Lawfare Daily: Defending Ukraine Outside NATO with Michael O'Hanlon and Andriy Zagorodnyuk 

Summary

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The Lawfare Podcast: "Defending Ukraine Outside NATO"

Date: August 26, 2025
Guests:

• Michael O'Hanlon: Director of Foreign Policy Research, Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution
• Andriy Zagorodnyuk: Chairman, Center for Defense Strategy (Kyiv), former Ukrainian Minister of Defense, nonresident scholar at Carnegie Endowment
  Host: Mykhailo Soldatenko, Lawfare Legal Fellow

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Overview

This episode dives into Ukraine’s current and future defense posture in the absence of NATO membership. Mykhailo Soldatenko hosts a discussion with Michael O'Hanlon and Andriy Zagorodnyuk, exploring the viability and credibility of new security guarantees, Ukraine's capabilities to defend itself, Western support, and the prospects for peace or ongoing conflict with Russia. The conversation reflects deep skepticism towards Western "security guarantees" that fall short of NATO Article 5-level commitments and lays out both immediate and long-term strategic considerations for Ukraine’s defense, innovation in warfare, and its relationship with NATO.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reality and Limitations of "Security Guarantees"

(03:36–09:33)

• Post-Alaska Summit Context: Speculation over the credibility of U.S. and European guarantees for Ukraine outside NATO, especially after recent remarks by President Trump and U.S. envoys referencing Article 5-style language.

• Andriy's skepticism:

  • On guarantees:

    "I am very skeptical about the chances of the real security guarantees [and] real ceasefire." (04:03)

  • On Article 5:

    "If we read Article 5 literally how it's written, it's not going to be enough, because it basically doesn't guarantee anything." (05:15)

  • U.S. and allies often regard “doing their best” as fulfillment of commitments, which is inherently subjective and, as prior arms shortfalls showed, often insufficient.

• Michael’s historical angle:

  • NATO only became credible when backed by material deployments, not words alone:

    "It wasn't just the words, it was also the actions, and the presence, the military presence." (10:41)

  • Suggestion: Security guarantees without troops ("tripwire") or meaningful physical support fail to provide strong deterrence.

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2. Designing a Credible Deterrent without NATO

(09:33–23:39)

• Tripwire Logic & Western Presence:

  • O'Hanlon supports a model with Western trainers and technicians in Ukraine but warns that without a tangible military presence, any “guarantee” lacks teeth.
  • The U.S. may offer limited air cover or a rapid reaction mechanism but is reluctant to deploy combat forces.

• Pragmatic Role of European (Coalition of the Willing) Forces:

  • Both guests express doubts Europe could muster large-scale commitments (e.g., 30,000 troops) and emphasize need for realistic, defined missions.
  • Andriy:

    "Military cannot operate without the mission. And clearly that number which we've heard, like tens, few tens, they're not going to be a barrier." (22:35)

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3. Evolving the Defense Model—Strategic Neutralization and Innovation

(28:23–36:27)

• Andriy’s “Strategic Neutralization” Concept:

  • Proposes Ukraine should functionally defeat Russia in every military domain, making the aggressor unable to achieve results regardless of attrition:

    "Ukraine has to have a strategy which does not necessarily rest on the assumption that Putin will eventually decide to stop atrocities... If we block the effective operations of Russia in all domains... Ukraine can start kind of breathing freely..." (28:54)

  • Advocates cross-domain defense, innovation, and not relying on resource attrition (which disproportionately favors Russia).

• Posture Model (O'Hanlon):

  • Multilayered response combining:
    1. Permanent frontline force (smaller than today's but ready to scale quickly via reserves)
    2. Rapid reaction maneuvers for breakthroughs
    3. Robust air/missile defense for cities and infrastructure
  • Estimated total force: 800,000 to 1,000,000 including reserves (40:27)

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4. Historical Models: Inspiration, not Templates

(42:34–48:49)

• Host asks about Swiss, Finnish, Israeli models:
  • O'Hanlon leans toward the Finnish approach during Winter War:

    "Maybe the Finnish model at first blush strikes me as perhaps the most relevant... They could reposition units as they needed to..." (42:56)

  • Zagorodnyuk clarifies that Ukraine won’t “clone” any model, acknowledges selective conscription of women (for medical roles), and reflects on the “Finlandization” debate's negative connotations in Ukraine.

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5. NATO Aspirations and Russian Motivations

(48:49–55:16)

• Ukraine’s NATO Pathway:

  • Zagorodnyuk: Russia’s motivation for invasion extends beyond NATO expansion:

    "Russia attacked Ukraine when it had no NATO aspirations... We cannot trade NATO pathway for peace because none of those promises from Russia can be enforced unless they are secured by something much more tangible." (49:28)

  • O'Hanlon:

    "If I were Ukrainian, I would want the option to join NATO. There's nothing wrong with that... NATO really is the gold standard for the closest thing you can get to a guarantee." (52:59)

  • Both agree Russia uses NATO as a rationalization rather than true casus belli.

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6. Technological Revolution & Future of Military Innovation

(55:27–57:02)

• Andriy’s Conclusion:
  • Emphasizes the need for a technological edge, suggesting Western and Ukrainian joint innovation could decisively overmatch Russia.

