“‘Fools,’ said Bismarck, ‘say they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by other people’s experience.'”[1] Despite the historical consensus concluding the utility of history when considering future warfare, leaders’ track record of leveraging it to a nation’s benefit is, to paraphrase some U.S. officials, terribly poor.[2] We should not however seek to resolve this beyond acknowledging nations inevitably fight future wars with a force designed and constructed for a different conflict than what was inevitably unveiled. 

This piece examines recent thinking and planning examples to better understand how states effectively envision future warfare by examining their performance in past and present conflict to include how lessons learned were applied by the countries in focus, or not.

A nation’s political and military leaders must objectively seek out and use history's lessons as guideposts, capturing and applying lessons learned from the most repeated, catastrophic missteps of others to remain adaptable to future warfare's most probable scenarios. History matters more in avoiding past catastrophes than predicting specific events years into the future. As British soldier and military historian B.H. Liddell Hart concludes, “the value of history is in the countless repeated ways things can go wrong.”[3] This piece examines recent thinking and planning examples to better understand how states effectively envision future warfare by examining their performance in past and present conflict to include how lessons learned were applied by the countries in focus, or not.

The Curious Case of Azerbaijan

The world’s attention in 2020 was dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic leaving many unaware of another war raging in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The region’s cultural significance to both countries is a long-standing dispute pitting an Armenian ethnic majority seeking unification against the will of a minority Azerbaijani population. The Soviet Union historically kept the two sides from engaging in all-out conflict. Armenia would eventually escalate their calls for unification as the Soviet Union’s disintegration became clearer and Azerbaijani ethnic cleansing claims began to emerge. Azerbaijan’s declaration of independence from the Soviet Union would be the final hurdle to full-scale war as Armenian secession claims in the region became official. The war would rage for six years exhausting both sides with Armenia emerging as the de facto victor. This victory in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War from 1988 until 1994 never sat well in Azerbaijan, a country whose capacity to field and develop armed forces rose sharply in the 2000s alongside a sympathetic and emerging regional player in Turkey coupled with the development of a robust energy sector.

 Azerbaijan recognized a future conflict would not look the same as the First Nagorno-Karabakh War and took steps to ensure lessons from their previous defeat would be integrated into a future war.

 Azerbaijan recognized a future conflict would not look the same as the First Nagorno-Karabakh War and took steps to ensure lessons from their previous defeat would be integrated into a future war. Their preparations were multi-faceted with heavy reliance on their Turkish sponsor, but the key was how they were able to professionalize traditional forces while leveraging modern advances in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology and information operations to pre-emptively defeat the numerically superior Armenians.[4] Azerbaijan successfully applied historical lessons learned from their missteps while envisioning the importance of new technologies altering the methods of modern war. 

The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, like the first act, was full of new lessons and questions for nations around the world to pay close attention to, especially Russia who had been a historic Armenian ally vis-à-vis Azerbaijan. Russian media and military sources alike publicly acknowledged core lessons from the war by the end of 2020 concluding Armenia’s downfall lay primarily in both traditional and non-traditional categories. These categories included ineffective military leadership, substandard soldiers without the will to fight, inability to integrate new technology into operations, and an overall arrogance to the changing methods of warfare.[5] This analysis confirms at least some of the Russian military leadership understood the necessity to still field traditional, capable forces integrated with the latest military technology.

Russia today is failing to achieve its strategic objectives thus far much like Armenia.  Their shortcomings are due to a failure in application of key lessons learned as their assumptions of another Crimea operation crumbled in the initial days and weeks of the 2022 invasion. Russian failures in Ukraine today may stem from arrogance via its misapplication of an invalid template from recent non-traditional operations.[6] As Kissinger said, “the Gods are offended by hubris.”[7] 

Russia and Ukraine – Lessons Captured vs Lessons Learned

Russia’s hybrid and gray zone operations in former Soviet states during the latter part of the 2000s caught the attention of many around the world.[8] Russia also began reflecting on lessons from the Arab Spring uprisings of the 2010s as those lessons relate to the changing methods of warfare. Russia’s Chief of Defense General Valery Gerasimov even penned a paper as a result many at the time saw as confirmation of Russia’s prioritization of characterizing war in non-traditional ways as a prelude to Crimea and eastern Ukraine 2014 – little green men speaking Russian quickly and decisively occupying Ukrainian territory with minimal resistance.[9] However, the 2014 annexation of Crimea incursions into eastern Ukraine were not updated with applicable lessons from the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. Russian assumptions and methods were not adapted in the face of new evidence to the contrary, capturing vital lessons, but absent actually learning from them.[10] Russian plans for another Crimea-type operation in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine were built on difficult-to-replicate circumstances in Crimea absent a clear-eyed, factual analysis of what had transpired since The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.[11] Their overreliance on non-traditional methods to force Ukraine to capitulate early on were not effectively combined with a plan to leverage their superior numbers in troops and modern weaponry when presented with more classical military resistance from Ukraine.

 Ukraine offers various insights when considering future warfare, finding value in the traditional lesson of maintaining an effective fighting force while recognizing the imperative to integrate technologically advanced, combat-tested weapon systems.

