When it was first launched in the wee hours of February 24, the
Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was supposed to last just a few
days and end with the quick capture of Kyiv.
Fast-forward six months: Those plans collapsed in spectacular fashion
as Ukraine beat back Russian troops through a combination of sheer
determination and plentiful Western arms. But despite Ukraine’s success,
the conflict is far from over. On the contrary, it appears to be
settling into a long, attritional battle that will test Ukrainian and
Western resolve.
The conflict, moreover, has already transformed much of what the
world thought it knew about not only military operations and strategy,
but also diplomacy, intelligence, national security, energy security,
economic statecraft, and much more. So as the war hits its half-year
mark, we asked experts across our vast network to share the biggest
lessons they’ve learned from the crisis. The results, an illuminating
and wide-ranging primer for policymakers and the public alike, are
below.
Scroll and click through the carousel below to jump to a lesson:
Lesson for Western diplomacy: Don’t second-guess Ukrainians
Since day one, there’s been too much reluctance in the Biden
administration: to share real-time intelligence with Ukraine for fear
that not everyone in the Ukrainian government is trustworthy; to send
heavy weapons for fear that Ukrainians don’t know how to use them (and
that it would take too long to train Ukrainians); to send large enough
assistance packages for fear of corruption. There’s also been an
enormous reluctance to use the right language to describe the United
States’ actual goal; when Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin talked about
defeating Moscow so badly that it cannot attack Ukraine again, US
President Joe Biden dressed him down.
Yet time and again, Ukrainians have proven themselves worthy of
America’s trust (and then some). With Western intelligence, they were
able to withstand the invasion of Kyiv’s Hostomel Airport, which could
have been decisive, and eradicate scads of Russian generals in addition
to the Russian Navy’s flagship, the Moskva. With US weapons,
Ukrainian soldiers pushed the Russians out of Kyiv and forced them to
retreat to the Donbas. Now, with American long-range rockets, they’ve
hit dozens of high-value targets. The bottom line is obvious: When
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his team say they need
something, the request is legitimate, and the United States should honor
it immediately.
—Melinda Haring is the deputy director of the Eurasia Center.
Lesson for global diplomacy: Putin’s regime can’t be trusted—and needs to be defeated
Six months of Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine, as well as
years of the Kremlin’s invasions of neighboring states and more recent
hybrid warfare against the West, have made it clear that any agreements
with Putin’s regime are simply not viable and often counterproductive.
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 after having committed to be a guarantor
of its sovereignty and territorial integrity under the Budapest
Memorandum; in its most recent assault, the Kremlin seized one-fifth of
Ukraine’s territories following years of negotiations over the conflict
in Ukraine within the Normandy format and the Minsk agreements.
Moscow has been vocal about its disrespect for international law,
liberal institutions, and all kinds of international treaties with
partners and rivals alike. By committing war crimes and crimes against
humanity in Ukraine, violating the basic principle of freedom of
navigation, weaponizing food supplies and refugees, and engaging in
energy and nuclear blackmail, Putin’s regime has posed existential
threats not only to the future of the Ukrainian nation, but also to a
rules-based world order. Appeasement, dialogue, and compromises with an
aggressor have never worked. Russia escalates when it senses weakness
and withdraws when it senses strength. If the world wants a sustainable
peace in the region—rather than a tactical pause in Russian assaults—the
West must learn the language of power, which is the only language Putin
understands.
—Yevgeniya Gaber is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council IN TURKEY.
Lesson for US foreign policy: The United States can no longer rely on strategic ambiguity
When a state possesses substantially more power than its adversaries,
a policy of strategic ambiguity can spark reluctance among those
adversaries to take actions that might provoke retaliation—especially if
the more powerful nation has a reputation for responding unpredictably
or disproportionately. But when a state’s relative power is perceived to
be in decline, then a policy of strategic ambiguity can, conversely,
inspire adventurism in an adversary—especially if the declining power is
seen to be withdrawing, or otherwise appears weak or distracted.
The long era of strong American relative power allowed US
policymakers the luxury of adopting policies that featured strategic
ambiguity. But those days have unfortunately passed, as was demonstrated
when Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, undeterred by
the intentionally ambiguous signals that the United States had sent
during the preceding decades about the nature of its commitment to
Ukrainian sovereignty. He was also encouraged by the perception of US
weakness in the wake of the withdrawal from Afghanistan and dysfunction
in its domestic politics. There is an important lesson here for US
policymakers who might prefer to cling to strategic ambiguity when
seeking to deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, for instance, or Iranian
aggression in the Gulf. Today, more explicit statements about US red
lines are in order. In the current environment, such statements are
likely to help prevent rather than provoke an escalation.
