NATO Has Seen the Future and Is Unprepared

 

“Russia and Ukraine have shown the world the future of warfare -- and America and its allies aren't ready for it. That's the lesson of a major exercise that North Atlantic Treaty Organization members conducted in Estonia last May. What transpired during the exercise, with the details reported here for the first time, exposed serious tactical shortcomings and vulnerabilities in high-intensity drone combat.

 

The exercise, known as Hedgehog 2025, involved more than 16,000 troops from 12 NATO countries who drilled alongside Ukrainian drone experts, including soldiers borrowed from the front line. It simulated a "contested and congested" battlefield with various kinds of drones, says Lt. Col. Arbo Probal, head of the unmanned systems program for the Estonian Defence Forces. "The aim was really to create friction, the stress for units, and the cognitive overload as soon as possible," he says. That tests the soldiers' ability to adapt under fire.

 

In Ukraine the front line is moving slowly, but Hedgehog envisioned a battlefield where tanks and troops still have some ability to move faster. During one scenario, a battle group of several thousand troops, including a British brigade and an Estonian division, sought to conduct an attack. As they advanced, they failed to account for how drones have made the battlefield more transparent, several sources say.

 

The NATO battle group was "just walking around, not using any kind of disguise, parking tents and armored vehicles," recalls one participant, who played an enemy role. "It was all destroyed."

 

During Hedgehog Ukrainians used Delta, their sophisticated battlefield-management system. It collects real-time battlefield intelligence, uses artificial intelligence to analyze huge amounts of data, identifies targets, and coordinates strikes across command and units. That enables a fast "kill chain": See it, share it, shoot it -- all within minutes or less.

 

A single team of some 10 Ukrainians, acting as the adversary, counterattacked the NATO forces. In about half a day they mock-destroyed 17 armored vehicles and conducted 30 "strikes" on other targets.

 

Aivar Hanniotti, an Estonian Defense League unmanned aerial systems coordinator, led an adversary unit of about 100 that included Estonians and Ukrainians. Mr. Hanniotti, who has since left the regular military, describes how they deployed more than 30 drones against NATO troops in an area of less than 4 square miles. That's only about half the drone saturation Ukrainians currently see at the front, though Col. Probal says the Hedgehog umpires sometimes offset that discrepancy by recording the drone strikes as twice as damaging or more. But even with less reconnaissance than in real life, "there was no possibility to hide," Mr. Hanniotti says. "We quite easily found cars and mechanized units, and we were able to take them out quite fast with strike drones."

 

Overall, the results were "horrible" for NATO forces, says Mr. Hanniotti, who now works in the private sector as an unmanned systems expert. The adversary forces were "able to eliminate two battalions in a day," so that "in an exercise sense, basically, they were not able to fight anymore after that." The NATO side "didn't even get our drone teams."

 

Credit the Estonians for forcing NATO partners to confront these weak spots. There's only so much you can learn from watching online footage or reading about what's transpiring in Ukraine, says Sten Reimann, a former commander of Estonia's Military Intelligence Center who helped bring in Ukrainian drone experts for Hedgehog. He said the results of this exercise were "shocking" to military officials and troops on the ground.

 

Hedgehog didn't deal with political or strategic issues like drone procurement. Estonia is small, and land-use limitations sometimes constrained how troops could move. No single exercise can reflect how quickly drone technology evolves during an actual war. Still, Hedgehog showed how visible the battlefield has become -- and how vulnerable that makes anyone or anything moving on it.

 

NATO will need to adjust its tactics and find better ways to protect its tanks and armored vehicles.

 

Another lesson is the need for a faster kill chain, which requires more efficient cooperation on strikes. During a future war game, NATO might consider pitting Delta against a similar battlefield-management platform developed by the U.S. to see how they stack up. There's also room to improve communication and coordination between units.

 

Ukrainians accelerate attacks by sharing large amounts of data between command and units. But that runs counter to NATO's instinct to restrict sensitive information.

 

"Lessons are not learned when they are identified," says retired Gen. David Petraeus. "Rather, they are only learned when you develop new concepts, write new doctrine, change organizational structures, overhaul your training, refine leader development courses, set out new materiel requirements that drive the procurement process, and even make changes to your personnel policies, recruiting, and facilities."

 

Estonia is trying to implement such major changes. It has updated its training, tactics and military doctrine for the drone era. It is also increasing defense spending and building deeper relationships with its vibrant private tech industry to work on drones and other military innovations.

 

Yet too many NATO members continue to show "a fundamental lack of understanding of the modern battlefield" and train their soldiers "based on doctrines and manuals that are not adapted to today's realities," says Maria Lemberg of the Ukrainian nonprofit Aerorozvidka, which supported Delta's development. She helped coordinate Ukraine's participation in Hedgehog and hopes it can serve as a wake-up call and basis for more knowledge-sharing between Kyiv and its partners.

 

Multiple sources told the story of one commander, who observed the drill and concluded, "We are f---." I asked Estonia's Col. Probal about this reaction. He said that one aim of the exercise was to help participants "think more, to make them critical toward themselves, to make sure they are not complacent in what they are doing right now." Was it a success? "From my point of view, mission accomplished."

 

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Ms. Melchior is a London-based member of the Journal's editorial board.” [1]

 

1. NATO Has Seen the Future and Is Unprepared. Melchior, Jillian Kay.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 13 Feb 2026: A15.