RAND Europe though the Global Strategic Partnership (GSP) conducted a review of open-source literature on the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict since 2014 to map insights and lessons learnt relating to the war in Ukraine for North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and UK joint doctrine at the operational level.

Russia's War in Ukraine

Emerging Insights for UK and NATO Joint Doctrine

James Black, Pauline Paillé, Charlotte Kleberg, Conlan Ellis, Maxime Sommerfeld Antoniou

ResearchPublished Nov 18, 2024

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, there has been a high volume of publications (articles, tweets, commentaries) purporting to offer insights into the ongoing conflict and its wider implications for the changing character of warfare. While much of this open-source analysis has focused on the technical and tactical levels, some analysts have provided observations about what the fighting means for the future of joint doctrine at the operational and strategic levels.

To determine whether this outpouring of commentary and analysis may contain useful lessons for further consideration, the Doctrine team within the Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC) of the UK Ministry of Defence (which has subsequently become part of the new Integrated Warfare Centre [IWC]) asked RAND Europe to conduct a review of relevant open-source literature and to present implications for UK and NATO joint doctrine. RAND Europe conducted the research as lead of the Global Strategic Partnership, a consortium of organisations providing rolling strategic analysis and academic support to the IWC and Defence Futures, formerly known as DCDC.

Key Findings

Recurring themes emerging from the open-source literature include:

  • The direction or outcomes of the war remain uncertain, and Ukraine and Russia are both fighting differently to how NATO would fight, complicating efforts to draw firm lessons from the war for joint doctrine.
  • The latest innovations (e.g., drones, artificial intelligence) have been used alongside First or Second World War-era tactics and technologies (e.g., trench warfare), confounding simplistic ideas of military-technological revolution.
  • Continuous learning and adaption remain imperative to support competitiveness in a context of rapid technological and tactical evolution.
  • The war has emphasised the importance of endurance, both in terms of industrial capacity and broader societal will-to-fight, especially as the human, economic and equipment costs of the conflict have soared.
  • Whole-of-society approaches, including cooperation with allies and partners, have been crucial to sustain both parties' warfighting capacity.

The literature review highlights lively debates in relation to the following areas:

  • Whether, how and why NATO failed to deter the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the run up to February 2022.
  • How to explain Russia's military underperformance, especially during the first year of its invasion.
  • How increased dispersal of forces will shape the future of warfare in a more transparent battlespace (positional vs. attritional vs. manoeuvre approaches).
  • Whether technological developments or activities in newer domains (e.g., space, cyber and electromagnetic) should be considered evolutionary or revolutionary in terms of their impacts on operational and strategic outcomes.
  • Whether legacy technologies such as tanks or helicopters will continue to play an impactful role in future conflicts given changes in the threat environment.
  • What the trajectory or outcomes of Ukrainian and Russian operations over the coming months and years will be.

Recommendations

  • While tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) and tactical doctrine will need to continue to evolve, the war in Ukraine does not provide compelling evidence of any need for fundamental changes in NATO or the UK's operational-level joint doctrine (e.g., key concepts such as the manoeuvrist approach, comprehensive approach or mission command).
  • The published literature on Ukraine suggests that the most pressing question is not whether NATO and the UK's joint doctrine is appropriate, but rather whether sufficient resources are available to credibly implement those ideas and principles as envisaged, especially over the course of a long war.
  • Urgent action is needed to address a lack of sufficient mass of personnel, equipment or stockpiles, especially munitions. Shortfalls are also reported in readiness, training and infrastructure and in levels of industrial mobilisation and societal resilience more widely.
  • Relatedly, there is an urgent need to boost Defence's capacity for learning and adaptation. This includes having efficient lessons, warfare development and doctrine functions, and the processes and culture to translate the latest ideas into behavioural change across Defence.

Topics

Document Details

Citation

RAND Style Manual

Black, James, Pauline Paillé, Charlotte Kleberg, Conlan Ellis, and Maxime Sommerfeld Antoniou, Russia's War in Ukraine: Emerging Insights for UK and NATO Joint Doctrine, RAND Corporation, RR-A3400-1, 2024. As of April 8, 2025: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3400-1.html

Chicago Manual of Style

Black, James, Pauline Paillé, Charlotte Kleberg, Conlan Ellis, and Maxime Sommerfeld Antoniou, Russia's War in Ukraine: Emerging Insights for UK and NATO Joint Doctrine. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2024. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA3400-1.html.
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This research was prepared for the Integrated Warfare Centre in UK Strategic Command and conducted by the Defence and Security Program within RAND Europe.

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