    "If we turn on that engine of technological collaboration and jointly produce... the West has these amazing tools. If we combine those resources, Russia must have no chance..." (55:27)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Andriy Zagorodnyuk on guarantees:

  “We can talk later about whether any guarantees would create the deterrence effect. We don't know that because we don't know how Putin makes decisions.” (06:32)

• Michael O’Hanlon on military presence vs. treaty:

  “Neither a treaty nor a presence was adequate... We spent the Cold War, the entire Cold War, worried that the Soviets had superiority against us in Europe. So we didn’t consider a guarantee to guarantee anything.” (16:00)

• Andriy Zagorodnyuk on innovation:

  “We need to get out of paradigm of the infantry warfare, because that immediately gets us to the symmetric responses and to the war of attrition. And war of attrition is not going to be to Ukraine's benefit.” (35:24)

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Important Timestamps

• 03:36: Overview: Security guarantees after the Alaska summit
• 04:03: Andriy’s skepticism on guarantees and ceasefires
• 10:41: Michael on historical weakness of Article 5 without presence
• 18:17: Andriy unpacks the complexity of air and missile defense needs
• 23:51: O'Hanlon on reality of European military resources
• 28:54: Strategic neutralization concept explained
• 40:08: O'Hanlon’s proposal for post-war Ukrainian defense structure
• 42:56: Finnish model as an analogue
• 49:28: Zagorodnyuk deconstructs NATO rationale for Russian aggression
• 52:59: O'Hanlon: NATO as the “gold standard” for deterrence
• 55:27: Andriy on the importance of technological collaboration

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Conclusion

The episode underscores that “guarantees” on paper, short of full NATO membership backed by military presence, are insufficient for deterring Russian aggression. Both guests advocate for a robust, multi-domain Ukrainian defense built on innovation, Western support, and a rapid reaction capacity, with an eye on making warfare so costly and ineffective for Russia that eventual peace becomes likely. The role of innovation, Ukrainian adaptability, and Western technological superiority are framed as essential in this evolving conflict, while the limitations of both historical analogies and current political will are frankly addressed.

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Transcript

[A]

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[C]

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[D]

Oh, here we go. 1.

[B]

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[A]

I don't know that we'll never get this Saturday back. Get a quote for any [e-mail] pet Ukraine needs a strategy that allows it to keep this war going indefinitely. And I hope very much. Of course that won't be the case. Won't prove necessary. But the only hope for ending the war soon is for Russia to think that Ukraine could fight indefinitely its Lawfare podcast.

[C]

I'm Mikhailo Soldatenko, Lawfarer Legal Fellow. Today I'm joined by Michael O. Hanlon, Director of Foreign Policy Research and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Andriza Horodniuk, Chairman of the center for Defense Strategy in Kyiv, former Minister of Defense of Ukraine, and a non resident scholar at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

[D]

That's why we have to be very careful not to deviate from understanding what actually is Putin's rationale and what actually their strategies and think this is about NATO. Putin is using NATO as a rationalization of his actions, not as the reason for his actions.

[C]

Today we discuss ways of defending Ukraine from present and future Russian attacks in the absence of NATO membership. The recent Alaska summit intensified the discussions about the Ukraine's defense posture right now, including after the war and potential negotiated outcome. And at the end of the Oval Office meeting with President Trump, President Zelensky mentioned two components of Ukraine's defense. The first One is robust Ukrainian army, and the second one, what he said, what our partners can do for us. And we'll start with what our partners can do for us. It probably includes the concept of security guarantees. So after the Alaska summit, it's probably for the first time that we heard from President Trump and from Special Envoy Vidkov the word security guarantee and that they can be potentially, they can have wording similar to NATO Article 5. So, Andriy, I want to start with you. What do you think about that? What do you think does it mean? And can that be a credible deterrent for Ukrainian purposes?

[D]

Thank you. And thank you for inviting me here. I have to say straight away, what I'm going to say is my personal opinion. So I'm not representing Ukrainian government and I'm not talking behalf of any institution I'm associated with because I am very skeptical about the chances of the real security guarantees, B real ceasefire. And the reasons for that is because I don't think that Putin is in a state right now where he will seriously discuss a meaningful ceasefire, meaningful desire to end the war and give Ukraine any breathing time. We can discuss that. That's a hypothesis. Of course, we cannot prove it, only time will prove. But basically, that state, the anticipation of the ceasefire, the anticipation of the end of war has built up a lot of strategies and a lot of discussions. Okay, what happens after Russia finally gives Ukraine some breathing time? And of course, many people started to say, well, it's also, we give Russia breathing time because Russia right now is also exhausted and they also need a time to reassess their strategies and their approaches, operational concepts and so on. But nevertheless. So lots of the proposals and lots of plans are currently done on the assumption of this upcoming ceasefire or possible ceasefire. And I think we're a bit too optimistic about that. So that's the first thing. Secondly question, okay, if. If the ceasefire comes along and then Ukraine is provided with the Article 5 security guarantees, are they going to be enough to deter? And that's a question of how do we read Article 5. If we read Article 5, literally how it's written, it's not going to be enough, because it basically doesn't guarantee anything. It just says that the countries will do their best. And we have seen in many cases that that is very subjective opinion. And some people may recall the shortage of weapons for Ukraine previously, when all countries, most of the countries including us, were saying, like, we are giving our best already, we are providing whatever we can because we need ourselves, weapons and so on. As you know, that US Government right now is focused on potentially other wars they might be engaged in and most of the resources would be focused on those wars. At least that's a position from what I know of the current leadership of Department of Defense. So there is a substantial risk that if Putin restarts again, there may be not enough weapons for Ukraine to procure that Putin fails. And as such, such guarantees will not provide what we know as an effect of either deterrence or or denial. And if these guarantees are not providing these effects, so basically they're not like showing evident perspective of Putin that he is going to fail, then they will not be enough. They will not serve the purpose. We can talk later about like whether the any guarantees would create the deterrence effect. We don't know that because we don't know how Putin makes decisions. And there is a substantial various hypothesis that he may not know exactly the shape of his own forces and the possibility of his own forces. So in this case they may be planning too much. But in this case the guarantees should provide a denial effect and there is a big risk that they want.

