Transition War: What does humanity teach Ukrainian combat experience

The export of the Armed Forces, now - Ambassador of Ukraine to the UK Valery Zaluzhny wrote an article for Rusi, in which he summarized the experience of war in Ukraine. It is not the war of the future, but the elements of the new one in it appear everywhere, and her experience will be useful to anyone who will defend freedom and democracy in the 21st century. The experience of our struggle will be useful to anyone looking for a path to peace. And the path to peace can lie through war.

"Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum" - words that attribute the ancient Roman historian Cornelia Nest, unfortunately, ideally suited to democratic society even today, in the XXI century. If you want peace, get ready for war. Yes, it is absolutely accurate. I confirm this, who had to visit the role of the Commander -in -Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the whole Ukrainian people who really mastered it.

When I was born, twenty -eight years have passed after one of the most violent and bloody wars in human history. When I was born, bombs were no longer falling into the cities and villages, and the tanks did not destroy the soil and everything on it. There were neither piercing sounds of air alarm nor automatic queues. But today I pray myself and ask you all to pray and ask God so that our grandchildren never see what our grandparents saw that we saw and, unfortunately, our children.

For this, it is impossible to stop the struggle for the right to life for a minute. Evil near, and it came to kill. Despite the fact that the most valuable wealth of mankind on the planet Earth is the ability to live, almost its whole history is connected with wars. More precisely, with the murder of people. These wars, or more precisely murder, eventually became unprecedented in terms of events and the number of casualties and acquired the status of world wars.

In the last century, there were two such conflicts in the last century - the first and second world wars, which were divided over for a little more than twenty years and that took the lives of about 60 million people. Is humanity ready to accept the next war - the third world? To some extent, it depends on us, professional military who know about the war. After all, it is professional military who wage wars and know the true price. The price of defeats and victories.

Turning to the events of 2022-2024, a ten-year war between Ukraine and Russia, we must honestly tell humanity what is happening and what should be ready for. Free and democratic countries and their governments should wake up and think about how to protect their citizens and their states. We are ready to share all our knowledge, experiences and thoughts with those who have not left Ukraine in difficult times and seeks peace and tranquility for our peoples.

So, what did the Ukrainians teach us, this war and especially its full -scale component, the vortex of which broke into our lives on February 24, 2022? First of all, you need to avoid war! But if it comes, you need to be ready. It is the willingness to be considered as a huge set of measures that covers not only purely military aspects, but also all spheres of state activity.

Perhaps the most complex and most important component is the readiness of a society based on honest and transparent communication between the authorities and the people. Society must agree to temporarily abandon a number of freedoms for the sake of survival. Modern wars, unfortunately, total. They require efforts not only for the army, but also of society in general. Politicians can and should mobilize society. For this purpose, military and other state resources are comprehensively involved.

Such resources include economics, finances, populations and allies. Such actions, of course, will affect political processes in the country. Therefore, readiness for war will be determined not only by the willingness of the army to repel aggression, but also to the readiness of society to withstand the enemy. Secondly, war can in no way be considered as part of the internal political process. War is the maximum concentration of survival forces.

And only for that! "War is simply a continuation of policy with other means," said Prussian General Karl von Clausewitz. Therefore, it seems strange when, on a global scale, the war in Ukraine, on the contrary, forms domestic policy in other countries, which is eventually used by enemies for their own purposes. I am convinced that the war for freedom in one country should become a policy of surviving democracy in other free countries. War is a science.

Science with your laws and rules that you need to know and study. The use of war with your purpose or an attempt to influence its course in its interests is a crime that causes enormous casualties. The democratic army, the army of free society, is always difficult to fight the Army of the feudal lord. The enemy considers democracy our greatest weakness and tries to use it.

Fakes, lies, devaluation of national interests, disbelief in management are an incomplete list of tools that Russians have been using for over ten years, and democratic societies have not yet found methods of counteraction. As early as the 5th century BC, the famous Chinese thinker Sun Tzu outlined the basic principles of war, which remain relevant to this day, and will be relevant as long as the war is ruled by people.

However, these are only the basic principles that need to be filled with weapons, forms and ways of its use, army with their structures. It is in this sequence that war changes. Carefully analyzing our experience, supported by numbers and facts, I understand that we are on the verge of not only a huge work, but also the most important. For us, Ukrainians, it is not only a study of the law "calling-answer" of British historian Arnold Joseph Toynbee. Not only Russia's existence is already a threat.

