When we discovered very late, That the drones began to play a dominant function in warfareWe've formed drone troops. In December, Chief of General Staff Gen. Kukuła, however, claimed that the most crucial are large drones attacking precisely at long distances, and tiny "community" drones will start producing at home. This is the exact other of reasoning about drones on the front, where large drones of course play an crucial role, but the battlefield is dominated by tiny reflection and assault drones. Only on the Russian side, 3.5 1000 pieces of specified drones are utilized all day and small little in Ukrainian. In Poland, the production of tiny drones remains “garage”.
When, with a akin delay, we realized the importance of autonomous systems based on artificial intelligence on the front, we began to implement an artificial intelligence strategy. I want it ready by... 2039.
It is no different with Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced military training programme "on a mass scale" for each adult male. It's a very good thought in itself. I'm going to take part in this training, too, and I would urge any man, and besides a woman, as in a moment.
Again, however, we are faced with late steps, which are an ad hoc consequence to the events around us, and thus with the problems and risks of acting on the hurrah.
This is the basic problem, which results in all subsequent ones, including those concerning military training announced by Prime Minister Tusk.
1. Training a “full-fledged” soldier, which is what?
First of all, the declarations that have already died should be clarified. According to the Prime Minister, the training would make the men active "full-fledged soldiers in conflict situations".
TVN reports show that the training will take place in one-day, three-day or monthly modes. How long should training take to have a "full-fledged" soldier, according to the Prime Minister's words?
If you mention to military terminology, it is simply a 16-day basic training, on which never having previously had contact with the military is passed on to basic skills, making a civilian, after taking an oath, a "full-fledged" soldier.
The problem is, however, that specified “sixteens” are taught to operate weapons and shoot rifles, tactics, topography, field medicine and endurance in hard conditions. Media reports show that civilians will have 4 types of training to choose from: first aid, shooting, hand-to-hand combat, endurance elements. So it's hard to talk about uniform training.
This is simply a serious mistake. Although basic training from each of these elements would give people general cognition to cope with each situation. A man who learns to fight can even find himself in request of medical aid to individual or himself. Another who learns from shooting can be forced to last in the field for a long time in cold months. A cross-section of skills should be the basis for each citizen, not profiling in 1 of the areas.
One thing is certain: in the current form and time of training, 1 should not confuse a "full-fledged" soldier with a full effective soldier. He's been trained for months.
Finland is simply a model example, which has only 5.6 million people, but in the event of a threat is able to increase the army to 280,000 well-trained soldiers, as for many decades each year it has called for training of thousands of reservists. Tens of years of specified a strategy translate into "mass" training and their regularity results in a advanced level of training.
Because of the deficiency of a multi-annual strategy to build resilience of society, we have one more time condemned ourselves to a common decision in our history. We cannot destruct this problem, due to the fact that we simply cannot go back in time.
However, it must be stressed that even basic, even one-day training by professionals, importantly increases the usefulness of a trained individual in the field of combat. It besides increases the chances of all citizen surviving in any crisis situation. specified training is besides an excellent starting point for further training – not necessarily within the military, but besides in the area of local pro-defence organisations, and even in the improvement of individual interests.
So – although we are late, it is definitely worth taking part in specified training!
WOT / pressmateLublin WOT – training at the training ground
2. Mass training, which is?
The mass-scale training announced by the Prime Minister would greatly increase the defence skills and resilience of the society, especially as these are now close to zero.
I stress – it would have happened if the training were mass. However, the Prime Minister rapidly clarified the issue of massiness, ensuring in a conversation with the writer that "it is not mandatory". We have learned that the state has prepared "not symbolic" and "unfailing" incentives, but it is hard to tell how many people will actually choose to train in a lascivious European society that we have evolved into since the end of the Cold War.
Although the war in Ukraine has been going on for more than 10 years, and after the last volts of the Trump administration, Europe has found itself in a continent with a knife on its throat, politicians, including Polish, are inactive playing half-measures in the name of electoral posts. For this reason, the training programme is not compulsory, so their "massivity" remains as open as possible.
3. Training men, where are the women?
It is incomprehensible to stress by Prime Minister Tusk that the training will only concern men. Later in the Sejm, defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz has already talked about women and men, but this issue is inactive unclear.
Women absolutely should be included and peculiarly encouraged for specified training. They account for 52 percent of Polish society. That is precisely how much the Prime Minister would reduce the possible of this society's defence competence.
The first declaration of the Prime Minister, which is limited to men, is besides another proof of the misunderstanding of the nature of the modern war by our authorities, which I have frequently written about. But just look at trends in the Russian-Ukrainian war. erstwhile the Russians attacked in 2014, nearly 50,000 women served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. By 2024, this figure had increased by 40%, and women are playing increasingly crucial roles there. Tetiana Ostaschenko for example, she was Commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Medical Force from 2021 to 1923 and the first female in the rank of Brigadier General in the Ukrainian Army.
Modern warfare is based not only on muscle strength, but besides increasingly on intellectual strength. present we know that we are faced with the request for mass training of drone operators. This is 1 of the many areas where women will be as effective as men. Reasonable sharing of tasks in a large effort to defend the country is another component that has the chance to increase our resilience. But for this chance to be used, training is needed for the full society.
Kirill Chubotin / AFPTetiana Ostashenko, erstwhile medical service commander in the Ukrainian army
4. Adult training, what about schools?
If the announcements of mass training are not another common decision in the past of our country, but a sign of the ripening of Polish authorities to think broader, strategic, then adult training itself cannot end.
Defence programmes must be introduced on an equally large scale in schools. As a pattern, I'll usage an example... Russia.
How much fun it was in Poland at the sight of Russian kindergarten children dressed in mock-ups of tanks and fighting infantry cars. What a pity it was for the first class in red-armist costumes at the school academy. But that is how the school patriotic programs in Russia are carried out, which aim to infect the military bacteria of future recruits.
In the following classes, students are already more aware of why Russia did not start war in Ukraine, and on the contrary – it tries to end it, due to the fact that Ukraine attacked Donbas. Students besides learn the details of the “special operation” in Ukraine. The same programme explains to young people why there is no Ukraine but only “Russian state”.
In the tenth and eleventh grade, students learn war tactics, field medicine, and build shelters. Above all, they learn to usage a sharp weapon – they shoot rifles and throw grenades.
Students of Polish schools, in their majority to the Polish Army, have an attitude of mildly speaking – nothing, but their susceptibility to lies about war spread in social networks is high. but for a fewer schools, their cognition of what was erstwhile called a defence advocacy is close to zero. They have neither motivation nor the ability to defend their country, their families, and yet themselves.
Some of them in a twelve years, and others in a fewer years, will come into adulthood, in which other each another they will have well motivated and well-trained peers from Russia, convinced that Poles, as well as the full West, are their existential enemy.
In the first months of Russia's mass invasion of Ukraine we mocked the folly of Russian soldiers who locked themselves in an elevator on a popular video. We convinced ourselves that the economy and weapons magazines in Russia would break down for the same reasons – stupidity and shortsightedness of Russian leaders. And yet they are where they are today, and we are where we are.
This is due to the fact that the Russians implement thoughtful strategies, planned for years. We, in the absence of far-reaching strategies, are doomed to respond to current events.
It's time to stop.