[C]

And so Andriy, just a small follow up. But would you agree that if we have a deterrence part, the robust Ukrainian army, it's also better to have a security guarantee on top than just a robust Ukrainian army and indigenous defense industry? Would you agree with that proposition?

[D]

Ukrainian army is not going to be robust. Ukrainian armed forces, that would be a correct name or defense forces, even more correct term. Ukrainian defense Forces will not be robust without the substantial support from allies in any case. And we do need that support and we need to plan that support. So that's why we need to have some kind of agreements in place. Well, actually agreements are in place. I mean there's a whole bunch of agreements signed, but they need to be filled with the specifics, with specific support programs. And they can be called guarantees or they can be called assurances or they can be called just simply military assistance programs for Ukraine. But they are absolutely essential.

[C]

Michael, what do you think about that? And in particular it seems from the Russian reply, it seems what they mean by security guarantees that they discussed in Alaska is the Istanbul model of security guarantees to neutral Ukraine that was discussed in 2022. And actually back then Ukraine was proposing such a model under the circumstances at that time. And you in the past you wrote a book beyond NATO which had some similarities with that, where there would be guarantees to neutral states outside NATO similar in nature to what Belgium had from the Concert of Europe. So do you think this can work? In any form or shape. And please add anything to what Andriy mentioned.

[A]

Thanks, Michelo, and greetings. It's an honor, Mr. Minister Andre, to be on with you as well. And I very much appreciated your opening answer. In fact, Michaelo, if I could, let me just give a little bit of history, not about my writing, but about the creation of NATO, which I think backs up Andre's point and illustrates what he's talking about. Because in 1949, NATO was created by 12 countries, which by the way, did not yet include Germany. And it was a concern about Soviet encroachment in Eastern Europe, of course, that led to this and the Berlin Blockade of 1948-1949 that the Soviet Union had created around the Western occupation zones in the city of Berlin. But once they created that document, and as Andre says, Article 5 is not nearly as robust or clear in language as people sometimes think. But once they had concluded that document, they still did not believe that they had done enough. And for the next, really for the rest of the Cold War, but certainly for the next five to 10 years, the whole debate was how do we make article 5 real so that it would be credible, so that an American as well as British response and other countries responses would be more or less automatic if the Soviet Union ever attacked through Germany. And it was not until we put US Forces, combat forces permanently on European soil, let West Germany join NATO, and then rearmed Germany, West Germany, that we began to feel like we had a decent defense. In other words, it wasn't just the words, it was also the actions and, and the presence, the military presence. And so I think that's a very good illustration that if you want to have a security guarantee, first of all, there are no guarantees in life, right. Of any type. But if you even want to make it particularly credible that you would try your best in a response, you need to probably have a presence. Which is why in my earlier writing, especially the writing I've done with Lise Howard and Paul stairs, since the 2022 attack, we have been in favor of an alternative security architecture that might not be NATO, but that would include Western troops on the ground in Ukraine, not as combat units, because we think that would be too provocative to Russia and would guarantee the failure of any peace process, but as trainers, as observers, as technicians, and as a tripwire, so that Vladimir Putin or any future Russian president would have to know that if Russia attacked Ukraine again, there would be a high likelihood of Western response and support for Ukraine on the battlefield. So now we go to today and this last week, and I think what we're seeing, of course, is the United States is not willing to do what Lise Howard and I recommended or Paul Stairs and I discussed. But it is willing perhaps to provide some rapid reaction capability or some aerial cover in case the European troops on Ukrainian soil got into trouble or were attacked by Russia. And that's already pretty good, which is why I think Russia will not accept it. So getting back to Andrei's other point, Russia is not ready for peace for a number of reasons, including this one. But I think that from my point of view as a student of history and as a student of deterrence, if we could have in a peace deal a promise of a strong Ukrainian military, as President Zelensky and as Andrei have said, combined with the ideas that have been discussed the last week, a US Backstop to a European troop presence on the ground in Ukraine, that might look pretty good. It's not perfect. It's not quite as much as I might desire. It's certainly not as much as many Ukrainian friends would prefer if they're earlier wishes to join NATO had been honored, but it still to me would look pretty good. So that's where I hope we get and I'm happy that even though President Trump doesn't want to have the US Role within Ukraine be any stronger than it has to be and doesn't involve American uniformed personnel, I'm glad he's willing to talk about a backstop. The last point I'll make and I'll finish is that I would also like to see a lot of American technicians on the ground in Ukraine as part of any decision on a future presence. And we could be involved largely in air and missile defense and intelligence. And they could be civilians. It's not quite as good as having troops, but if they were known to be present in fairly decent numbers throughout Ukraine, I think that would add one more element of deterrence and also help Ukraine continue to improve its air and missile defense and intelligence capabilities. So those are my opening thoughts, Michael.

