A NATO commander says training Ukrainian soldiers is showing his forces that skills neglected after the Cold War matter again
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- Norway is leading new international training for Ukrainian troops to boost battlefield skills.
- The training is also giving Norway lessons on modern war to bring back to its own military.
- That includes rebuilding electronic warfare capabilities neglected since the Cold War.
Training Ukrainian troops for war with Russia has reminded Western trainers of the importance of electronic warfare, a key skill that has received less emphasis since the end of the Cold War but is proving to be increasingly important in modern combat.
Norway is leading a new multinational training effort on NATO soil to prepare Ukrainian troops to fight. The trainers are sharing Western practices but also learning lessons from participating Ukrainian soldiers, who bring valuable battle-won experience in areas such as electronic and drone warfare.
Training Ukrainian soldiers is one way that partner nations can bring lessons from the war back to their own militaries, Brig. Gen. Atle Molde, the commander overseeing Task Force Legio, told Business Insider. He said that Camp Jomsborg, the purpose-built training camp that BI visited in Poland, "is one of several, but maybe the most important sensor for information."
One of the lessons Norway is taking from the collaboration, he said, is the renewed importance of electronic warfare capabilities.
Electronic warfare was something in which "the West or NATO and the Western force had quite some capacity back in the Cold War era," Molde said. "But after the fall of the Soviet Union, end of the Cold War, when we moved into counterinsurgency and stuff like that, all that went away."
Now, he said, the West needs "to rebuild that."
Part of the war in Ukraine is a fierce electronic warfare battle. Both sides are trying to detect, jam, and disrupt the other side's communications, drones, navigation, and sensors.
Both militaries are constantly developing new tactics and technology to keep their own systems operating while disrupting the enemy's.
Ukrainian soldiers need to be able to communicate despite Russian electronic warfare, resulting in new tech and tactics.John Moore/Getty Images
The war in Ukraine has exposed Western militaries to the demands of modern, large-scale combat, prompting greater investment in technologies, as well as those critical capabilities that were allowed to atrophy in the post-Cold War era.
Electronic warfare is an example. It was a major focus during the Cold War, when both sides sought to disrupt enemy communications and radars while protecting their own. That emphasis diminished in the conflicts Western militaries fought in the aftermath, such as counterinsurgency and counterterrorism fights.
Air Chief Marshal Sir John Stringer, NATO's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told Business Insider earlier this year that military commands need to learn to hide "in plain sight" by controlling their electronic signatures.
Radios, radars, data links, and other systems can emit signals that an enemy can detect and use to locate headquarters. Controlling those emissions while searching for an enemy's is part of the wider contest over the electromagnetic spectrum, which includes electronic warfare.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, former chairman of NATO's Military Committee, said in 2024 that while NATO had not substantially invested in electronic warfare for decades, "Russia never stopped doing EW."
He said that Ukraine was "the most dense and dangerous electromagnetic operating environment we've ever seen," adding that "we need to learn from the Ukrainians who are fighting for their lives and their country."
At Camp Jomsborg, electronic warfare, along with piloting drones, is not something partners teach Ukrainian soldiers because Ukraine is already highly experienced in both, Maj. John, the S3 Operations Officer in charge of synchronizing the overall training operation, told Business Insider, asking to be identified by his first name for security reasons.
Norway is leading a multinational effort to train Ukrainian soldiers at a purpose-built camp in NATO ally Poland.Synne Nilsson / Forsvaret
Ukraine's combat experience is at the core of the training effort. Rather than following a curriculum designed by the 11 Western forces taking part, Ukraine tells them what it needs and what it wants to focus on. Ukrainian instructors help lead the course, and the experience of Ukrainian soldiers is incorporated. John said, "We have defined this as a Ukrainian training center."
John said trainers are always trying to learn from the Ukrainians they are teaching, not just to improve the training, but also to take some of those experiences back to our own armed forces."
The UK, which is also training Ukrainian troops, has said that training Ukrainians has helped it rethink major parts of how it trains its own troops for battle.
At Camp Jomsborg, "we can learn from the Ukrainian experts every day," Molde said. "So that's valuable." He described the training as a "two-way street," with allies teaching Ukrainians while drawing lessons for their own militaries.
He said it's not a case of copying everything Ukraine is doing, as some of its approaches, like its reliance on drones, came as a result of shortages and limitations that allies may not face. Ukraine also has a different terrain and a different population from Norway, which changes how a military fights.
Norway is trying to take back "the relevant lessons learned from Ukraine," he said.
Molde said other key lessons Norway is examining from the training include how Ukraine effectively uses drones and how Norway can protect itself from the way Russia uses drones, as well as the importance of air defense.
"We now have an actor, a security threat to all of Western Europe. The rules of war don't apply," he said, with Russia showing that it is willing to attack civilian infrastructure.
The importance of air defense is a lesson partners say they are taking from the war. Air defense is another capability that allies neglected after the end of the Cold War but now need to return to. Allies reduced investment in ground-based air defenses after the Cold War but are now increasing it, worried that with the sharp rise of inexpensive drones, it will not be possible to field enough defenses to protect everything, or even all of the critically important things.
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