—William F. Wechsler is senior director of the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council.
Lesson for US national security: Washington must contend with Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran at the same time
The Biden administration came to office believing it could park relations with Russia, putting it on a “stable and predictable”
footing while prioritizing competition with China as part of its
national-security policy. But Moscow had other ideas: By launching the
largest land war in Europe since World War II, Putin reminded Washington
how much its security and prosperity is tied to peace and stability in
Europe. The Biden administration was forced to return to the drawing
board and rewrite its national-security strategy (which has still not
been published more than one-and-a-half years into Biden’s term) because
the first version gave short shrift to Russia.
China should be a priority, but the United States remains a global
power with global interests; its national-security strategy must reflect
that reality. An effective approach must address the serious threats
posed by China and North Korea in the Indo-Pacific, Iran in the Middle
East, and Russia in Europe. Moreover, these threats are
interconnected—with Russia, China, and Iran increasingly working
together. Success in one of these theaters will strengthen, not sap, US
power to deal with the others.
—Matthew Kroenig is the acting director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
Lesson for military operations: Equipment doesn’t win wars. People do.
Russia spent around $65 billion on defense in 2021,
or more than ten times what Ukraine did that year. If equipment was the
deciding factor, Russia would have achieved the overwhelming,
lightning-fast victory it sought months ago. But in this war, Ukraine
has shown that good leadership and training—of which it has plenty, but
Russia has very little—make all the difference.
Since both countries share a long military tradition dating back to
Imperial Russia, the difference in their respective performances on the
battlefield (and the reasons why) are instructive. Since 1993, Ukraine
has been part of the US National Guard’s State Partnership Program, in
which its armed forces have been trained according to the US model of
giving mission-type orders to junior officers and non-commissioned
officers (NCOs), explaining the commander’s intent, and empowering them
to make on-the-spot decisions based on the changing facts on the ground.
No one becomes an expert combat decision-maker overnight, so realistic
exercises are held and a culture is fostered that encourages individual
initiative and demands rigorous assessment. This open and transparent
way of operating has resulted in high morale and performance on the
battlefield.
By contrast, Russia’s armed forces (which rely heavily on conscripts)
lack professional NCOs and discourage initiative and feedback.
Decision-making authority remains heavily centralized, with only senior
officers permitted to act independently. This is why so many Russian
generals have been killed in this war; nobody at a lower level had the
leadership experience, big-picture understanding, or authority to act
decisively when things didn’t go as planned. The Russian way of war has
been predictable: battlefield failure and low morale.
—Colonel John “Buss” Barranco was the 2021-22 senior US Marine Corps fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
Lesson for military planning: Nimble
modern weapons can defeat larger, conventionally armed forces—especially
when on the defensive
The United States has organized an effective “Arsenal of Democracy”
to defend Ukraine. In the battle for Kyiv, Russian tanks, troop
carriers, supply trucks, helicopters, and fighter aircraft were
demolished by small and mobile Ukrainian defensive units armed with
weapons such as Stingers, Javelins, NLAWs, and drones. A platform-heavy,
twentieth-century Russian force was defeated handily by a light
twenty-first-century one. In the battle for the Donbas, Russia’s
twentieth-century artillery greatly outnumbered Ukraine’s
artillery—until fairly small numbers of new American-made Highly
Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) were introduced. Their
precision-strike capability destroyed scores of Russian ammunition dumps
and headquarters, among other units, thereby slowing the Russian
advance. And in the Black Sea, Russian naval vessels vastly outnumbered
the remnants of the Ukrainian Navy—until accurate Ukrainian-made Neptune
and American-made Harpoon missiles were introduced, forcing the Russian
Navy to retreat. These were all essentially defensive situations for
Ukraine.
Now Ukraine will seek to regain as much of its occupied territory as
possible, but it will not be easy. Ukrainian forces will use many of
these same precision-strike systems to try to regain Kherson and the
Donbas, but they will also be advancing against strong Russian defensive
positions. This worked well initially for American forces two decades
ago when taking offensive action against Iraqi insurgents and Afghan
insurgents, but it remains to be seen whether Ukrainian forces can pull
off the same feat. The outcome will determine whether Putin can claim
some degree of success in his ruthless adventure.
