"The Russian invasion of Ukraine has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. The conflict has also become a testing ground for new weapons systems, posing an uncomfortable question for NATO: is the Alliance ready for the next war it may have to fight?"
Five Ukrainian and Western defense officials said that battlefield developments are changing so rapidly that some NATO weapons and tactics risk becoming obsolete. While Ukraine — a non-member — adapts in weeks, NATO buys and develops systems over years, sometimes decades.
The war in Ukraine and US President Donald Trump's constant criticism of European allies have led many NATO countries to sharply increase their defense spending. The Pentagon is currently reviewing the US military presence in European countries, which Trump accuses of over-reliance on American defense and refusing to help fight his unpopular war against Iran.
Denis Stillerman, co-owner and chief designer of Fire Point, a leading Ukrainian manufacturer of missiles and drones, said tanks are now "useless" because a drone worth about $5,000 can destroy one such armored vehicle. Yet Europe continues to spend heavily on tanks, which many military analysts say will still play a significant role in future combat.
Inexpensive drones have changed warfare in other ways, too. Soldiers who gather in groups, as well as large columns of vehicles, are now much easier targets.
"They are good at storming positions," said Oleksandr Pivnenko, commander of Ukraine's National Guard, of the international troops his unit trained with last year. "But if there's a drone above you and you don't even look up, what do you think will happen to your unit?".
In June, a NATO military exercise was held near Paldiski, Estonia, a small Baltic state that is currently fortifying its 210-kilometer border with Russia. During the exercise, U.S. and European troops treated dozens of wounded in field hospitals. But the exercise was conducted under the assumption that NATO would control the airspace above the hospitals — something that can no longer be taken for granted in the era of cheap, stealthy, long-range drones.
Rather than simply receiving training and assistance from NATO, Ukrainian officials described Kiev’s growing role in passing on to the alliance lessons learned from the war with Russia. But they also said that NATO’s military bureaucracy was struggling to absorb those lessons. A Ukrainian officer who received NATO psychological operations training in Romania said that some of the alliance’s training materials were still based on examples from World War II.
The war in Ukraine has also exposed a vulnerability that NATO officials say is much harder to overcome: air and missile defense. Russia's continued missile attacks on Ukrainian cities have underscored Europe's dependence on sophisticated American missile defense systems, such as the Patriot, first deployed during the 1991 Gulf War. Ukraine is facing a critical shortage of Patriot interceptors, missiles designed to destroy approaching threats.
Fears that reliance on these systems could become a strategic vulnerability have prompted Europe to develop alternatives independent of the United States. Ukraine is awaiting delivery of the new Franco-Italian SAMP/T-NG air defense system, designed to intercept ballistic missiles. France has promised to expedite its delivery to Kiev, and European diplomats have previously said the system is expected to arrive by next spring.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said Ukrainian and NATO servicemen have much to learn from each other. The ministry described Ukraine's use of drones and electronic warfare as "unparalleled in the world" and welcomed efforts by European countries to help counter Russian drone and missile attacks.
In July, Ukraine and nine European allies formed an air defense coalition that includes plans to jointly develop a new system to counter ballistic missiles. The project, known as "Freya", brings together about a dozen companies, with Fire Point as the lead private partner. The goal is to create a system that is cheaper and faster to produce than the "Patriot", while ensuring that Europe, not the United States, controls its production.
"If you spend $20 billion on an air defense system, you have to be independent in terms of your own security," Stillerman said.