Western militaries are learning lessons on modern warfare through the training they provide Ukrainian troops, but one NATO commander says they need to distinguish between what Ukraine does because it works and what it does because it didn’t have a better choice.
Norway is leading Operation Legio, a multinational effort to train Ukrainian soldiers at Camp Jomsborg, a purpose-built training camp in Poland. There, Ukrainian troops and instructors with battlefield experience work alongside Western trainers.
Through its work with the Ukrainians, Norway is gathering information about tactics and equipment to bring back to its own military for consideration.
Brigadier Atle Molde, the commander overseeing Task Force Legio, told Business Insider that the camp might be “the most important sensor for information” for Norway as it, like other NATO allies, seeks to learn from Ukraine amid concerns that Russian aggression may one day spill over NATO borders.
But he warned that Norway cannot copy everything Ukraine does without critically examining it “We are learning every day from the Ukrainians,” Molde said. “But when you learn from the Ukrainian war, it’s very important that you understand what you hear and see. And that takes quite a bit of context, experience, and knowledge about what you’re seeing.”
Norway must understand whether Ukraine is using certain gear or tactics because they’re genuinely innovative, or because “it’s the last option,” because “it’s the last choice they have.”
Molde said he believes that some of Ukraine’s actions are indeed done “because they don’t have a choice.”
Over the course of the war, Ukraine has developed innovative new weaponry, and those innovations have influenced NATO training, tactics, and weapons purchases. But the distinction Molde is drawing matters, especially with drones.
Ukraine fields millions of drones of various types, executing numerous missions from surveillance to logistics to strike. It’s built cheap mass and developed a host of critical skills and tactics that could help shape doctrine for years to come. But many of these advances came from a lack of artillery, aircraft, and other weapons that NATO has in its arsenal, but Ukraine does not.
Molde said that “people often draw conclusions” from seeing videos of drone strikes on social media, leading them to view drones as a “silver bullet that solves everything.” But, he said, “It is not.” They are just another tool.
Some people treat drones as “kind of like a hallelujah in the West,” Molde said. But adopting that mindset could lead a military to make the mistake of preparing for the last war rather than the next.
He said that one Ukrainian general once warned him, saying that “your war with Russia, if it comes, would not be like our war with Russia. That’s something I think about.”
“We can’t take everything that Ukrainians are doing and just apply it to our context,” Molde said. “Then we will miss.” Instead, “we have to be very, very specific,” he said.
A different type of war
Drones have been a game changer for Ukraine, with officials saying they’re causing 90% of Russia’s front-line losses. But they haven’t secured victory, and war analysts echo Molde’s warnings that Western militaries should be cautious about what lessons they take from Ukraine’s success in this space.
Justin Bronk, an airpower expert at the UK’s Royal United Services Institute, previously warned that Ukraine’s “over-reliance” on drones is driven by shortages and is “not something Western militaries should attempt to replicate.”
Jakub Jajcay, a former Slovak special forces soldier who fought in Ukraine, previously told Business Insider that drone operators often knew they were using the wrong weapons for the job. Western militaries, which have more time and resources, should avoid making drones a substitute for weapons like artillery when the latter is a better choice, he said.
And like Norway, other Western militaries are keeping these warnings in mind.
Maj. Rachel Martin, the director of the US Army’s Unmanned Advanced Lethality Course, previously told BI that Ukrainians are “in a fight for their lives” and “using what they have available to them because they don’t have those layered assets that we are lucky to have in our country.” That affects how soldiers think about drones.
Perhaps most importantly, as the Ukrainian general warned Molde, a potential war between NATO and Russia would likely look very different from the one in Ukraine. “Air power doesn’t really have a substantial role in the Ukrainian war,” Molde said. “Will that be the same if we would see a conflict between NATO and Russia? Probably not.”
“It would be completely different,” he said.
In Ukraine, neither side has been able to secure control of the air, creating a grinding war of attrition heavily dependent on drones. Terrain matters, too. Eastern Ukraine is flat, and “that means something,” Molde said, explaining that Russia would have to approach the fight differently on NATO soil.
Norway is learning
That said, there are still lessons to be learned from the experiences of Ukrainian troops. Molde said working at Camp Jomsborg allows Norway to get knowledge and information and then assess it through its institutions, such as its Land Warfare Center.
He said Norway is “cherry-picking all that we can.”
Maj. John, the S3 Operations Officer in charge of synchronizing the overall training operation, told Business Insider at the training camp that “we try to learn from the Ukrainians to improve the training here, but also to take some of those experiences back to our own armed forces.” He asked to only be identified by his first name for security reasons.
John said that Ukraine and the Western militaries involved in the training “challenge each other.” The Ukrainians have the experience and “the highest understanding of the new technologies,” while Western instructors have decades of reliable doctrine and best practices.
Allies learning from Ukraine’s strengths, “I think that has been a very important part of the training mission,” he said.
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