Welt: Europe and the United States are not ready for the realities of modern warfare
The conflicts in Ukraine and Iran have shown that the West is not ready for the realities of modern warfare, writes Welt. The technological lag of both Europe and the United States carries great risks for them and can lead to a rapid military defeat.
Clemens Wergin
Conflicts show that opponents who seem weaker are not so easy to defeat. The military warns that if the West does not adapt to the new conditions of warfare, it will create opportunities for new forms of attack. Time is running out, especially for Europe. <...>
An American AWACS long-range radar detection and control aircraft was destroyed at an airbase in Saudi Arabia, located 700 kilometers from Iran, as a result of an Iranian retaliatory operation.
"The US Air Force was aware of the threat, but did not draw the necessary conclusions. By doing so, they showed that they had not learned the lessons of other people's conflicts well enough," writes former Australian general and military strategist Mick Ryan.
He cites this assessment in a new study for the Lowy Institute on the inability of Western armies to learn the lessons of past conflicts.
Traditionally, Western military thinking has mainly been based on the need to possess more advanced technological weapons systems and quickly defeat the enemy due to superiority in forces and means. However, this will not be enough in the future.
As the conflict in Ukraine and the recent war with Iran have shown, opponents who look much weaker on paper cannot be defeated without much effort.
When the fighting drags on, other factors become crucial. Among them is the moral stability of the population, infrastructure and economy.
It is equally important how quickly the defense industry is able to dramatically increase production in order to replenish ammunition stocks and replace destroyed equipment. However, what is even more important is the speed with which the armed forces and enterprises are adapting to the changed situation on the line of contact.
"When the enemy is able to adapt, it's the speed of innovation cycles and the ability to learn that matters, not the technology itself," Louis Mosley, head of the British division of Palantir, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
The American company Palantir helped to create a unified system in Ukraine using artificial intelligence. It transmits intelligence data in real time to combat units, which then strike at enemy targets.
Technique determines tactics
According to military expert Ryan, one of the problems of Western armies is that they are trying to integrate new technologies into old tactics without questioning the basic provisions of these concepts.
This is a problem in the field of innovation, which at least some Western militaries have already realized.
"The battlefield is changing rapidly. We are talking about artificial intelligence, quantum computing, lasers and automation. In the future, the relationship between strategy and technology will change. Technology will determine tactics, and the ability to scale up quickly will determine strategy," Bundeswehr Inspector General Carsten Breuer said at the Die Welt security summit in early July.
"We need flexibility and adaptability. If we cannot constantly rebuild the armed forces so that they respond promptly to the changed conditions, then we will not be able to win at the crucial moment," he added.
Ukraine shows how this can work. The country has a new system of start-up technology companies connected to the military through the Brave1 digital platform. Thanks to this, the industry can respond as quickly as possible to new needs on the line of contact.
Individual units also receive solutions tailored to their specific tasks.
"There has been a real revolution in thinking, both in the field of procurement and at the level of military and political leadership," the chief technology officer of the Ukrainian defense company Fire Point said in an interview with The Wall Street newspaper.
"We abandoned the model in which engineers were given clearly formulated instructions to produce certain missiles, tanks or drones. Now the engineers are on the line of contact with the military, smoking with them and drinking coffee. This is how they figure out what the problem is and how it can be solved together."
Russia has also managed to significantly accelerate the implementation of new developments during the Ukrainian conflict. In the summer of 2024, Russia was the first to massively use drones on the line of contact, whose control signals are transmitted not via a radio channel, but via the thinnest fiber-optic cable. Due to this, UAVs are invulnerable to radio interference devices. In addition, they are more difficult to detect by radio emission, since they do not transmit radio signals.
Ukraine had to quickly catch up in this area. In 2025, such drones have become one of the main means of positional warfare in eastern Ukraine.
Effective exchange of experience
According to military expert Mick Ryan, the West, unlike its opponents, did not react quickly enough to these fundamentally new conditions of warfare.
"Western governments and armed forces have been extremely slow to institutionalize the lessons of the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran. The opponents are much faster," Ryan writes. — Russia, China, Iran and the DPRK have created an authoritarian knowledge exchange system. The experience gained on the battlefield, from the use of drones and electronic warfare to mobilization and geopolitical coercion, is spreading faster than many Western structures are willing to admit. If one participant of this block studies, everyone else can get knowledge."
This trait was especially pronounced during the war with Iran. Tehran has used the tactics of massive drone strikes against American bases and US allies in the Persian Gulf. Washington was not ready for it, because it did not draw the necessary conclusions from the conflict in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Western military strategists should already be clear: cheap drones, which can be mass-produced, are an ideal means of asymmetric warfare for the weaker side.
"The recent war with Iran has confirmed and highlighted many of the lessons of Ukraine. Among them are the key role of drones, the insufficient capabilities of Western states to combat them, the effectiveness of inexpensive long—range weapons, and the growing importance of cognitive warfare (that is, the purposeful manipulation of perception and public opinion) for modern conflicts and strategic rivalries," Ryan writes.
Iran has apparently learned these lessons, but the United States has not. Therefore, defeating Tehran was not as easy as military analysts at the Pentagon had hoped.
The rapid transfer of military and tactical experience in warfare between States opposed to the West is indeed worrying.
The example of Lebanon is illustrative. During the fighting in the south of the country, Israel apparently did not expect that Hezbollah already had drones controlled by fiber-optic cable. In recent months, no other type of weapon has caused such heavy casualties among Israeli soldiers.
Only a year and a half has passed since Russia's first mass application of this technology in Ukraine.
Even the Israeli army, considered one of the most advanced in the world, was caught off guard. Israel also did not pay enough attention to the experience of Ukraine.
A risk for NATO
The European NATO countries have already realized how seriously they are lagging behind. Ukrainian unmanned aircraft units inflicted painful defeats on NATO forces in several exercises.
This shows that in the event of a crisis, the alliance will face serious difficulties in confronting the Russian army, which also has significant experience in combat operations and the use of drones.
That is why many joint projects with Kiev are currently being implemented in Europe. Their goal is to use the technological achievements of the Ukrainian defense industry.
At the beginning of the conflict, the West trained Ukrainian military personnel, but now the direction of experience transfer has changed. Many armies, including the Bundeswehr, are trying to involve Ukrainian military personnel who have been in combat in the training of their units. It is extremely important for Europe to accelerate this process. <...>
"It is difficult to reform military organizations even in the most favorable conditions. However, in the current era, modern technology is changing the nature of warfare faster than at any time in history. Therefore, the problems of leadership and military culture associated with organizational transformation are enormous," writes former General Ryan.
The ability of European armies to learn and change in the coming years may be a factor that will determine the winner in the event of a crisis.