[C]

I have a follow up on that. So I'm as a lawyer, I understand the security guarantee is a legally binding commitment to come to countries defense with the military force, everything else support short of that provision of weapons technicians and everything. This is not strictly speaking a security guarantee. So and many people said that like it's logical if you want to have a trip fire in Ukraine and that would mean that it would start the chain of you being involved in a future conflict, why then that's a problem to have. In addition to that a written security guarantee, which would mean that if tripwire is touched, the security guarantee would kick in. So that's the first question. And the second one, if we have a robust Ukrainian army, in addition to that, do you think just a promise on paper from the United States without military presence that they would come to Ukraine's defense can work as a deterrent because that would put U.S. credibility on the line? Or you think that's a stretch to say?

[A]

Well, I think that if the United States has stated that it's ready to help backstop European allies with air cover, possibly even with a rapid reaction force, to go in and pull people out if they get in trouble or reinforce them, and then also to have technicians on the ground in Ukraine, I think that's pretty good. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. And you and I have had this discussion before about the relative importance of a formal treaty versus the de facto message that's sent by a military presence on the ground. And all I would say is that in the creation of NATO, when the Soviet threat was considered to be acute, policymakers in NATO decided they needed to have both because neither one by itself, neither a treaty nor, nor a presence was adequate. And in fact, they still didn't feel that good even when they had both the treaty and the presence, because the Soviets outnumbered us. And even though the United States dominated in nuclear weapons capabilities in the 1950s, we still were nervous all the time. And we spent the Cold War, the entire Cold War, worried that the Soviets had superiority against us in Europe. So we didn't consider a guarantee to guarantee anything. And the question was, how could we make it as credible as possible, but also as strong militarily as possible? And those two debates continued throughout the entire Cold War, even to the point where as a graduate student in the 1980s, I started to be, you know, involved in those debates and hear about them, they were still going on in the 1980s, just before the Soviet Union collapsed. So, you know, there are no such things really as guarantees. There are reassurances, there are reinforcements, or call them what you will, enhancements. And our job is to find as many of those as we can.

[C]

So, andriy going back to you, so right now there is a lot of focus on the so called coalition of the willing. And so it looks like the plans that they have include certain limited trainers in Ukraine, control of the skies and naval domain after the ceasefire. And so my question is to what extent that's valuable to Ukraine without a binding security guarantee? And Considering as you mentioned in your article, naval domain we already covered. So would it be more appropriate to build Ukraine own air force instead of having it covered by the coalition of the willing without the security guarantee? So what are your thoughts on that? Or you think those components that the coalition of the willing is discussing are crucial?

[D]

Most of the points are crucial and no domain is stable. And Russia is constantly thinking about how to destroy Ukraine literally in every domain, including non kinetic, but the ones you mentioned. So yes, right now, for instance, Russia is say they don't feel comfortable in the Black Sea at all. But at the same time, what we see from our intelligence and overall observations is they're constantly coming up with new ways to how to bridge that Ukrainian successful denial operation which we conduct. So as long as their overall strategy is there, and as long as they can commit funds, enormous funds to the military complex, they would be trying to challenge every single domain. So we should discuss a cross domain situation and never forget about any of them because Russia is thinking that way. So now regarding the air domain, air domain is no longer exists as it used to be until recently because we now have echelons of air and the situation can be there completely different. So we may have the echelons where the small tactical drones are working, then we can be talking about the long range drones, how they work, and then we finally may be talking about the mid range, a new emerging class of drones which can be all operating at the same time. So you can, for example, you can have a successful air denial among the, for the tactical aviation, but you may missing, be missing, completely missing, two classes of drones freely operating at the same time. We also have the missile defense problem, and that's the biggest problem of Ukraine at the moment, because clearly, particularly against the ballistic missile defense, we don't have even a hint of the adequate capability to defend ourselves. And there is no manufacturing power in the world which is available to us, which can in a foreseeable future close that gap. So Russia is Planning to manufacture 1500 ballistic missiles a year and then be absolutely free to throw them anywhere, like launch them against any goals, any targets around Ukraine. We clearly don't have a plan to deal with that. Well, I mean deal with that with adequate air defense. Of course there are other ways to deal with that, but essentially, and some of them could be discussed as for example, deterrence by punishment. In this particular case, maybe it may be a solution, at least partial solution, but generally the missile defense is so far the most challenging part regarding the presence of western forces in Ukrainian airspace. So there's been a concept of this skyshield, if I'm not mistaken, developed by some analysts from Ukraine and the West. And the idea was that Western aviation takes certain areas and tries to defend it against the Russian planes, but more importantly against the Russian cruise missiles. If that happens, if that is possible, and if there will be a political decision to do that, that certainly would help, particularly if they close even western Ukraine. We can already at that time focus on the central and eastern. And if that shield grows, we can certainly focus on eastern Ukraine and do much more. The biggest, the huge problem of course as of now is the anti drone defense, particularly against drones, which we call shaheeds of all different modifications and makes and models. But I do believe that the solution is coming from Ukraine and it would be a purely technological solution in a way of interceptor drones and so on. So we should discuss any plan assuming that that issue is closed, because this issue is not closed with we don't have a plan. So combined efforts of internal Ukrainian efforts and the Western military efforts potentially can create quite adequate protection in disguise, basically in the aerial domain, leaving us to focus on the areas around the battlefield, around the operational area. So, yeah, so that's where I would definitely look first. The rest of the reassurance force plans, frankly speaking, I don't think they're developed enough for us to comment because we've been hearing, for example, of presence of troops without a specific mission. Just like 10,000 troops, 30,000 troops. And I understand if the mission is training, I understand if the mission is some kind of support in whatever function. But the mission has to be defined. Military cannot operate without the mission. And clearly that number which we've heard, like tens, few tens, they're not going to be a barrier. They're not going to create deterrent effect by themselves. A part of the tripwire effect which we discussed just now, there's not much else. But I'm sure that that discussion is in the beginning phase, it's not in the end. And I'm sure that there will be, if we're serious about talking about the security guarantees, whatever we mean by that, there will be quite a lot of different ideas and we have to be open to all of them and just go through.