—Hans Binnendijk is a distinguished fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
Lesson for deterrence: Troop deployments work better than threats of economic sanctions
As Russian troops assembled to invade Ukraine early this year, many
defense analysts believed the threat of severe economic sanctions would
be enough to deter a Russian attack. But for Putin, revanchist
territorial aims outweighed any potential harm that might be done to the
Russian economy through Western sanctions. While great damage has been
done to the Russian consumer economy, the ruble has strengthened and
foreign reserves have increased due to high oil prices and shifting
Russian markets. Putin’s judgment appears to have been correct, at least
in the short term.
NATO leaders had made it clear that they would not commit troops to
defend Ukraine, which led Putin to miscalculate on two
fronts—underestimating Ukrainians’ ability to defend themselves and the
West’s willingness to rapidly arm them. So Western defense officials
have relearned a Cold War-era lesson: What deters Russian aggression is
NATO troops on the Alliance’s eastern flank, not the threat of economic
sanctions. It’s possible that if Alliance troops had deployed to
Ukraine, it could have deterred the invasion; but they may have also
started World War III. Deploying troops forward on NATO territory now
will assure that Putin does not miscalculate again.
The cornerstone of the recent NATO summit was an effort to absorb and
implement this lesson. NATO’s deterrent posture is shifting from
“deterrence by punishment” to “deterrence by denial,” and allied forces
are being positioned forward to deny Russia’s ability to occupy any bit
of NATO territory. Battalion-sized NATO battle groups have now been
deployed to eight frontline allies, and American forces in Europe have
increased to one hundred thousand. Many believe that even more needs to
be done to assure deterrence by denial—for example, by deploying
brigade- or even division-level NATO forces to frontline allied
countries.
—Hans Binnendijk is a distinguished fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
Lesson for the global economy: The new tools of conflict are economic—and they are powerful
When Russia invaded Ukraine, President Biden made clear that the
United States would not directly intervene militarily. But that didn’t
mean the United States and its allies were left without recourse;
instead, the Group of Seven (G7) nations decided to freeze approximately
$350 billion in Russian assets. To put that in perspective, it’s
roughly the size of Austria’s entire economy. The move shocked Russian
President Vladimir Putin and his central bank, putting enormous pressure
on the Russian economy. It also turned heads around the world: Most
countries hold some reserves in dollars and euros, and now they’re
thinking hard about the risks to those assets in the event of a future
crisis. But since the United States, Japan, the European Union, and the
United Kingdom are aligned, countries don’t see many alternatives (for
now). China’s renminbi is not yet a viable option as a true
international currency. So what’s the takeaway going forward for the
global economy? The United States—and the dollar—are stronger with
allies.
—Josh Lipsky is the senior director of the GeoEconomics Center.
Lesson for economic statecraft: Don’t separate sanctions from longer-term foreign-policy objectives
In the run-up to invasion, great hope was placed on sanctions as the
primary tool with which to deter Russian aggression. Putin, the
widespread thinking held, could not possibly want to ruin his economy
for the sake of murdering Ukrainians. But rationality is a concept that
can be perilously difficult to nail down, and economic rationality was
not a factor in Putin’s plans for Ukraine. Sanctions as a deterrent were
worth the effort but were ultimately not going to stop the invasion.
This lesson needs to remain front-of-mind during what is likely to be
a long war. The inability of the West to use sanctions to prevent war
does not mean they are a useless gambit; instead, they should constitute
a strategy for longer-term goals. Any tactical advantages that accrue
from sanctions should be considered positive externalities, not an
explicit end goal. Those policy goals should remain what Biden discussed
in late February: that sanctions are meant to isolate Putin and his
regime so long as Putinism remains the dominant form of rule in Russia.
There is no going back to the pre-war period, in which many in the West
clung to the idea that trade could integrate Putin’s Kremlin into a
rules-based system. Only after Putinism—the primary driver of Russia’s
external aggression—is gone should the West use the leverage of lifting
sanctions to allow for Russia’s economic reintegration.
—Brian O’Toole
is a nonresident senior fellow at the GeoEconomics Center and worked at
the US Department of the Treasury as a senior adviser to the director
of the Office of Foreign Assets Control.
Lesson for economic statecraft: Sanctions work, but they are messy and take time
Policy tools are generally imprecise. When they work, which is not
always, it is seldom in accord with the clean outcome or short timeline
often promised in a US State Department or National Security Council
policy paper. This is especially true with sanctions, which can be
intended to weaken an adversary over time.
