SOF commanders warn against over reliance on Ukraine lessons to inform future fights
NewsMay 20, 2026
TAMPA, Florida. Senior special operations commanders cautioned this week against wholesale adoption of tactics and technologies from the war in Ukraine, arguing that future fights will require a different framework even as the conflict offers critical organizational lessons.
"We will not fight that kind of war," said Brig. Gen. Rickard Johansson, commander of Special Operations Command Sweden, speaking on a panel at the SOF Week in Tampa on May 20. "We have to put the lessons from Ukraine into a new concept."
The panel brought together SOF commanders from the United States, Sweden, and the Philippines to discuss alliance integration and partnership development. Panelists broadly agreed that Ukraine's most transferable lesson is not tactical but organizational -- specifically, the speed at which forces can identify an obsolete capability, replace it, and push that change through a joint force and partner network.
"Whatever that cycle is, we have to be inside of it," said Maj. Gen. Jasper Jeffers, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command Central. "That takes a real system."
Jeffers said Ukrainian forces have built organizational machinery that allows them to cycle through new capabilities fast enough to remain operationally relevant, putting the obsolescence window at days or weeks in some cases. He said matching that pace has to extend beyond the U.S. joint force to partner networks.