Conversely in 2014, Ukraine shifted its vision of future warfare based on the persistent existential threat of Russian aggression due to the absence of formal defense alliances albeit with assistance from NATO nations.[12] Ukraine quickly and effectively began restructuring a Soviet-era, atrophied force with a view to attain a NATO standard within their ranks.[13] In coupling urgency based on necessity with deepening partnerships, Ukraine’s preparation for national defense against a full-scale Russian invasion in 2022 would be formidable and surprising to many. It also would have likely not been possible had Russia’s 2014 operation been on the scope and scale of their 2022 invasion given the depth of Ukraine’s military shortcomings. Nevertheless, the example of Ukraine offers various insights when considering future warfare, finding value in the traditional lesson of maintaining an effective fighting force while recognizing the imperative to integrate technologically advanced, combat-tested weapon systems. Below are two salient points relating to Ukraine’s use of lessons learned since 2014 offering asymmetrical insights for nations pursuing future strategic options to confront a superior adversary.

Channel National Momentum Against an Existential Threat

Ukraine’s adoption of a more Western-style armed forces system led by combat-tested officers and NCOs was a clear-eyed recognition by Ukrainian political and military leadership of their nation’s existential reality. This reality was communicated to the population. This shift effectively harnessed an existing will to fight, solidifying a near-consensus of support at the national level with nearly eight years to germinate. The lack of an official cessation of hostilities in the east over this time also provided Ukraine with ample operational repetitions enabling newly formed units relevant battlefield experiences over this timeframe. These opportunities would also begin to include more and more advanced tactics and equipment from partners seeking to capitalize geopolitically.

Statecraft Enabling Technological Military Advances and Integration

Russian advantages in numbers and technologically superior weaponry were well known to Ukraine. Thus, their early recognition of the need to improve the quality of their forces through training and acquire modern, asymmetrically advantageous weapon systems from NATO countries such as Turkey and the United States became imperative to national defense. And Turkey, given their regional ambitions and NATO protections, offered an excellent source for acquiring the same UAV technology Azerbaijan successfully leveraged against Russian-trained, numerically superior Armenian formations.[14] The U.S., which labels Russia a strategic competitor and an acute threat, provided Ukraine with over $20 billion in military aid since 2014. This aid encompassed training, equipment, intelligence, and logistics support well before the 2022 invasion.[15] Thus, deepening relationships with willing partners who are already in direct geopolitical competition with their adversary were key to initial Ukrainian resistance efforts in 2022 and will likely prolong the conflict indefinitely, eroding Russia’s ability to negotiate terms of peace from a position of strength politically and militarily.

Conclusion

Historical guideposts illuminating lessons learned from others’ missteps remain a foundational tool for understanding future warfare. This understanding, however imperative, must also include proper follow through via adaptation and implementation discerning which historical and emergent methods of war are relevant to the specific case. Azerbaijan and Ukraine represent recent examples of nations effectively grasping their future of warfare clearly by ensuring past strategic errors applicable to their circumstances are not repeated and are applicable for all nations seeking to effectively envision the future of warfare. Armenia and Russia by contrast demonstrate how nations can be cognitively blinded by historical precedence, over relying on either traditional or non-traditional methods of war based on most recent successes. In this sense, past success can be the biggest risk of all when predicting a future war and developing a plan to emerge victorious.

Nathan Bump is an officer in the U.S. Air Force. Nathan is a Foreign Area Officer who focuses on the European region. The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not reflect those of the U.S. Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

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Header Image: A Succession of Choices, A Coruña, Spain, 2018 (Javier Allegue Barros).

Notes:

[1] B.H. Liddell Hart, Why Don’t We Learn From History? (London: Allen and Unwin, 1944).

[2] Micah Zenko, “100% Right 0% of the Time,” Foreign Policy, October 16, 2012, https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/10/16/100-right-0-of-the-time/ and Robert Scales, “Forecasting the Future of Warfare,” War on the Rocks, April 9, 2018, https://warontherocks.com/2018/04/forecasting-the-future-of-warfare/.

[3] B.H. Liddell Hart, Why Don’t We Learn From History?

[4] John Antal, 7 Seconds to Die (Casemate, 2022).

[5] Alexander Stronell, “Learning the Lessons of Nagorno-Karabakh the Russian Way,” Analysis, International Institute for Strategic Studies (blog), March 21, 2021, https://www.iiss.org/blogs/analysis/2021/03/lessons-of-nagorno-karabakh.

[6] Michael Kofman, Katya Migacheva, Brian Nichiporuk, Andrew Radin, Olesya Tkacheva, and Jenny Oberholtzer, Lessons from Russia's Operations in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2017. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1498.html.

[7] Cited in Hal Brands, What Good Is Grand Strategy? Power and Purpose in American Statecraft

from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014), 100.

[8] Examples before Ukraine include Georgia and Estonia.

[9] Valery Gerasimov, “The Value of Science Is in the Foresight,” Military Review, February 2016, https://www.armyupress.army.mil/portals/7/military-review/archives/english/militaryreview_20160228_art008.pdf.

[10] Credit to U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Luiz Vega for introducing the author to lessons learned versus lessons captured.

[11] Michael Kofman, Lessons from Russia's Operations in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.

[12] Adrlan Bonenberger, “Ukraine’s Military Pulled Itself Out of the Ruins of 2014,” Foreign Policy, May 9, 2022, Ukraine's Military Pulled Itself Out of the Ruins of 2014 https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/09/ukraine-military-2014-russia-us-training/.

[13] Valery Zaluzhny, “Restraint Under Fire,” The Economist, December 15, 2022, https://www.economist.com/zaluzhny-transcript.

[14] John Antal, 7 Seconds to Die.

[15] Figures sourced from Department of State and do not include post-2022 invasion aid from the U.S. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12040#:~:text=According%20to%20DOD%2C%20USAI%20packages,UAS)%2C%20air%20surveillance%20systems%2C.