Russia's lacklustre military performance in Ukraine has badly damaged the reputation of its armed forces. Bogged down, and with losses mounting, the Russian army hardly appears to be the second- or third-most capable force in the world, as was previously thought. Conversely, NATO has been reinvigorated, with Finland and Sweden hoping to join. Vladimir Putin’s invasion has proved to be a colossal miscalculation. Yet some in NATO may be overinterpreting the lessons of this war, and failing to take a longer view of European security. Russia is not going away as a strategic competitor, nor does it have Potemkin armed forces. Its progress in eastern Ukraine in recent days, albeit fitful and incremental, shows as much.
Defence communities tend not to deal in nuance–policy often resembles a swinging pendulum. If Russia’s military power had previously been exaggerated in Western defence circles, it is now probably underrated. The reality lies between the two. As the aphorism goes, Russia is never as strong, nor as weak, as she looks. More importantly, military power is often closely tied to the context, and much of Russia’s performance in this war can be tied to the peculiarity of its terribly conceived plan and the political assumptions of its leadership.
During the initial invasion, Russia’s armed forces pursued an unworkable military strategy, chasing unachievable objectives. The troops were neither informed about, nor prepared for, a major war. Since then, they have adjusted substantially. In the Donbas, Russian forces are prosecuting the offensive in a manner much closer to how they train and organise to fight. Despite a substantially diminished force, the Russian offensive has made incremental gains. The war could become even more protracted. Russia failed in its bid to deny Ukraine sovereignty, but it is unclear whether Ukraine will be able to take back lost territory, even with extensive Western support.
As it stands, the Russian army is in no position to start another conflict, let alone one with NATO. This should bring cold comfort to NATO members, however. It may be tempting to believe that because Ukraine has done remarkably well against Russian forces, a NATO victory could be taken for granted in almost any scenario. That is the wrong lesson to take away from this war. The peculiarities of the situation in which a war occurs strongly determine how military power manifests and whether it can achieve political aims. An American defeat in Afghanistan offers few insights on how a war with China might go. A good analogy for the current war might be the unexpectedly poor Soviet performance in the “winter war” with Finland of 1939-40. It revealed weaknesses and structural problems in the Red Army, but the German leadership may have misinterpreted the lessons of that conflict in planning Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.
It is clear that the Russian armed forces are not just suffering from a bad plan in Ukraine. From the perspective of training, leadership and discipline, their army has serious deficiencies. However, there is much about the war that we still do not know, and our early interpretations of it could be wrong. In time we may discover that the opening phase was more of a close-run affair. More thorough analysis will reveal that Russian performance varied depending on which axis of advance and which part of the army one chooses to examine. For example, the Russian forces in the south broke out from Crimea and rapidly captured large swathes of territory. They still hold it. Furthermore, there is much that is unknown about what support America provided, beyond just weapons, and how much of an effect that has had. Ultimately, a reassessment will be in order, not just of where the Russian armed forces are, but where they are going.
Another area where Russia fell flat was its inability to scale up operations. What its army could do on a lesser scale in 2014 and 2015, it could not replicate across Ukraine. From communications to logistics, combined arms and beyond, Russia’s armed forces lacked experience in large-scale operations prior to the invasion, and it showed. But so would NATO, were it not for America. From the intervention in Libya in 2011, to the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, it is not clear what NATO can do without the United States. Russia’s armed forces now have experience scaling operations, having learned the hard way from costly mistakes (as the Soviet Army did before them). The Russian armed forces will take years to recover from this blunder but, at the same time, failure is often a better teacher than success.
Western sentiments whiplashed from last year’s dismay over European states’ inability to hold a single airport in Afghanistan without American support, to enthusiasm after Ukraine’s unexpected success. Yet this shift in perceptions should not mislead NATO members into the belief that, in a different context, Russia would be easily defeated. Although Russian military power was overestimated, NATO should assess where things stand soberly. America will continue to shift its focus to competition with China, investing in the military balance in the Indo-Pacific. The alliance’s looming expansion will add military capability, but also bring new challenges. A global economic recession, and the long-term cost of rebuilding Ukraine, may suck away resources once marked for defence spending.
The conflict serves as a fresh reminder that sustained conventional war hinges on the availability of manpower, materiel, ammunition and defence industrial capacity to sustain it. There’s much NATO can do to improve capacity across these categories. Were the alliance similarly tested, NATO armed forces could find that they, too, have many of the problems Russia has had in Ukraine. It follows that the alliance should not take a dismissive attitude towards Russia, or become complacent. Despite significant losses, the Russian army will rebuild sooner or later. Sanctions will affect Russia’s defence industry, but writing Russia off as a military power would be the wrong lesson to learn from this war.
Michael Kofman is the Director of the Russia Studies Program at CNA, an American defence research organisation. The views expressed here are his own.