[C]

Michael, what do you think about the European planning? Are you optimistic that they can come up with something that can have a deterrent value within the coalition of the willing?

[A]

I'm hopeful, although I'll echo what the minister just said, that we don't really know yet because we don't see the plans taking concrete form, and I'm skeptical about a number like 30,000, because, as we know, European states don't really have tens of thousands of deployable troops available to just move around the global chessboard, so to speak. They struggle to even have a brigade here, a brigade there they can really send into a distant combat zone. We see this when we look at war games and analyses about the vulnerability of the Baltic states to a hypothetical Russian invasion. And we look at whether Europe could defend the Baltic states, and the short answer is clearly no. And so I don't believe the Europeans are going to find 30,000 troops to put into Ukraine. I'm not sure they have to, but I don't think they will. And we certainly haven't seen a plan. What I would say, though, more, hopefully, is that I'm very impressed, and I'd be curious if the minister agrees with me, but be very impressed with the performance of European allies this year, in particular during a Trump presidency. That, of course, puts everything into flux, and I think even President Trump's supporters would acknowledge that was his goal. I'm not using a loaded term to try to be critical, even though I didn't really like the approach myself. But he put everything into flux, including even whether the United States would stay on the side of Ukraine in this conflict. And the Europeans had to figure out in that context how to maximize their own collective contributions, how to maximize the American willingness to stay engaged, how to support President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian military and Ukrainian people in the meantime, and how to have a good NATO summit that would keep the United States engaged in European security going forward. And. And I think all those things have happened better than I would have predicted in the course of 2025. So it's not quite a response to your question, but it does give me some general hopefulness that the European allies and friends are taking this matter very seriously, are locked in, realize that we're dealing with an acute threat to Europe, including their own security, potentially, in a way we haven't for decades, and that this needs to be top tier in their attention, their policymaking effort. That's why they cleared their schedules and flew over to Washington on Sunday, so they could be here for the Zelensky Trump meeting. So they do make me somewhat inspired and somewhat hopeful.

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[C]

Andriy moving forward to your strategy that you coined strategic neutralization in a paper for Carnegie and it rests on the pessimism about the chances of a ceasefire on negotiated settlement. Could you please unpack the concept? And how is that different from the war of attrition that Ukraine was involved in in the recent time?

[D]

Thank you. I written that not specifically about the pessimism because at the time it was published there was obviously no kind of a light at the end of tunnel in situation. But what I was saying is that Ukraine has to have a strategy which does not necessarily rest on the assumption that Putin will eventually decide to stop atrocities because other strategies they are, you know, they would depend on that decision. Putin can play with the allies by basically seeing that they don't have any other plan apart from the plan where he needs to make a first move. So he would be not making that first move and everybody would be, would be nervous because basically he would be dragging this and so on. So we need to be comfortable as much as possible, of course to be independent of Putin essentially. And that independence may come from the idea that if we block the effective operations of Russia in all domains at the same time, Ukraine can start kind of breathing freely freer in these situations. So for example, we rebuild the trading corridor in the Black Sea so Ukrainian economy can benefit from pre war volumes of shipment right now, regardless of any decision from Russia. So Russia haven't decided to give Ukraine such an opportunity. Ukraine did it by itself, of course, with allied help. We are, right now I'm working with some of the units on some other projects which are currently maintaining what they call a kill zone on the land domain with the tactical drones. And those kill zones allow the line not to be moving and allow to reduce, substantially reduce the infantry losses and actually move away from the infantry war generally. Again, not completely, not 100%, but as much as possible. So right now, for instance, and by the way, that kill zone does not mean that it's not harassed by Russians on a daily basis. It is, Russians are still sending people there, but they all die and they cannot cross the line, they cannot even approach the line of contact. And so in this case we can, if we, if we think how to expand that zone both in width and in also in depth. And there are many efforts and plans to do that as we speak. We can potentially block them in a land domain as well. And then we can also look at the air domain which we just discussed. So the concept of functional defeat, which means that the opposition force is not destroyed but cannot achieve any results and cannot effectively run the operation, but it's not physically completely destroyed. That concept has been developed as a continuation of the so called effects based operations in United States military science about 20 years ago. @ least those are sources which we could find. And there's been a lot of different publications about the functional paralysis, functional defeats and so on back then. But then these discussions haven't been continued and so on. And then Minister of the Armed Forces of UK recalled that term when he was describing a situation in the Black Sea that in fact Russia had a functional defeat in the Black Sea because the Black Sea fleet exists, Black Sea fleet is damaged, but it exists and the headquarters exist. So basically mind control function exists, logistical function exists. So, so it's there, but it cannot do effective operations and it has to retreat in the eastern part of the Black Sea. But what happens if we achieve the functional defeats in the cross domain and basically like, basically full spectrum domain functional defeat effect, and that's what I call strategic neutralization for the lack of other term, but it would be essentially a full spectrum functional defeat to the opposition force. So of course that's more like a theoretical model because it's not going to practically exist in a perfect shape. First of all, it will be constantly harassed and constantly challenged on a literally on a daily basis, and it's not going to exist in a sort of perfect environment. Secondly, it only is possible if Ukraine maintains leadership in the innovations, because it will be eventually all about the balance of power, particularly in a kind of changing nature of the war. And as we see right now, we cannot maintain leadership all the time. We sometimes miss things. And the Russians are inventing new weapons, they're inventing new operational concepts even. And so yeah, so I don't think that would exist in like a perfect environment. But at least that gives us some kind of a roadmap where we should be thinking, where would be potentially could be thinking in terms of like if Russia don't stop, how we can start rebuilding Ukraine. Because if we don't start rebuilding Ukraine and no strategy is good because that essentially means that we are stuck in the war and of course the war will be draining. Now, answering your question on attrition, attrition is not good. It's not good solution to Ukraine because, because attrition means to fight Russia's enemy's resources and expect that resources will dry up and dry out and then essentially they forget about the idea of continuing the war. But in the resource game, Ukraine and Russia are incomparable and we don't know how long the resources of our allies will be available and to which extent. And as actually Michael mentioned, in the beginning it was very about the presence. The presence is very, very important logistically because if you have troops or equipment or even money in other continent across the ocean, that presence there, across the ocean is not necessarily going to play deterrent or denial effect because it would take logistically time to deliver stuff, to commit to find it. And we've been witnesses ourselves like the whole world, as the Congress makes a decision of certain funds and then these funds are appropriated and then DoD looks for the weapons and they ship them, and they ship them with the time. So it's actually sometimes months until they actually arrive to the battlefield. And certainly if Russians understand these are months, they are not going to play that effect. So we need to be having that clear working strategy in place and not try to drain Russia with resources. And I'm not even talking about their partnership with China, which is a huge question, to which extent that partnership is going to develop, what China is going to do and how they're going to help Russia with resources. So, yeah, so we need to get out of paradigm of the infantry warfare, because that immediately gets us to the symmetric responses and to the war of attrition. And war of attrition is not going to be to Ukraine's benefit.

