NATO IS BUILDING A NEW THEORY OF VICTORY—AND UKRAINE IS ALREADY DEMONSTRATING IT
NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Alexus Grynkewich, is developing a strategy intended to rapidly halt and defeat a Russian attack against the Alliance’s eastern flank.
According to Bloomberg, Grynkewich will present the document—called the “Theory of Victory”—in Poland on October 12. It focuses on combining NATO’s conventional military power with low-cost drones, minimally crewed systems and artificial intelligence.
The strategy remains defensive. Its first purpose is deterrence: convince Moscow that an attack cannot succeed. But if Russia crosses NATO territory, the Alliance intends to respond collectively and decisively, including against the hybrid operations Moscow uses to test borders and weaken countries without formally declaring war.
Ukraine is already providing NATO with a working example of how this new doctrine could function.
During Operation Vivaldi, Ukrainian forces did not simply send infantry directly against fortified Russian positions. Aerial drones watched the battlefield, struck targets and kept Russian troops focused on the threat above them. Meanwhile, ground robotic systems moved through grass, tree lines and mined approaches, reaching positions that would have been extraordinarily dangerous for soldiers.
Some robots attacked fortifications with grenade launchers before driving into shelters and detonating. Others cleared approximately 30 kilometres of mined routes in two nights—a task the Third Army Corps said would otherwise have required two engineering companies working for about a week. No Ukrainian sappers were killed or wounded during that operation.
Only after the drones had identified targets, disrupted defenses and opened the routes did Ukrainian soldiers move forward. Machines entered the most dangerous spaces first; people followed once the risk had been reduced.
That is the deeper lesson of Vivaldi. The future of warfare is not one miraculous weapon replacing an army. It is aerial drones, ground robots, electronic warfare, artillery, intelligence and infantry operating as one connected system.
NATO possesses enormous advantages in surveillance, precision weapons, computing power, aviation and industrial capacity. Its challenge is turning those separate advantages into an integrated force able to make decisions and strike faster than an attacker can adapt.
Ukraine has been forced to develop these methods under fire and with limited resources. NATO now has the opportunity to combine those hard-earned Ukrainian lessons with the resources of 32 allied nations.
The Alliance is not simply watching the war in Ukraine. It is studying how Ukraine fights, how it preserves soldiers and how inexpensive machines can break positions once thought to require waves of infantry.
Operation Vivaldi offered a glimpse of that future: drones above, robots moving below and soldiers advancing behind them—not leading the most dangerous wave, but arriving after technology has already begun dismantling the enemy’s defenses.