes are reluctant to commit to expansion with the current contracting arrangements or annual treasury funding model. There should be a comprehensive programme of rearmament based on the infrastructure development and borrowing, which, in turn attract investment, and a 20-year boosted commitment. Its homeland defence resilience needs to be addressed, not least as the means to engage the public in the change in the geopolitical environment.
3. The UK should continue to act as quartermaster for Ukraine, using the excess of its production capacity over a period of five years. It is vital to sustain Ukraine as a fighting force.
4. UK should consolidate its strength in the Northern Atlantic. The principle of the concentration of force is essential. It would do well to win American approval by forming an Arctic Pact with Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway and Finland. The UK should lead on maritime and air strength, while developing its BMD and IAMD.
5. The UK needs to form political and security arrangements over the supply of minerals, energy, critical materials, and foodstuffs. It needs to expand its manufacturing base.
6. UK conventional deterrence is dependent on the costs one can inflict, and the speed one can deliver it (strategic initiative). Conventional wars are devastating, not just in physical damage but in financial and economic costs. But Putin has demonstrated his willingness to take the risk based on the calculus that the Europeans will always give way when pressed. In fact, Russia has acted consistently in line with a power politics form of strategy. It is the UK which has acted illogically: previously speaking loudly, but carrying a small stick. The Europeans do possess mass but show a lack of willingness to use their power, in part because of a lack of political unity, public education, and non-integrated means. The United States has a valid point when it claims the Europeans have free-loaded on US power. Now the US position has changed and its support to Europe will diminish over the coming years. The Europeans cannot manage strategic autonomy without the UK. The UK therefore has a leading role to play in nuclear and conventional deterrence.
Conclusion
The war in Ukraine has been a stark reminder of the volatile security environment and the unpredictable nature of modern conflicts. For the UK and NATO, the lessons are clear: they must adapt to new forms of warfare, strengthen their deterrence capabilities, and reinforce their commitment to collective defence by actions, not words. By investing in modernisation, cybersecurity, energy independence, and partnerships, NATO can ensure its relevance and effectiveness in addressing the challenges of the 21st century. The invasion of Ukraine has not only tested the alliance but also reaffirmed its importance, proving that a united and adaptable NATO remains the cornerstone of UK, North Atlantic, and global security.
[1] This article is a longer version of a forthcoming chapter in Rob Johnson and Janne Haaland Matlary, (eds.) Meeting the Russian Threat (London: Hurst & Co., 2026).
[2] Russia had lost over 150 combat aircraft by 2025.
[3] John Andreas Olsen and Martin van Creveld (eds.), The Evolution of Operational Art: From Napoleon to the Present (Oxford University Press, 2010), a volume of the CCW:SST series.
[4] A useful critique of Operational Art studies is at: https://archive.smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/a-critical-perspective-on-operational-art-and-design-theory (Accessed August 2025).
[5] Antoine Bourguilleau’s new work on the myth of Russian/Soviet Operational Art is published in French: ‘L’art operatif sovietique: c’est de la flute.’ https://podcasts.audiomeans.fr/player-v2/le-collimateur-3a69405a3ad8/episodes/71690208-0883-4326-8b0c-9c867f5cae39?download=0&std=0&vert=1&leadin=1&playlist=0&color=7d7d7d&theme=dark (Accessed August 2025) For an alternative English language, but exaggerated, study of Soviet operational design, see Shimon Naveh, In Pursuit of Military Excellence: The Evolution of Operational Theory (1997), by a widely discredited author.
[6] See: ‘will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack’ in https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_17120.htm#:~:text=InordermoreeffectivelytoachievetheobjectivesofthisTreaty,theParties,separatelyandjointly,bymeansofcontinuousandeffectiveself-helpandmutualaid,willmaintainanddevelop (Accessed June 2025). .
