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NATO must codify these lessons from Ukraine while motivation is there

To say Russia’s invasion of Ukraine changed everything for the NATO alliance is obvious on its face — but that doesn’t mean its wrong. And yet, how much has the alliance altered its future planning to account for lessons learned from Russia’s actions? In this op-ed, NATO experts Ira Straus and Jim Townsend lay out what they see as the must-do list for alliance leadership. 

A year after Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine began, there are still vital lessons to be learned — with the most important question being how the alliance can encode these lessons into its collective mindset, so its leaders can avoid repetition of past mistakes. NATO failed to deter the attack on Ukraine, and wasn’t ready to support Kyiv when the attack came. We need to look back, see what worked, what failed, and draw serious conclusions before we settle back into routine.

We too often repeat mistakes at the outset of each crisis. We failed to deter Russia’s invasion in both 2014 and 2022, and then wrongly assumed a quick defeat of Ukraine. Then we moved far too slowly on weapons transfers to Ukraine, getting shamed into them, backing into them, always too little too late, as if our goal were not to succeed but to mollify domestic critics. And when we have sent weapons, it has come after too much public deliberation about whether to provide assistance, giving Russia full warning of the assistance to come and inviting Putin to threaten an escalatory response.

It is a litany of dangerous mistakes. This is one of those rare times to “seize the moment.” We have, despite the serious failures to stop Russia, a key plank to build on: an upsurge of pro-alliance sentiment across Europe and the Americas. It provides a basis for doing major repairs now, when the spirit is with us.

We see four main areas for learning lessons. The first is deterrence — understanding why the West was twice unsuccessful in deterring Putin’s attack. The second is military assistance — why, despite everything sent to far, as military assistance been more effective for Ukraine? Third, sanction —  how can we further improve on our sanctions while avoiding overreliance on them? And finally, decision making —how can we improve our methods of decision making so we don’t go through the same costly delays and blunders with every new crisis.

Lessons On Deterrence

Strategic messaging matters. We need to maintain strategic clarity for Treaty Allies, and be clear about meeting Article 5 obligations. But at the same time, NATO must maintain “strategic ambiguity” for non-Article 5 partners; keep adversaries guessing whether we’ll defend Taiwan, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia. Don’t inadvertently invite aggressors in.

We need to stop giving reassurances that we won’t defend non-Article 5 countries — as was done to Ukraine. Western rhetoric falls back too easily on the NATO Treaty area as the definition of what the Alliance will and will not defend. It may create a delusion of strategic clarity, but it actually creates a zone of instability, a vacuum enticing an invader. If, by defining our defense perimeter too narrowly, we embolden the adversary to invade, the West will likely get drawn in anyway — but now having to defend a wider perimeter and supply weapons at a more dangerous time to do so.

No more mere tripwires. In the Baltics and other frontline states, we need to forward deploy NATO forces on a scale beyond our current tripwires. It should be a force adequate to fight an aggressor, not sized to be sacrificed to invoke Article 5; and should get there in advance during peacetime.

And that pre-posisitoning should include non-alliance members. Sending NATO forces to some non-Article 5 Partner countries like Moldova that are critical to Allied security cannot be off the table. And in cases where putting forces in-country isn’t feasible, NATO should begins supplying partners with sufficient weaponry to deter an adversary themselves.

Stop deterring ourselves. We have gotten the balance wrong here. We do not decrease the risk of wider war by labeling our needed defensive steps as escalations; nor by avoiding them until too late, or dodging winning as provocative, or fighting with goals only of stalemate and attrition. Instead, this grants impunity for escalating against us.

Decision makers may reassure themselves that they’re being wise and weighing all sides. However, “weighing all sides” does not mean splitting the difference; it means making a hard, informed choice. Ambivalence and attrition do not minimize risk; they multiply risk by perpetuating it over time. Defeat creates new risks: more aggression, and war closer to home. It is winning that is the least risky outcome.  The war and the threat to world peace at this moment are a result of our unbalanced self-deterrence. We underreacted until it was too late.

