Staring Into the Ukrainian Looking Glass: Uncomfortable Lessons About NATO and Modern War

ABSTRACT The Russo‐Ukrainian War has done more than confirm the deep‐rooted problems of the Russian military. It offers insights into what likely may be a new revolution in military affairs that will challenge the United States and its NATO partners in a future conflict. More profoundly, it reveals the current existential flaw with the alliance, a continuing focus to deter Russia to preserve European and Atlantic peace and security. The United States with its NATO allies must abandon the comfortable confrontation against an adversary it already has beaten in the previous century and form a new coalition to address the looming crisis that faces it in this century—the People's Republic of China. If they fail to do so, what they may be staring at in the Ukrainian looking glass could very well be their own demise.