These are the purposes of the current sanctions against Russia, which
resemble the clumsy, contentious, and inconsistent economic measures
imposed against the Soviet Union after its invasion of Afghanistan in
1979. While these measures did not cause the USSR to collapse, they made
it harder for the Soviet leadership to escape the consequences of the
unreformed Soviet economy’s weakness. They took away the Western
investment, technology transfer, and loans and credits that had propped
up the Soviet economy and masked the rot within. The resulting economic
trouble became obvious even to regime supporters by the early 1980s.
Putin’s decision to wage war on Ukraine may bring similar results.
Technology restrictions have hurt Russian industrial production. New
financing and investment from the West is basically unavailable. And,
one way or another, Russia’s income from exports will decline. Time is
not on Ukraine’s side, which is why the country needs more military
assistance (or the sharp edge of policy). But Putin has chosen to wage a
dirty war and make the West an enemy; sanctions and other means of
economic pressure may make his choice seem like folly, in addition to
evil.
—Daniel Fried is a Weiser family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former US ambassador to Poland.
Lesson for wartime strategic communications: Influence operations are a day-in, day-out job
Despite the challenges it faces, the Ukrainian government
successfully created and continues to implement a
strategic-communications plan to galvanize international support,
denigrate Russia, and inspire confidence in its ability to lead the
country. Conducting this type of campaign isn’t sexy: It’s a grind—day
in, day out—to share talking points with communicators, identify
audiences to persuade, pull together data, and then connect with
journalists, political figures, and influencers who can further spread
the government’s message. But the beauty of what the Ukrainians have
accomplished is that a vast network of people who follow the
government’s messaging lead and further spread the campaign in ways that
their individual networks can understand—thus building new advocates
and reinforcing Ukraine’s base of support.
Although President Zelenskyy is the focal point of this campaign,
he’s in no way the only person who has remained on-message. Everyday
people around the world (not just Ukrainians) feel empowered to advocate
for Ukraine and disparage Russia. Images that include the blue and
yellow of the Ukrainian flag, sunflowers, and children holding anti-war
signs are so widely established that social-media posts that include
these types of visuals no longer require any explanation. In large part,
the Ukrainian government uses firsthand accounts and video clips as
evidence, which further reinforces its message; and crucially, it has
not resorted to large-scale mis- and disinformation as Russia has.
Overall, the cohesion and duration of the Ukrainians’ campaign can, and
should, be used as a template for what the United States and its allies
can accomplish with an influence strategy, communications discipline,
and a willingness to grind day-in, day-out to meet the end goal.
—Jennifer Counter is a nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center’s Forward Defense practice.
Lesson for hybrid warfare: Don’t ignore the fundamentals
By almost every measure, Vladimir Putin’s “special military
operation” has been a strategic failure. While still dangerous, Russia
is arguably at its lowest point of soft influence in recent history,
with pushback coming from neutral nations and even ones dependent on
Russian energy. Russian war crimes have been laid bare for the world to
see and repudiated by all but the Kremlin’s most stalwart allies. NATO
resolve is stronger today than many could have ever imagined. Russia has
lost its dominance of the narrative and is instead regularly trolled by
Ukraine, which offers an alternate example of executive leadership in
Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Every day that Ukraine continues to resist, albeit
at horrific cost to its people, amounts to an incremental humiliation to
Russia, squarely countering its ever-aspirational status as a “great
power.”
Much of the current condition has resulted from the Kremlin ignoring
the fundamentals of warfare, including lessons openly observable from
recent US forays in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. First and foremost
has been the poor utilization of intelligence, starting with Russia
choosing the more kinetic end of the spectrum instead of focusing on its
more adept gray-zone activities. In doing so, Russia’s intelligence
apparatus miscalculated both the resolve and capability of Ukraine, as
well as the level of support for Ukraine from the international
community. This has contributed to staggering Russian losses on the
battlefield and horrors against the Ukrainian people perpetrated by an
unprofessional Russian military. There have also been similarly poor
results in the function of sustainment (the military term for keeping
operations going until objectives are achieved).
Hybrid warfare is akin to a scalpel, not a knife, in pursuing
strategic effects—and that level of precision requires robust awareness
provided by a competent intelligence community that must be trusted to
deliver bad news. Russia’s authoritarian governance model is poorly
suited to this. Similar shortcomings have resulted in poor control of
the information domain: Russia’s “Z” and “anti-Nazi” campaigns have been
easily countered by a competent Ukraine that clearly knows its
adversary and is able to effectively respond to its messaging through
social-media campaigns coupled with broader outreach to the global
community. In looking at Russia’s experience, the United States and its
allies should ensure that the fundamentals of waging (hybrid) warfare
are not ignored.
