Gen. Cavoli discusses the Euro-Atlantic Partnership, security challenges in the region, Russia's war in Ukraine and his takeaways from the NATO Summit in Washington.

• The biggest challenges for Ukraine are sort of unmovable—their size, their population, demographics, et cetera. However, having said that, these are not insuperable problems. These are exactly the kind of things that spur a country toward innovation, especially under pressure. And I have to say that I’ve been astounded by some of the innovation that has come out of Ukraine under pressure—militarily, technically, tactically.
• There were some things about Russia’s invasion that were surprising. You know, by the time their—by the time their invasion actually took place they had complicated their plan tremendously—multiple different axes of advance converging, operate exclusively on what we call exterior lines where to reinforce from one axis to another you have to go all the way around a convex situation. Just some things that are basic parts of the operational art that you would expect them not to have messed up, that they messed up. But nevertheless, many of the things they did they did well, and many of the things they did poorly we knew they’d kind of do poorly. 
  • The one thing that really got me that I did not understand fully, and I don’t think any of us did, was the impact of corruption on the readiness of the Russian Armed Forces.  
  • The fidelity of reporting got lost. The truth didn’t get to the top. The truth still doesn’t get to the top [of the Russian command].
• [On Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region:] They found an area of weakness in the Russians position, and they exploited it quickly, and have exploited it very skillfully. They have done an awful lot of things that are sophisticated in terms of the employment of combined arms. ... [S]uffice it to say that it appears to be going quite well. ... They certainly achieved operational and tactical surprise. And this will put them in a good position to go whichever way they want with that afterwards... it’s a good day for Ukraine because they have behaved in a militarily and operationally very clever and insightful fashion.
  • I think the Russians are still working their way through this [their response to Ukraine’s incursion]. They have diverted a lot of air power to the area. That’s an easy thing to move, right? But it remains to be seen how much ground force they’re able to put against this, and what the effect will be.
• Thee Ukrainians have adopted an approach this year that allows them to preserve and defend in the east—to preserve what they’ve got. They’re clearly denying Russia the ability to use Crimea as a sanctuary. They’re protecting their critical national infrastructure, which is under grievous assault. ... The other part that they need to do this year, and they are doing, is generating strategic-level forces. They’ve got to generate a strategic reserve to bring them forward into next year. And this is one of the things that we’re working on really hard with them....The ability to generate force is usually an institutional ability... and Ukraine has quietly, not in the newspapers, has been putting together those institutions this year. ... I think their ability to generate force this year is going to be the strategically important thing that gets done.
• [T]he alliance, as well as all the member nations of the alliance, are very, very focused on how to improve our defense industrial production and how to modernize our force structure at the same time. So this has been a massive shift in the way NATO operates. ... now we have a plan but we also have the command and control structures moving into place necessary to execute that plan.
• I think really NATO is a regional alliance and it tends, for the foreseeable future, to focus on the region of the Euro-Atlantic area. 
• Russia has ramped up. Russia has adopted—some people describe it as a wartime footing. I describe it as sort of a halfway position. It’s clear that they’re trying to avoid the costs that you impose on society when you go to full mobilization. But on the other hand, it’s also clear that they’re taking extraordinary steps to step up their production. We can beat that.
• I think it’s important to note that Russia’s relationship with China, in which I think it’s fair to say Russia is increasingly playing the minor role as partner, that’s happening for a reason. They’re assuming that position for a reason. 
• Among militaries in NATO, there’s no dispute that using AI to enhance our ability to analyze large bodies of data, especially collected by our intelligence sensors, is absolutely imperative. That there’s no way you get into the future without having some sort of machine assistance for analysis, as well as some decision-making tools.  

Full transcript available on the Council on Foreign Relations website.

Photo by Žan Kolman / KPV available in the public domain.