[C]

Michael, what do you think about this logic? And so it's a logic for the continued war where it does not end, but I think it has some relations, it can be translated into the post war logic as well. And I think your piece about Ukraine's defense posture outside NATO has at least some similarities with that. So what are your thoughts on Andriy's strategy and what the policy that you proposed about multilayered Ukraine's defense infrastructure and system?

[A]

Thanks, Mykhailo. Well, I liked very much the minister's basic central point, which is that it's important at a strategic level for Putin not to think time is his ally. And it's important therefore, to recognize the actual objective realities where time might currently be Putin's ally. And we have to try to change that, not just the perception, but the reality. And of course, one of those areas is, is in demographics and manpower and the relative size of the two countries, Ukraine's ability to sustain this conflict. And I think Putin has to get to a point where he's concluded that Ukraine could actually sustain this conflict indefinitely, and only at that point will he be serious about peace. And in the same effort to try to change Putin's sense of whose side time is on, we need to put more pressure on Russia with various kinds of economic punishment strategies. But the military part, the part that the minister is thinking about, is absolutely crucial, because if Putin thinks that he has a battlefield advantage with time, he's already proven his indifference to human life, even the life of his own troops, and obviously the lives of Ukrainian troops. So Putin has elevated this war in his own mind to some kind of grand historical showdown where the stakes are greater than hundreds of thousands of lives today. That is a very twisted way to look at this war. But we have to conclude that's where Putin is, and therefore he's going to be willing to keep fighting with relative indifference to the loss of life, even to Russian troops. And so Ukraine needs a strategy that allows it to keep this war going indefinitely, and I hope very much, of course, that won't be the case, won't prove necessary. But the only hope for ending the war soon is for Russia to think that Ukraine could fight indefinitely. So it's a little bit paradoxical, but I think it's true. As to the specifics, I like the ideas that I've heard. I will simply point out that Today at Brookings, August 21, we had an event on the so called Replicator initiative of the Pentagon, which is our effort to try to field drones in short time periods in large numbers and frankly to learn from Ukraine. And the number of times that Ukraine came up in conversation was probably double digits. And we had the former Commandant of the Marine Corps, General David Berger. We had two former leaders in the Replicator office, T.S. allen and Aditi Kumar. And they also said the rapidity of change within Ukraine's use of drones, not just the hardware, but the software, the networking, the communication systems, these are ideas the United States is trying to learn from right now, recognizing that Ukraine is becoming the leader on how to innovate and how to quickly field large numbers of weapons of this type. So without commenting on the specifics of the Minister's proposal, I would just say that with having this podcast with two Ukrainians and me, we are hearing from world class innovators in battlefield use of drones. And so there's nobody who's a better authority than a Ukrainian strategic or military thinker. So one of the things Ukrainians are doing right, by the way, is to continually change based on testing strategies and then modifying them as needed so the Minister doesn't have to have everything correct right now, because Ukraine has proven that it's capable of adjusting and that's essential to how we think about military innovation.

[C]

Michael, so again, following up on that. So you wrote this proposal about Ukraine post war defense posture. Could you briefly unpack it? What's the number of armed forces? What are the necessary ingredients of that policy proposal?

