Intelligent mobilization as part of a new doctrine and a component of state stability in the conditions of modern warfare

Speech by the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (2021–2024) Valerii Zaluzhnyi at the Defence24 Days conference (Warsaw)

Almost three years have passed since I, then Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, reported in November 2023 about significant changes on the battlefield, which were the result of certain natural processes, and about the beginning of a completely new war due to the use of new tools and the possible consequences of this.

Then, the main consequence of the emergence of such new tools as unmanned systems was the transparency of the battlefield, which led to a so-called deadlock that made it impossible to perform operational and strategic tasks.

Since then, Russia has done a lot of work to find a way out of this corner. Despite the developed technical arsenal and attempts to break out of the "dead end" situation through tactical actions with new technical solutions, the result remained obvious – in a war of machines, humans can achieve little success by the old principles of operational art. However, people in this way become expendable material that, of course, needs to be replenished.

Unfortunately, having once given the initiative on the battlefield to Russia, Ukraine was forced to respond not only to challenges, but also to the systematic work of the enemy on almost all sections of the front. React using the same method and, of course, at the cost of sometimes very large losses.

It was precisely under such approaches that a certain circle of experts both in Ukraine and abroad, without understanding the essence themselves, supported the intermediate concept chosen by Russia of inflicting critical losses on the Armed Forces of Ukraine through its own losses, which would force society to capitulate. This expertise no alternative led Ukraine and its future into dependence on demography, and as a result, into the inevitability of defeat. Combined with the enemy's almost continuous tactical advances, this concept allowed Russia to manipulate the improvised negotiation process, where, of course, the main emphasis was on forcing Ukraine to surrender, even through partners.

Interesting that such actions by Russia are accompanied by a parallel large-scale campaign in the information space to discredit the mobilization process itself, as a component of restoring and maintaining the combat capability of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This campaign was quite successful and revealed another problem for the unconditional resilience of the Ukrainian people in a protracted war.

It is the issue of mobilization and methods of its implementation that is increasingly becoming the center of conflict between the country's population and the state authorities of Ukraine.

This campaign, by the way, began right at the end of summer of 2023, when we made an attempt to conduct the so-called mobilization of the reserve, which was supposed to guarantee both replenishment of losses and, possibly, the formation of a strategic reserve for future operations. However, this is history that cannot be changed. We will talk about the future. Perhaps the most difficult thing about our future in a long-term war, the end of which is becoming less and less obvious to us. About a choice that only we have to make.

So, despite the dubious options today for ending the war on the one hand, it is obvious that a whole range of possibilities opens up for Ukraine, whether for victory or for minimizing losses and forming a long-term defense strategy on the other.

Where would such optimism come from, it would seem, when even the world we live in doesn't understand what to do next?

The answer to this question is very simple: we, Ukrainians, know exactly what is happening like no one else, and therefore we know the problem and can definitely solve it if we want to. Yes, we are surprised why our partners and neighbors do not understand all this. However, this is a completely different story and completely different problems.

Because of this, it is difficult to honestly say whether our experience, accumulated by us, our Armed Forces, and civil society in such a difficult war, is needed by, for example, NATO member countries? The main thing is that we need our experience to build a survival strategy and a victory strategy. This is the key to our optimism. Our invaluable experience, for which we paid with the lives of the best sons and daughters of our State.

So the topic of our conversation today is not even mobilization and demobilization, but a more complex process that is characteristic of the 13th year of the war and the fifth year of a full-scale invasion in the absence of the fact of the end of the war, large-scale changes in instruments and, as a result, the forms and methods of waging war. This is the restoration and maintenance of the state's combat capability.

In Ukraine, unfortunately, there is often speculation about demobilization during a full-scale war. If we turn to historical experience, it is true that during wars the mobilization of both the population and other resources was constantly intensified, but it is impossible to find analogies and logic of mass demobilization during war. The justification for this is very simple.

Mobilization is, first of all, the creation of the necessary potential on the eve of war, the creation and preparation of necessary reserves, and the replenishment of obvious losses during the war.

And really, it was mobilization and its potential, both human and economic, that were the key to success in the test of war.

However, if we talk only about the replenishment and maintenance of combat capabilities, which are provided with human and economic resources, then we will see the dependence of these combat capabilities, first of all, on the level of development of scientific and technological progress and its impact on weapons, and as a consequence – the forms and methods of its application in the relevant organizational structures formed from people and these weapons.

This, unfortunately, is an axiom of the development of armed struggle that is completely unacceptable to civilians.

Scientific and technological progress, or even spontaneous innovations, as in our case, create new weapons. The creation of new weapons necessarily requires the emergence of completely new forms and methods of their application, and only after that the creation of new structures. These can be regiments, brigades, corps, or entire branches of the military. But only in this order.

All of this changes the very way war is waged and, together with the order of preparation, financing, support, and management, is combined into a completely new doctrine. Then the question naturally arises: in such a case, when it is obvious that both now and in the near future these combat capabilities are based on the use of unmanned and robotic systems, the use of which is gradually changing from the remote control model to the use of semi-autonomous and autonomous combat systems, should the mobilization system remain at the level of the First World War doctrine? At the same time, we are also seeing a transformation in the functionality of traditional weapons, some of which have already begun to lose their relevance.

