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Defense nominee weak on lessons of Ukraine

The Senate confirmation hearings with Pete Hegseth were at best disappointing. Consider some of the lessons learned from the war in The Ukraine that were ignored in the hearings. First lesson, drone warfare is a game changer as far as modern warfare is concerned. Cheap weapons/machines of war are more than a match for bulky and expensive weapons/machines of war. How did the Ukraine army eliminate the Russian naval presence in the Black Sea? Including Russian submarines? Answer: Drones.

Second lesson, technological competence by military personnel at the battlefield-level is now a necessity. Both the Russian and Ukrainian school systems are leaders in teaching STEM skills to all students, unlike many of the schools in America. Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have a significant edge over many U.S. soldiers, many of whom as students avoided or sloughed off STEM subjects like mathematics because “those subjects were hard.” Math is supposed to be hard, and there is ample evidence that the schools in Russia and Ukraine expect and nurture success in hard subjects far more than most schools in the U.S.

We live in a dangerous world. And need to be prepared to change our approaches to warfare and military preparedness in accordance with lessons recently learned from the war in the Ukraine. Will it happen with Pete Hegseth serving as secretary of defense? I have my doubts.

George Peternel

Arlington Heights

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