—Arun Iyer is a nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Forward
Defense practice and served in a variety of operational and operational
leadership assignments in the US Department of Defense from 2005-2020.
Lesson for the energy sector: Decades of energy diplomacy can disappear with one brutal invasion
Efforts to draw Russia into the democratic fold of its Western
neighbors through decades of economic integration and trillions of
dollars of energy trade failed to prevent a brutal, senseless war in
Ukraine, as well as the Kremlin’s weaponization of energy supplies
across Europe. As a result, European energy systems are transforming in
record time toward operating without Russian oil and gas. This
unprecedented shift is neither cheap nor easy, and will take years to
achieve in countries hooked on Russian energy and reliant on
carbon-intensive economies.
In the meantime, skyrocketing energy costs, mandated curtailments,
and general uncertainty around energy supplies this winter will fuel
temptations to slide back into the yoke of Russian energy dependence.
But the risks of returning to the status quo of energy diplomacy with
Russia monumentally outweigh any short-term relief that the Kremlin
could offer through its supply blackmail. That’s because Moscow’s
nationalization of the Russian energy industry leaves little room for
market-based decisions, while geopolitical priorities (often aggressive
ones) take precedent. Supply shut-offs and curtailment across Europe
have shattered Russia’s veneer of reliability, while the country has
doubled down on the unabated fossil-fuel economy rather than investing
in diversification.
Regardless of the war’s conclusion and potential leadership changes
in Russia, the de-Russification of European energy sources is heading
toward a point of no return. The short-term costs and challenges of this
massive transformation cannot be underestimated. But forging reliable,
resilient, low-carbon, and affordable energy systems—ones that can’t be
threatened or manipulated by monopolistic suppliers—will benefit all of
European society.
—Olga Khakova is the deputy director for European energy security at the Global Energy Center.
Lesson for global intelligence: Russia is not ten feet tall
Six months ago, there was a plethora of doom-and-gloom analysis: The
notion that the Russian military believed it could take Kyiv in
thirty-six hours was reportedly shared not only by Putin but also by
Western academic and intelligence-community analysts. Almost everyone
got this fantastically wrong. Except, of course, the one entity that
mattered most: the Ukrainians, who fought bravely and nearly unanimously
believe they’ll win. A quick Russian blitzkrieg turned into a morass
that will go down in military history, with 80,000 Russian casualties
and no end in sight to Putin’s “special operation.” Now we see that the
Russian military is a Potemkin village—corrupt, unfit, and fundamentally
lacking in basic principles of logistics.
Equally important, Russian hybrid-warfare efforts in
Ukraine—particularly in the information-operations space—have also
fallen short. Previous efforts around the world, such as Moscow’s
meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, had spooked many (and
perhaps for good reason). But Russia succeeded in the past mainly
because it operated without pushback. No longer: Ukraine now appears one
step ahead at every turn. Consider the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s
expert trolling on Twitter after a presumed strike by Ukrainian forces
on a Russian airfield deep in occupied Crimea: It showed Russian
tourists fleeing the beach to the sound of the 1983 Bananarama track
“Cruel Summer.” How times have changed: Ukraine trolling Russia, not
vice versa. This is exactly what was needed in the
information-operations sphere: an offensive strategy that was proactive
instead of reactive.
—Marc Polymeropoulos is a nonresident senior fellow in the Forward
Defense practice of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for
Strategy and Security and worked for twenty-six years at the Central
Intelligence Agency.
Lesson for would-be invaders: You can’t hide preparations for a full-scale invasion
In the four months leading up to the invasion, Kremlin-owned online
outlets increasingly reported that Ukraine was preparing to attack the
eastern Donbas region—or even Russia itself. The DFRLab monitored these
open sources on a daily basis to measure the frequency of this
messaging; in the pre-invasion period, Russian online coverage of the
narrative about an impending Ukrainian attack rose dramatically,
with a nearly 50 percent increase in January 2022 over the previous
month. The narrative also became increasingly hostile—accusing Ukraine
of planning a chemical attack in the Donbas, for example. Meanwhile,
footage from social media, particularly Telegram and TikTok, documented
ongoing Russian troop movements and deployment along Ukraine’s border.
