UK can lead Nato's battlefield revolution after lessons from Ukraine, says retired US general
Britain is ahead in responding to changes on the battlefield in light of the Ukraine war, a retired US general has told peers in a speech.
General (Retired) David Petraeus said that the UK was demonstrating "strategic clarity" early on and providing exemplary support of Ukraine ever since the full-scale invasion in 2022.
Gen (Ret'd) Petraeus spoke at the Lord Speaker's Lecture after being invited by the Lord Speaker, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, to address peers at the House of Lords.
Leading Nato's transformation
"That now presents Britain with another opportunity: to become the first major Western nation to organise its defence institutions around the new concept of warfare that Ukraine has been pioneering and, in doing so, to help lead the transformation of Nato itself," he told the assembled peers.
Gen (Ret'd) Petraeus, a retired four-star general who served 37 years in the US military, became the best-known commander in George W Bush's "war on terror", leading coalition forces during the "surge" from 2007 to 2009 and in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2011, before moving on to be the director of the CIA.
Nato's transformation to Nato 3.0 has become shorthand for the next phase in the evolution of the 32-member alliance.
Nato 3.0 centres on deterring major state threats as it reflects the growing threat from Russia following the war in Ukraine and the need for Europe to assume greater responsibility for its own, with a decreased reliance on the United States.
You can't buy your way to victory
While the US is at the forefront of developing technologies to fight wars, no nation would secure strategic advantage just by purchasing better technology, he said to the peers, including Field Marshal Lord Richards, Lord Stirrup, who was Chief of the Defence Staff during the "surge" in Iraq, and Lord Dannatt, the former Chief of the General Staff.
"The United States has not yet developed the revolutionary new concept of warfare this moment requires, much less begun the vast resulting changes in force structure, organisation, training, leader education, procurement, personnel," he added.
He highlighted that many vested interests and long-held assumptions would need to be confronted and the traditional way of thought would need to be thrown away.
"Every generation is tempted that its challenges are unprecedented," the KKR Global Institute chairman said. "Occasionally, however, a generation is correct. I believe ours is such a generation.
"The challenge before us… is to recognise that the concept of warfare is changing fundamentally, and that our institutions must change with it, urgently."
The evolution of conflict and Ukraine
Gen (Ret'd) Petraeus' remarks came as Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky warned airlines about entering Russian airspace due to Kyiv's drone threat.
"There will simply be drones in Russia's skies on a scale that has to be taken into account," Mr Zelensky said in a post on X.
Meanwhile, the commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert Brovdi, said that Kyiv had hit 54 Russian "shadow fleet" vessels last month.
Speaking on the evolution of conflict, Gen (Ret'd) Petraeus said: "If Britain once again demonstrates the strategic clarity it showed in recognising the implications of Russia's aggression against Ukraine, and if the United States matches its extraordinary technological dynamism with equally determined institutional transformation, then I believe our two nations, together with our allies, can once again shape the future of warfare rather than simply respond to it.
"That is not merely an opportunity. It is the responsibility for our generation."
:: Gen (Ret'd) Petraeus co-authored a New York Times best-selling book, Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Gaza, with historian and peer Lord Roberts in 2023.
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