NATO Operations Chief’s Five Lessons Learned From War In Ukraine

NATO is turning to the ongoing war in Ukraine for lessons as the alliance works to shift its strategy going forward. Tom Goffus, NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Operations, presented five such lessons during a panel this week at the Air and Space Forces (AFA) Air Warfare Symposium in Aurora, CO.

“I got to NATO one month before the invasion, so [I had a] front row seat watching the whole thing,” Goffus told the audience. “I think it’s a critical topic.”

Prior to that, Goffus, a former U.S. Air Force F-15 pilot, served as Policy Director on the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy, National Security Staff Director for Strategic and Eastern European Affairs, and Senior Military Advisor for European and Eurasian Affairs at the State Department.

Before unveiling his own takeaways, Goffus talked about the value of Ukraine’s acoustic sensor network for the detection of low-altitude detection of drones and cruise missiles. 

“Essentially, Ukraine is covering its entire nation, 1,000 meters and below, with acoustic sensors for less than 50 million euros (nearly $54 million),” Goffus gushed. “It’s crazy what they’re doing with this.”

The Zvook acoustic detection system was showcased during the Ukrainian Brave1 tech platform on April 26, 2023. (Brave1) @Dankihot / (dankihot.com)

That system is among many things being examined by NATO’s new lessons learned center, called the Joint Analysis Training and Education Center (JATEC).

“We just opened the lessons learned center in Bydgoszcz, Poland,” Goffus explained. “It’s the first NATO and Ukraine-run organization that we have. We don’t have any other partners that run an organization like this. It will be under [Supreme Allied Commander Transformation] (SACT), but there will also be a civilian element to it. I’ll have some of my people there working for the commander on the ground for unity of command, but that’s going to be a vehicle for more of these.”

Goffus then offered up five lessons learned from this war.

Lesson 1: “Collective action rests on the foundation of shared awareness, and it takes real work to achieve that shared awareness,” he said. “And unlike in 2014, where ambassadors were arguing they’re looking at pictures, saying, ‘see the Russians are in Crimea,’ and the next ambassador would say, ‘No, that looks like 100 to me.’ And as a result, we didn’t do anything because we didn’t have shared awareness of what was going on. Our 2022 response could not have more been more different than the 2014 response, in primary part, due to shared intelligence among allies, especially from the U.S.”

A man looks at a Russian T-72 tank destroyed during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Maxym Marusenko/NurPhoto via Getty Images) A man looks at a Russian T-72 tank destroyed during Russia’s invasion of Uktaine, Ivanivka village, Chernihiv area, Ukraine, April 20, 2022 (Photo by Maxym Marusenko/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Lesson 2: “It’s not what we do that provokes Putin. It’s what we don’t do. We should have learned that in 2014, and that’s lesson number three.”

Lesson 3:  “Putin is not a strategist. He’s an opportunist. He pushes on some doors, and when nobody pushes back, he walks in. What 2014 taught him was that there was no significant consequence for using force. It invited Putin’s 2022 invasion, in my opinion. In his own words, Putin believes that, quote, “a serious, irreconcilable struggle is unfolding for the formation of a new world order.” And that’s lesson number four.””

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends the parade on the 79th anniversary of the Victory Day in Red Square in Moscow, Russia, on May 09, 2024. (Photo by Kremlin Press Service/Anadolu via Getty Images) Anadolu

Lesson 4: “We are in a strategic confrontation. I believe our Australian friends are [seeing] the same [Chinese Premier] Xi [Jingping] dynamic in the Indo-Pacific. Putin explicitly said he’ll use crisis and conflict during peace to win the strategic confrontation. Peace, crisis, conflict used to be a sequence, part of our model. Now, it’s a spectrum. As NATO Secretary General [Mark] Rutte said, ‘we are not at war, but we are certainly not at peace either.”

Lesson 5: “We are woefully under-invested in our transatlantic defense industrial base to produce the capabilities we need at pace and at scale. Russia, with an economy 5% the size of NATO, produces in three months many critical munitions that it takes 32 allies an entire year to produce. I know I’m not making friends amongst the industry at this point, but something is very wrong here, and we must fix it.”

Goffus expanded on that last lesson.

The defense industrial base has “not been this important in a long time,” he explained, adding that the U.S. has to step up its capacity to produce weapons.

Lithuania wants “to buy AMRAAMS for their NASAMS,” he stated. “Five-year wait. I talked to the Bulgarian CHOD [Chief of Defense]. They want to buy Javelins for their Strykers. Seven-year wait. I talked to some of the big allies who want to buy Patriots. 10-year wait. That needs to get fixed.”

NASAMS firing an AIM-120. (Kongsberg Defense)

It’s one thing to learn lessons. It’s something else entirely to change the 32-nation alliance’s strategic approach. This may become more of a challenge in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s growing relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the chilling relations between some NATO members and the United States. On the other hand, new opportunities for breakthroughs on some of these items could be had in the wake of the current sea change in cross-Atlantic relations.

Regardless, Ukraine has served as stress test for the alliance and the military thinking and industrial base that underpins it, and clearly the major takeaways are being taken to heart by those at the top of NATO’s command hierarchy.

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