In the next battle, the alliance will demand a new mindset among NATO allies as challenges evolve.
“For the first time ever since the Cold War, we have real operational tasks,” said Maj. Gen. Jörg See, deputy assistant secretary general for defense policy and planning, NATO.
The alliance’s past confrontations were against rivals with limited conventional capabilities in the former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, according to Gen. See. Future challenges will encounter peer adversaries and this, in turn, demands that readiness is adjusted and updated.
One example comes from the Ukrainian battlefield, where unmanned aerial devices are numerous and perform a variety of missions, including attack and intelligence.
“We are wrestling with a choice to invest in high-cost, low-density cruise systems versus, for example, a larger number of low-tech, less survivable but more easily replaceable systems,” Gen. See told the audience at TechNet International in Brussels on Thursday.