Plan To Fail
What the war in Ukraine teaches us about NATO doctrine and why it should (but won’t) change immediately
There are lots of sayings in the military that encapsulate in a few words a great deal of wisdom learned the hard way. Failure to plan is planning to fail. Two is one, one is none. Time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted. Prior preparation and planning prevent piss-poor performance.
And so on.
Such encapsulations tend to focus on infantry-level activities and have significant practical value. Unfortunately, there’s no real equivalent when we move up the ladder from TTPs to general doctrine. And so there’s no easy way to encapsulate some of the crucial lessons the Russian invasion and subsequent occupation of Ukraine should be teaching us. This article, therefore, will cover in modest detail some of what I believe are key weaknesses in current NATO doctrine — weaknesses that leave NATO forces completely vulnerable to supposedly inferior Russian capabilities.
Many of these lessons are germane at the troop or patrol level; others require a complete rethink of national defense posture. So let’s begin with the easiest lessons: those that apply at the very sharp end of combat down on the ground with the “grunts.”