[A]

Yeah, we had a very simple way of thinking about this, Paul Stairs and myself, and we basically said that Ukraine needs to be able to get a large force to the front lines if Russia ever violates a peace treaty or a ceasefire. And what that means, to first approximation, is fairly similar to what they have on the front lines today, because maybe that will change in five or 10 or 15 years with new technology. But in the short term, we have to take the empirical data that we have, and we know that Ukraine's current front line positions are almost strong enough to hold the line. Not quite. So we basically propose a relatively small, permanent active duty force at the front lines, combined with the ability for Ukraine to mobilize very quickly and fill in those front lines within a matter of days, if need be. So that's one chunk of the force, and that's about half of the total proposal. There are two more chunks. One is a rapid reaction force based more like central Ukraine, that could go to wherever Russia was attempting a major effort at a breakthrough. And you could imagine that rapid reaction force being itself able to break off into two or three pieces, but it would be designed to be a maneuver force and to be able to attack moving Russian forces. And then the third piece would be air and missile defense and other defenses for the homeland, for the cities, for the rear areas of Ukraine against Russian aerial attack, missile attack, drone attack, special forces attack. And so when you add all that up, you know, obviously the numbers are not going to be exact, but something in the broad range of 800,000 to a million total Ukrainian forces, including reserves. So it becomes a smaller force than Ukraine has in the field today, but still capable of rapidly restoring that frontline strength and having air and missile defense for cities and a reaction maneuver force to address any attempted Russian breakthrough.

[C]

Michael, if you would come up with historical analogies, what would be the closest one is a Swiss model during the Cold War. Similar Finnish model or Israeli qualitative military age is more appropriate in this respect.

[A]

That's an excellent question. And of course we should probably try to draw from all of those models. But maybe the Finnish model at first blush strikes me as perhaps the most relevant because of course, the Finns, and this is not just the modern era, this is going back to the winter war of 1939, 1940. They were able to put forces forward, but they also maneuvered very well and they anticipated where Russians or Soviets at that time would attack, and they went out and met them. But they didn't feel they had to defend every inch of their territory necessarily. They were a little bit more of a flexible, supple defense, knowing that the key cities and the main population areas were a little further back, so they didn't have to have everybody up at the front line. And some of their best tactical victories were, of course, on those forest roads where they used their Mahdi tactics to seal off Russian advance points and then destroy the Russian units that were trapped inside the forest. In detail to me that was an interesting model. They could reposition units as they needed to. They had a certain amount of geography to work with, just like Ukraine does. And obviously Ukrainian defense planners don't want to concede any part of their country. But to the extent that sovereignty and survival are on the line, you have to be willing to use maneuver and you know, your strategic depth as an asset. So for those reasons I think maybe the Finnish model of the late 1930s and the 1939, 1940 winter war strikes me as one very applicable analogy.

[C]

Andriy. So in Ukraine I think Finnish model has somewhat pejorative meaning. So there is an association with neutrality and people at least a knee jerk reaction that they don't like it. So what do you think about that? What are the challenges for building such a force as Michael suggested? Are there demographic challenges? Would that be based on a professional army or there would be a conscription element. So recently I think former Prime Minister, but right now Minister of Defense said that that would be a professional army, not a conscription force. If we talk about Israel, so that's, I think that that was a sensitive question in Ukraine. So Israel conscripted women to the army, which Ukraine has never considered. So what are your thoughts on all of those models? Do you think it's feasible?

[D]

Well, just for the sake of kind of being correct, Ukraine did conscript women, but it wasn't a full conscription. It was selective conscription of certain like medical, medical people and so on. But nevertheless, of course, you know, I don't think anyone suggests to clone a model. You know, I think everybody is talking about learning, inspiration and then adaptation to Ukrainian or to any other. You know, no country can clone somebody's model and think that it's going to be okay. And also Michael reminded us very interesting historical examples from the, from the Winter War which are very, very relevant. And some of them we actually did ourselves like, like in the beginning of so called battle for Kiev in the north, north from Kiev. There's been very lot of similarities between these wars because of the forest, because of the narrow roads, because of Russians decided that they can just simply move along those narrow roads. And Ukraine used that to our advantage. But Ukrainian sort of sometimes negative attitude to Finnish experiences are based on the so called Finlandization of the strategy. So something completely different and this is basically can be narrowed to a phrase something like, well, Finland has agreed not to join NATO and has agreed to cede some of the territories. And now look, it has developed into the stable and you know, and economically successful and socially successful country. So why can't Ukraine accept the same? And that's why every time when there's discussion about Finland, people remember about this song kind of Finlandization suggestions. Actually what we also can learn from Finland is that how they prepared for the potential war because right now Finnish sort of society defense, like a civilian defense, territorial defense approaches and how they build these shelters for example and many other things in order to be ready in the case of the restart of the war. That's a huge, should be a huge inspiration for Ukraine as well. So this is another thing which we should learn regarding the Finlandization as basically land in exchange for peace. It's always a simplification. Finland had some historical conditions and some situation back then. We have completely different one. In our case, ceding territory for peace has enormous risks of actually making things worse because Putin will consider that as a victory. Putin will sell the idea of the further investments into the war to their population. Putin will explain that that was worth of losing all these people and you know, moving economy to 40% of, you know, into sorry, 40% of economy to war economy and so on. And then they may go through the hardships. But seeing that you see Russia is actually getting, Russia is actually winning basically, I guess history never teaches us to clone cases. You know, history always teaches us to inspire, get inspired by the cases, to use them, but never like use them in a sort of like exact manner. I don't think that ever happened and I don't think anyone seriously suggesting that.