Probably definitely not. Because, due to the emergence and development of new weapons, the organization of combat operations, for example on the ground, assumes that the front line almost excludes the physical presence of personnel. The First and Second World Wars, on the contrary, required the maintenance of a huge number of people at the forefront. Today, there is a very limited number of personnel there, performing tasks at the limit of their capabilities, often without the physical possibility of even replacing them. Because staying in cover, even behind enemy lines, is safer than moving to the rear of your own troops.

The second echelon consists of teams for analytical support and technical maintenance and support for the use of combat systems, as well as their combat protection.

The launch and coordination and control centers themselves are located in operational depth.

And that's not all. Due to the shift in strategic goals to the destruction of the economy through damage to infrastructure and the reduction of the resilience of the people through strikes on civilian objects, actually is happening a complete blurring of the boundaries between the front and the rear. The entire territory of the state and, unfortunately, the entire population becomes a combat zone. It is true that the distance to the target or object of destruction does not and will not matter at all.

The exception from those in the defense forces or those in the rear is only in the degree of threat to the possibility of being injured or killed. Then the existing mobilization system, based on the principles of the First and Second World Wars, moves human resources to the zone of maximum threat, including by reducing both the possible protection of critical and civilian objects and the overall resilience of society as a whole.

So the question of whether the mobilization system should have changed due to the replacement of weapons and forms and methods of warfare has an obvious and concise answer. Yes. The mobilization system, which involves maintaining the necessary level of combat capabilities during warfare, must change due to the replacement of methods of warfare.

Really, this is a new and dangerous phenomenon due to its uniqueness and lack of historical examples. However, in the known history of mankind, robots have come to war for the first time.

There is another misconception that haunts the military leadership: that all the problems on the front line are primarily related to the lack of people and the dominance of remote weapons, such as FPV systems. However, whether the increase in people will lead to increased losses through scaling applications, for example drones, is not discussed, although it is obvious. It's only a matter of time for drones to scale on one side and losses on the other.

Until the traditional military commander understands that modern warfare is a war of drones, that artillery is no longer the god of war, that tanks are a thing of the past, like horses and sabers, the troops will continue to suffer heavy losses in personnel, and the war will last as long as there are enough people for the old mobilization.

Of course, it is urgent to create technologies to protect against damage to unmanned systems, primarily humans. This is almost the only factor that makes it impossible to create the necessary parity of military power.

However, despite the absolutely natural evolutionary need to revise the mobilization system, there are also reasons that are universal for all military conflicts: constant losses in the Armed Forces, which require restoration; gradual "war fatigue" of the civilian population, and as a result – low motivation to serve and fight among a significant proportion of those already mobilized.

All this leads to the need to introduce the so-called intelligent mobilization, built taking into account the development of scientific and technological progress and the need for a long war throughout the country in conditions of an obvious demographic crisis.

Without discussing the details of such mobilization yet, because this would require a scientific approach in determining its main indicators, in modern conditions, such mobilization, provided that war is technologically advanced, will be possible in the following types.

The first type of mobilization is when the majority of the population does not feel war in the country and does everything possible to ensure that this feeling persists until the end of hostilities.

A great example of such intelligent mobilization is the gradual transfer of war functions, for example, to private military companies or the financial motivation of those who voluntarily join the war. By the way, the transfer of training functions, including officer training, could be the first step in testing such capability.

The second type of mobilization is nationwide mobilization with the definition of clear volumes and, most importantly, deadlines for all categories of citizens.

A feature of such mobilization will be high requirements for personnel in terms of their intellectualization and maximum openness of the process itself. Such a process will be accompanied by absolutely clear deadlines for both training and service, and will represent a continuous process of training and rotations. At the end of such a process, the state begins to function in completely new conditions, without the risks of destabilization due to, for example, injustice, with the subsequent transition of the state's functioning to a regime similar to Israel. When the very fact of the state's constant readiness to ensure its security becomes the main factor of stable and predictable life. The most sensitive issue in this case is the age requirement, where preference is given to younger and higher-quality recruits.

However, most importantly, without reforming the Armed Forces, the system of training the mobilization reserve and the entire combat training system, without a radical reform of the military-industrial complex and an urgent transition to the production of weapons necessary to reduce human casualties, such an intelligent approach will be impossible. A completely new reasonable doctrine is needed.

Then there is probably a third type of mobilization, as a temporary one – this is the partial transfer of certain functions to private companies and the continuation of improving the existing system through an open dialogue with society, and especially youth, about a new system of military service, clear training deadlines, and clear terms of service and future prospects. This will require complex work from both the military command and the legislative bodies and government.

Then demobilization itself becomes possible, but only as a result of the measures taken, and not as an end in itself.

Ukraine is currently fighting a war for survival with an enemy that prevails in population and resources. Therefore, in the current Ukrainian realities, all calls to demobilize the military are nothing more than political populism that has no meaning behind it.

Maintaining a country's combat capability during war is a key factor not only in survival but also in achieving the necessary goals. Such combat capability will be based on a clear strategy for maintaining, among other things, the appropriate level of society's ability to resist and the desire to continue the fight. The events that are currently unfolding have made it obvious that mobilization and the order of service are the basis of any option for further continuation of the war. Only by resolving these issues in the context of the demographic and economic crisis will it be possible to further implement more ambitious goals. However, solving this extremely complex issue is possible not by declaring goals, but only as a result of a complex process of determining the necessary steps and developing a detailed step-by-step implementation plan.

Such a strategy with public involvement can also become an important factor in uniting society around common goals and interests, the achievement of which can bring confidence and hope to society again.