The spread of hostile Kremlin narratives in those final months before
the invasion were in sync with the spread of Russian troops on the
ground, with Russia essentially preparing domestic and international
audiences for the invasion alongside actual military preparations.
Through the combined open-source intelligence analysis of Russia’s
behavior both online and offline, it became clear that Putin’s
intentions were hiding in plain sight.
—Eto Buziashvili is a Georgia-based research associate for the Caucasus at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.
Lesson for cybersecurity: The private sector should play a critical military-operational role in cyberspace
The information revolution has long been credited with changing key
aspects of warfare. Network-centric operations, cyber offense and
defense, and online information operations are now established elements
of military doctrine and operations. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
has generated a new role for the private sector, which is engaging in
direct cyber combat against Russian cyber attacks and in support of
Ukraine’s military and governmental functions.
While Ukraine has its own capable cyber defenders—who, for example, stopped an attack
against the Ukrainian electric grid—those efforts have been
complemented by private-sector firms that have worked with Kyiv both by
helping to identify and disable malware and by taking additional actions
to create a much more defensible Ukrainian cyberspace. Both Microsoft
and Cisco have published reports detailing defensive cyber efforts and
European cybersecurity firms such as the Slovakian firm ESET have also been engaged. Ukraine’s cybersecurity defense has additionally been enhanced through the use of Starlink terminals and the transfer of Ukrainian governmental functions to cyber clouds outside Ukraine.
The actions that these private companies have undertaken foreshadow the
critical role such firms will play in future twenty-first-century
conflicts.
Going forward, the United States, NATO, and the democratic nations of
the Indo-Pacific need to organize appropriate planning and operational
collaborative mechanisms with key elements of the private sector to
assure effective operation of cyberspace in the event of armed conflict.
The United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Center and the more recent
US Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative are a good start, but those are
not currently suited to the challenges of full-scale combat. Maintaining
the functioning of information technology in wartime—particularly for
critical infrastructures such as energy, food, water, transportation,
and finance—will be an indispensable requirement for nations as a whole,
as well as for effective military operations. Working in advance to
assure the coordination of the intelligence and operational capabilities
of the private sector with those of the government will be critical to
the effective defense of cyberspace.
—Franklin D. Kramer
is a distinguished fellow and board director of the Atlantic Council,
and has served as a senior political appointee in two administrations,
including as assistant secretary of defense for international security
affairs.
Lesson for US homeland security: Ignoring the home front is a serious mistake
After an initial burst of activity
culminating in late April and early May, efforts by the US Department
of Homeland Security (DHS) to counter Russia’s hybrid war in the United
States appear to have faded—even amid a Russian “avalanche of disinformation,” as the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab has documented. The last update to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s “Shields Up” webpage was dated May 11, and the most recent entry in CISA’s “Russia Cyber Threat Overview” was dated April 20. The last Russia-specific public alert, “Russian State-Sponsored and Criminal Cyber Threats to Critical Infrastructure,” was revised May 9.
While DHS and the FBI are in frequent communication with agencies,
companies, and individuals targeted by Russian cyberattacks, the public
is often unaware of this quiet but vital activity. So more needs to be
done by DHS and others to get the American people to understand and
better resist the Russian hybrid-warfare campaigns that promote divisive
propaganda and social-media manipulation. Russia’s hybrid-warfare
strategy, which uses disinformation even more than cyberattacks, seems
designed to wear down Western democracies’ opposition to Russia’s
aggression. Senior DHS and administration officials should speak out
more publicly on what Americans can do to counter Russian
disinformation, cyber threats, and other Russian hybrid-warfare
targeting of the civilian population. The home front—specifically, unity
in the United States and NATO in opposing Russian aggression against
Ukraine—is a vital source of national power. Ignoring it, or treating
Ukraine as almost entirely a military and diplomatic crisis, could be a
perilous mistake.
—Thomas S. Warrick is a nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Forward Defense practice.
Lesson for US assistance policy: Invest deeply in key resilient partners
Even as Washington sends billions of dollars’ worth of arms to
Ukraine amid the ongoing war, it should also be planning for long-term
security assistance to the country. The goal must be to ensure Ukraine’s
ability to deter future aggression (and repel it if it comes). This
will be an enormous undertaking; but like insurance, the costs pale in
comparison to those of another round of war.