[C]

Andriy just a small follow up. So I agree with you on the territorial questions. And what do you think about Ukraine's NATO aspirations? So let's say if we can get a robust security framework that would satisfy the Ukrainian leadership and the Ukrainian population, that it is viable alternative to NATO. Is that critical for Ukraine to keep an opportunity to join NATO in the future or you think that's something that can be discussed?

[D]

Okay, so there's a couple things to know about this extremely difficult subject. So first of all, this war is not, has not happened because Ukraine was trying to get into NATO. As by the way Michael written in his paper, which is just discussed, but also other people in other papers is that Russia attacked Ukraine when it had no NATO aspirations. So that was done well before and there was essentially any promises to stay away from anything are not going to guarantee Russia not attacking Ukraine again. So essentially we cannot trade NATO pathway for peace because none of those promises from Russia can be enforced unless they are secured by Something much more tangible. So unenforceable promises is a constant risk for Ukraine. That's why we have to be very careful not to deviate from understanding what actually is the Putin's rationale and what are actually their strategies. And think this is about a NATO. Putin uses NATO to my kind of understanding and my sort of conviction that Putin is using NATO as a rationalization of his actions, not as the reason for his actions. So he explains his actions with NATO or with something else. And lots of people buying that, lots of people thinking that, oh yeah, Russia attacked Ukraine because Ukraine wanted to be in a NATO. Russia attacked Ukraine because it wanted to get rid of Ukraine and because it wanted to colonize Ukraine and turn it into this satellite state or most likely collection of territories, not even a state, and destroy its identity and cancel all its paths to success to become a successful Western style democracy and so on. So that's why he started it. But also, but not because of all his explanations about that NATO is getting closer. Well, NATO is getting closer and NATO is getting more powerful because of his aggression. And that includes Sweden and Finland and so on. Now can Ukraine actually seriously promise, never apply to NATO and hold that promise for decades? Any promises are as good as a tenure of the government which accepted them and then a new government will accept new new policies and so on. So I don't think we should really be focusing on that as a way to prevent Russian aggression.

[C]

So Michael, going back on this to you, so I agree with Andriy that NATO was not the main reason of the invasion. But I tend to think that Russians, they have both imperial and strategic reasons for their actions. We can debate what's more important in their calculus, but it looks like that that's something like any state is driven also by strategic reasons. And so the Soviet Union during the Cold War considered neutrality of some states like Austria, important for its strategic considerations. Do you think if Russia understands that it cannot subjugate Ukraine, this potential strategic carrot can be something that can lead to an acceptable negotiated settlement for Ukraine.

[A]

What I would say is that if I were Ukrainian, I would want the option to join NATO. There's nothing wrong with that at a level of morality or strategy. And it makes sense to reinforce the security because even though we did all say at the beginning that there's no such thing as a real security guarantee, we know that NATO was ratified by 2/3 of the Senate in the United States, for example, and that tries to give a certain amount of political longevity beyond a given president, beyond a given Congress, as to the seriousness with which the United States took that commitment. And so NATO really is the gold standard, even though there's no guarantee. It's the gold standard for the closest thing you can get to a guarantee. And it's also a community of nations that shares common values and wants to cooperate in other ways. So if I were Ukrainian, I would want to be in NATO. However, I'm an American and I've done my writing at different times in this whole last saga of the last 35 years. And I've sometimes thought there were better options for stabilizing Europe. We don't have to relitigate that right now because it's not really relevant. What's relevant now is where do we go from here? And I've done my writing recently looking for other ways to try to make a security reassurance for Ukraine very powerful without necessarily using NATO membership. But I don't know where we're going to go in the future. And at some point, if we're in a whole new era, maybe Ukraine could maybe join NATO. Maybe a post Putin Russia could someday join NATO. After all, we talked about Russia joining NATO back in the 1990s for a brief period, we're nowhere near that conversation right now. But again, I understand why a Ukrainian would want to be in NATO. I don't think it's likely to happen anytime soon. So we need to have a discussion of a broader menu. But maybe Putin should worry that if he keeps fighting this war too much longer, Ukraine will join NATO and maybe we'll get so frustrated with Russia, even in the United States, even in the Trump administration, that we change our mind on our previous position. So that's all I can say on that topic.

[C]

Andriy, do you have any concluding thoughts on our discussion on maybe what you are looking for from the discussion about Ukraine's defense posture in the coming weeks?

[D]

We have to Michael mentioned that about the drones and about other innovations. We need to understand that we're in the middle of probably what is going to be discussed by future historians as military technical revolution, you know, in the military technology and so on, because we are seeing some incredible changes in operational concepts in the, in the way, how to, how the war has been fought and so on. And so I think that we discussed the, you know, we discussed the guarantees as something like providing support, but also it could be providing support in a technology and maybe that would be the most valuable part of the guarantees or military collaboration. The west has enormous technological potential. It has enormous, enormously powerful labs and the companies and so on and so on. If we turn on that engine of the technological collaboration and jointly produce because we know operational environment very good. We know what's needed to be successful in operational environment. But the west has these amazing tools. If we combine those resources, Russia must have no chance and that actually because of sheer balance of power in the term of technological capabilities. So I think we should look more on that all over and over again and understand that if this collaboration will be going to a full fledged to its maximum power, there is no chance Russia can compete with that and then certainly we can build up that deterrent or denial effect.

[C]

Andriy Michael, thank you so much for joining Love Air podcast. Thank you.

[D]

Thank you Mikhailov thank you Michael. Great to see you. Thank you. Thank you for.

[C]

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