Today we already have a full -scale and bloody war that has put a new challenge - physical survival. The survival of the nation is determined by its choice. How to answer this call? How to survive in the conditions of ambiguity and contradiction of the outside world? We now need to realize that we, Ukrainians, depends on whether we will live and have our children. Undoubtedly, history today gives a chance to the Ukrainian people again.

The cold night on February 24, 2022, when the whole world enjoyed a peaceful life and was in warm beds, the Ukrainians reminded themselves of whose blood flows in their veins, and became a fierce battle with an eternal enemy. Thanks to the life of ordinary Ukrainians, we have chosen a chance for ourselves. The chance is not just to continue the original struggle, but a chance to win. It cost us expensive - many lives of the best sons and daughters. It was just a starting point.

Very soon we realized that to stand the blow, to give the enemy a decent repel - only the beginning of a more difficult stage of confrontation, which is to find your special way to win. It is the search for this special path that has led us to understand the contours of revolutionary changes, especially in the military sphere.

Although it is strange, it is logical and quite probable that these changes that were invented in the fields of fighting of the Russian-Ukrainian war will determine the outlines of wars and art of war in the 21st century. And most importantly, they will be the foundation of the entire global security system of the future. It is safe to say that unmanned systems are the main reason for changing the strategies, forms and methods of warfare.

But today, it is probably necessary to introduce a broader concept - technology - the concept of a new military strategy. The war that came to us in 2014 is not at all like the one that broke into our lives on February 24, 2022. Although it was based on the concepts of 2014, it was already different and quickly exhausted our strength in May 2022. The need to survive on the battlefield led us to a new war we encountered in the summer of 2023.

The warring parties have stopped for some time in search of new weapons, the search for new forms of application of the latest technologies continued. It is the invention of new ways to use weapons logically should lead to changes in the structure of parts, units and armed forces as a whole. This mutual movement is scientific and intelligent. The development of technology affects the forms of their use, and new forms of application affect the structure of combat armies.

This trend is inevitable and it will continue. Technology is a complex not only of innovative decisions, but also measures for development, scientific support, training, development of doctrines that will allow to change the situation on the battlefield with the condition of the existing advantage of the enemy in military potential and resources. Simply put, today we have already invented a way to fight and win the stronger armies of the XXI century.

Obviously, technologies should ensure the sustainability of the Ukrainian nation. At the same time, I absolutely agree that the Russian-Ukrainian war is not the war of the future. This is just a transition war. But it is our war that form new rules. We, Ukrainians, with our blood and thirst for victory, we form new examples of a new war. Wars that will become the war of the future.

We must admit that the thirst for survival on the battlefield is almost the main reason for finding ways to improve weapons. The combination of factors such as limited resources, lack of proper support, inability to focus on the production of traditional means of struggle, has led to significant changes in the battlefield of the Russian-Ukrainian war. In fact, a new stage began in the forms and methods of hostilities.

We see how scientific and technological progress has led into the movement of a wheel of history and brought technology to the battlefield, which will probably become decisive in this war and, most importantly, will become the basis of global security of the future. Whoever learns these technologies - the democratic world or the world of tyranny - will depend on us. War is resources and time.

If we consider technologies as resources, today, for various reasons, neither Ukraine nor Russia will be able to master them in the near future. This means that the only way can be the increase in the number of people and resources involved in combat. At the same time, technologies will be waiting for bold and able to master them. Those who master them will solve the issue of global security. It is difficult to say how the situation will develop in the future.

One thing is for sure: tyrants will constantly need war for internal use as a tool for keeping power. The rest should build reliable protection from them. Today, more than ever, it is in Ukraine that they find ways to survive and create technologies. But, for obvious reasons, they cannot be scale. On the other hand, our partners have resources but do not have an applied and practical field to verify them.

Only together will we be able to use the resource effectively, because time is no longer working for us. "Compliance with yesterday's rules of war does not guarantee today's (or tomorrow) success. It is the awareness of this that can save many lives. We must start fighting the consequences of the new rules of war. " I took this quote from the American general retired Stanley McRistal. Then he finished his opinion with the words: "If not, we will all stay behind.