Lessons On Military Assistance

Speed matters. We must learn to deliver military assistance on a timely basis, in sufficient quantity, and without public debate which can be interpreted by the aggressor as indecision. Even the most sophisticated military assistance is for naught if delivered too late to have an impact on the battle at hand. Avoid waiting until there is pressure from the public to supply weapons or until after a war begins to provide assistance that is best suited for deterrence, not combat. That means facing up now to all that’s needed for deterring attacks on Taiwan and other threatened partners.

Don’t limit your options. Don’t say we will provide only defensive weapons to partners. Provide the full spectrum of weapons needed for effective defense. After all, any weapon is defensive if your country is being invaded, and the enemy doesn’t see a difference.

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Where the West is unwilling to actively fight for a partner, the West should properly arm that partner to carry the burden of the fight — without caveats. For deterrence to work, the partner must be able to use its forces unconstrained.  Credible deterrence requires an adversary to know that the partner will do everything in its power to stop an invader, including counterattacking on the invader’s own territory.

Sanctions Guidelines

Plan your sanctions. Do deterrent sanctions in advance, as shots across the bow, not after the fact. Once a government has committed to invading another nation, you have to assume sactions are baked into its planning; doing them beforehand is where they will be most effective.

And when wartime sanctions are needed, go for the big bang: preplanned, comprehensive, and fast. Gradualism has left Russia time to adapt and develop channels for evading the sanctions.

Sanctions are never a silver bullet.  Sanctions weaken alliance cohesion in the long run. They inevitably have a differential impact, doing greater harm to the economies of the allies closest to the sanctioned country — Europeans when sanctioning Russia, Asian allies when sanctioning China. Deterrence has to be primarily based on military capability. Sanctions have a supporting role, not a cornerstone role.

Alliance Decision-Making Lessons

Think faster. The necessity of speed in the Ukraine crisis has shown a need to improve further on NATO consensus-based decision-making. Getting all 31 NATO nations aligned on any one topic is, at the best of times, a difficult logistical challenge; during the run up to a conflict, it is effectively impossible.

We’re seeing the impact on the Ukraine situation, with both the U.S. and Germany justifying delays and limits on what aid is sent to Kyiv in this way. For instance, President Joe Biden stated on Dec. 21, 2022 that NATO might somehow “break up” if he went ahead and gave more advanced weapons. The exaggerated fear of getting out in front of consensus thus enfeebles even the independent national actions. It is almost a cultural problem in the alliance, flowing from NATO’s excessive dependence on consensus.

Alliance language needs to change. More emphasis is needed on going ahead with alliance-supportive actions — that is, national measures that support the agreed purposes of NATO, without feeling a need for collective approval. The collective decision-making procedures themselves can also improve further.

In the most extreme case, that of Article 5, we should ask ourselves in advance: “Which would be a greater breach in NATO unity: a materially damaging delay in acting on Article 5 because of an obstructionist member, or acting on Article 5 without full consensus?”

A failure to act sufficiently on an Article 5 attack would be a fatal breach of alliance unity and destroy the real, long-term consensus. The underlying alliance cohesion is actually strengthened if the alliance can proceed to act in such cases without waiting on full consensus. A better interpretation of the meaning of NATO unity would make us better prepared to get necessary actions underway in an existential crisis.

Encoding The Lessons

NATO should undertake now to assess the lessons learned, and communicate them to allied governments as guidance. Solid shared guidance will be helpful in addressing future crises: it will provide more adequate and timely advice to national leaders, help get them all on the same actionable page, and make the concern for alliance cohesion a basis for sound action, not an excuse for inaction.

Lessons incorporated into NATO thinking cannot prevent all future mistakes. But well-encoded lessons can reduce the number of them.

It is important to get this done while the crisis is on and the motivation is strong. The ideas in this article are a starting point, meant to prod the institutions to get on with the work.

Measured by the yardstick of history, NATO is an unprecedented success. The West needs it to stay that way. It can do this if it learns the lessons from the failures and incorporates them for the future.

Ira Straus is Chair, Center for War/Peace Studies, U.S. Coordinator, Committee on East Europe & Russia in NATO and a senior advisor, Scowcroft Center for Strategy, Atlantic Council.

Jim Townsend is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Europe and NATO.