President Zelenskyy sees his country developing into
“a big Israel,” and the model of US assistance to Israel also applies
here. US partners who are on the front lines of competition with Russia
and China need capabilities—from missile defenses and anti-tank weapons
to superior intelligence and counterintelligence—that enable them to
absorb and survive strikes by adversaries. They also must have the
ability to impose unacceptable costs on the aggressor.
In the post-war era, building a Ukrainian air force, missile corps,
and special forces that can defensively strike behind Russian lines will
be essential. Annual appropriations, excess defense articles, and
prepositioned US stocks for emergency use are all tools that can be
employed to this end. Supporting the growth of a domestic industry that
develops and produces innovative Ukrainian solutions to Ukrainian
vulnerabilities will also be key. This approach reinforces a requirement
that must accompany such assistance: the willingness and ability of
Ukraine to defend itself on its own, which is something its citizens
have already demonstrated in spades. This also means that, in extremis,
US interoperability with a key partner will be assured.
—Daniel B. Shapiro is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs and a former US ambassador to Israel.
Lesson for NATO: The Alliance is a uniquely valuable institution that requires enduring political and financial investment
NATO is a sometimes-arcane institution where disagreement and drama
are routine occurrences among a membership that will soon reach
thirty-two members. Accordingly, the Alliance can be an easy target for
politicians seeking to score points domestically, with the presidents of
the United States and France having called into question NATO’s utility
and purpose in the recent past. But these critiques inevitably overlook
the outsize role NATO has played in enabling peace and prosperity in
Europe (and beyond). It’s no coincidence that large-scale war is again
raging in Europe within years of NATO’s most important members openly
questioning whether it had outlived its usefulness; Putin read American
and French disillusionment with NATO as a lack of commitment to the
Alliance and an opportunity to permanently rupture transatlantic unity.
Fortunately, the habits of cooperation that the transatlantic
community has developed over seven decades are not easily displaced—and
NATO is once again showing its indispensability as a political and
military actor. It’s a lesson that political leaders must absorb even
after the resolution of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Had NATO not existed as
the current crisis unfolded, the breathtaking levels of cooperation
currently on display among allies in support of Ukraine and in
strengthening deterrence in Europe would not be possible. Rather than
using NATO as a punching bag, leaders must expend the political and
economic capital to keep the Alliance healthy and adaptive.
—Christopher Skaluba is the director of the Scowcroft Center’s Transatlantic Security Initiative.
Lesson for Ukraine: There’s no way back for relations with Russia
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, bilateral ties between
post-Soviet Ukraine and Russia have been colored by centuries of
imperial baggage. While this complex relationship became particularly
thorny after Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014, a significant number of
Ukrainians continued to harbor positive attitudes toward Russians,
while political parties advocating a thaw in bilateral ties remained
popular in traditionally Russophile regions of Ukraine. All this changed
dramatically on February 24.
The unprecedented devastation caused by the invasion has completely
transformed Ukrainian perceptions of Russia, particularly in formerly
Moscow-friendly (and now heavily bombarded) parts of eastern Ukraine.
The sheer scale of the violence, which has included widespread war
crimes, has been a traumatic wake-up call for the many Ukrainians who
still clung to notions of Russia as a brotherly nation. At the anecdotal
level, it is now routine to encounter Ukrainians struggling to come to
terms with Russia’s betrayal, or expressing pure hatred toward the
Russian people as a whole. Many Ukrainians are no longer able to engage
with Russian relatives, while growing numbers are ditching the Russian
language and switching to Ukrainian. Recent opinion polls reflect the
profound nature of these changes, with Ukrainian backing for
Euro-Atlantic integration skyrocketing and support for closer ties with
Russia collapsing to record lows. The war is far from over, but it’s
already clear that the relationship between Russians and Ukrainians has
been irrevocably damaged.
—Peter Dickinson is the editor of UkraineAlert.
Lesson for China: Today’s Ukraine is not tomorrow’s Taiwan
Chinese strategists believe the United States’ strategic ambiguity
over Taiwan is dead in all but name, as demonstrated by Biden’s repeated
gaffes about Washington’s willingness to defend the island through
force and US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent visit there. They
believe that if a war breaks out in the Taiwan Strait, Washington will
“fight till the last Taiwanese”—just as it has been seen as doing in
Ukraine against Russia—in a proxy war to contain Beijing, mobilizing its
allies along the way to support the effort.
Yet even while the West has been able to inflict painful punishment
on Russia’s economy, Putin’s war shows that sanctions are a double-edged
sword, especially when it comes to China, the world’s second-largest
economy. Beijing has been keeping a close eye on
European citizens, who are shouldering record-high inflation and surging
electricity prices ahead of a potentially very cold winter. Chinese
officials’ relentless push for economic liberalization serves as more
than just a means of gaining from globalization; it also acts as a
signal to the West over China’s core interests, warning: “If I go down,
you’re going with me.”
From Beijing’s perspective, political, diplomatic, and economic
retaliation against pro-independence actions in Taiwan—when coupled with
the threat of a total military blockade and China’s nuclear
saber-rattling—can serve as a credible deterrent that puts the onus of
escalation on the enemy (in this case, the United States). Therefore,
Beijing will act under the assumption that, in the event of a war in the
Taiwan Strait, time and momentum are on its side, meaning that the
price the Chinese people are willing to pay for Taiwan is significantly
higher than that of Western constituents.
—Tuvia Gering is a nonresident fellow in the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub.
Lesson for Middle East policymakers: America will always do the right thing, but only after exhausting all the alternatives
While this adage is often attributed to Winston Churchill, there’s
actually no record of him ever saying it. Nevertheless, it has long
resonated with Washington’s foreign partners and allies, who have been
repeatedly frustrated by the inconsistencies and inactions that have too
often characterized US policies over the decades. Most recently,
leaders from the United Arab Emirates publicly expressed their
disappointment that the Biden administration didn’t respond quickly
enough when Houthi rebels attacked the Abu Dhabi airport in January; and
similarly, Saudi leaders were aghast when the Trump administration
didn’t respond after Iran attacked the country’s energy infrastructure
in 2019.
But the Biden administration’s strong and unwavering response to
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has proven, once again, that the United
State can indeed be relied upon—especially when confronted by a globally
resonant crisis on a scale that necessitates American leadership. That
lesson has not been lost on leaders in Taipei or Beijing. And leaders in
the Middle East who are inclined to doubt American resolve should note
that Washington has taken powerful and economically painful actions to
support Ukrainian sovereignty, even though no treaty committed the
United States to this in advance (just as there was no treaty that
required the United States to come to Kuwait’s defense when Saddam
Hussein invaded the country). Rather than demanding such commitments,
American partners in the region would be better advised to work with the
Biden administration to think through scenarios that might require a
similar US response, and to work together to build interdependent
capabilities to deter them.
—William F. Wechsler is senior director of the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council.
Lesson for Germany and its allies: Seize this moment for a strategic reversal
Putin’s war in Ukraine was a rude awakening for decision-makers in
Berlin and for average Germans from Hamburg to Munich. Decades of
divestment from both hard power and energy diversification, plus the
strategic detachment with which Germany had pursued its global
engagement, came home to roost. This left Europe’s largest economy
exposed to energy blackmail by Moscow and with few options to shore up
NATO as the cornerstone of its own defense or hold Putin at arm’s length
by supporting Kyiv with weapons.
Lofty pronouncements by Chancellor Olaf Scholz about boosting his
country’s defense capacity have, in reality, been tough to follow with
actual action. This is especially true for arms deliveries to Ukraine or
Bundeswehr boots on the ground to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank. On
the energy front, the jury is still out on whether a mix of government
intervention, conservation efforts, the rapid deployment of liquid
natural gas terminals, and even a potential pause of Germany’s exit from
nuclear power can help avert the worst for Europe’s economic engine.
Berlin’s credibility as a reliable NATO and EU ally has taken a severe
toll, especially in Eastern Europe.
Moving forward, the transatlantic partners will need a more strategic
Germany—politically, economically, and militarily—as everyone prepares
for a long-term confrontation and competition with Moscow and other
autocrats. The indisputable failure of cornerstones in German foreign,
defense, and energy policies extends beyond Berlin decision-makers, many
of whom have long lamented in private their country’s lack of global
leadership. The United States and European allies should seize on
Germany’s existential crisis as an opportunity for a reset and engage
German policymakers in concrete initiatives. They should demand and
support new German leadership in key areas, such as NATO’s eastern
defense, Europe’s energy transition away from Russia, and new efforts on
both sides of the Atlantic to reduce economic and technology
dependencies on any one actor. The experience of the last six months—and
what is to come this winter—can help Germany develop a new leadership
role that advances European and transatlantic objectives.
—Jörn Fleck is the acting director of the Europe Center, and Rachel Rizzo is a nonresident senior fellow at the Europe Center.
