UKRAINIAN MOBILIZATION

I know most of you don’t like reading about things that aren’t about Ukraine winning. Statistics can tell you that – I could reel off dozens that will show that 80% of you do not want to hear anything bad about Ukraine. It’s entirely understandable and it takes a special kind of person to stand away from something you support so deeply and with such principle, yet still have the capacity to critique it and not be afraid to do so. My career has been based on being that person. I can make you believe that I believe anything I choose to say is said with absolute conviction. You will walk away thinking that I am as polarized and absolute in my beliefs as I choose you to believe. And yet, as if someone turned a switch, in an instant I can demolish anything I have made you believe that I believe in. I was once, jokingly called God, because I see everyone’s point of view, everyone’s position and can understand everyone’s argument, “but you never know what he might do or what he actually believes in”.

I have always found politics difficult. I know what I really cannot tolerate, even if there are elements of it I think have merit. I know what I think is right and fair, even when I also know that makes me technically liberal, I’m the grouchy old Warhawk sat on the sides lines thinking liberals don’t understand defence issues even when they face them head on. To be blunt, I know too much to find any political party agreeable. In an ideal world the defence of the realm would be determined by non-political ‘experts’ from a wide spectra, who would be given 4% of GDP unwavering year on year, adjusted upwards for inflation. The rest, the politicians can do what they do with.

So this is a criticism of Ukraine. And I have made it clear I think, for the past almost three years, whose side I am on for good reason. There is much about Ukrainian culture that is not especially pleasant and must change as it moves into the EU. They know that. Religion and intolerance have been at the centre of those problems. But I believe change is happening, the end of the war will see it burst into the light in ways we can barely imagine.

But for that to happen Ukraine must hold the line and it must win. And for that it needs manpower. And its policies are really not at all well thought out or implemented. Its messaging on the need to fight and be part of the defence has been abysmal. It remains that way, it is if anything, becoming more intransigent on the subject and its defensive attitude towards mobilization has become sniping and unproductive. That’s going to be a problem with the new US Administration, far more than it has been with the outgoing one.

For example in response to the new National Security Advisor saying that the US needed to see Ukraine addressing its manpower issues as an essential precursor to more aid, “So that it can stabilize the front line”, what did Zelensky say? In a backhanded and rather snipping manner, he argued that if the US and allies had delivered what they say they should have, they might have more than 100 partly armed brigades in the field. How could they arm even more? The overall Ukrainian approach to the whole subject of mobilizing the precious little boys of the 18-24 age group is basically ‘what do you know and mind your own business’.

One of their arguments, that these 18-24 year olds should be allowed to live their lives unfettered by defending their country, is there’s just under 870,000 of them. Ukraine’s population pyramid, for historical reasons and its attachment to the Soviet Union, is disturbingly similar to Russia’s. It takes 80 years to turn around a population distortion completely.

The arguments Ukrainian politicians have used are that the number is dangerously small to allow any to die for the future health of the nation. That they are the engine of future growth and prosperity. That they deserve a life and a future. It has been almost impossible to pass laws on mobilization because opposition from the public, the age group involved and their parents, is so high. Even Zelensky has opposed it.

It’s easy to comprehend the arguments, but not so easy when you understand Ukraine’s position. 18 is the age of consent. There isn’t another western country where at 18 you’re not considered an adult. You can vote, have babies, get married, make your own life choices.

Ukraine is being invaded by the most unpleasant regime in modern Europe, a regime that only yesterday declared that you are not Ukrainians, you have no culture or separate identity. You belong inside Russia, you are basically Russians. It wants to eradicate your identity, destroy your freedoms, wipe out the state that you live in, and believe me, it will press you into military service whether you like it or not, and for a cause you will find difficult to agree with.

There will be no toleration of desertion, or mollycoddling your fears about being used as cannon fodder. You won’t be told off because you ran away from your unit, you’ll be executed.

Meanwhile while you make coffee and serve it to your friends discussing the existentialism of Jean Paul Sartre sat around a Lviv café table – I’ve seen it with my own eyes, your older brothers and fathers and uncles are fighting on the front line. And they’re not winning.

Meanwhile another argument that seems to have become an assumption, is that mobilization and recruitment means instant death or injury. That’s a fallacious argument at best. There are many types of mobilization.

Rather than have them do nothing why has Ukraine not driven them into the war economy? Why are they not working in weapons factories, digging trenches, building artillery shells, working in backup and distribution – it’s estimated for every frontline soldier it takes three more to keep him there. Why are they not training as cyber warriors, communications specialists, logisticians? Why are they not using their youthful creativity to improve the way the war is fought and maintained? Where is their youthful innovation being utilized? That supposedly fresh mental landscape that IT industries and so many others usually crave. Where is their innovation being used to save their country in its most desperate time of need?

The answer appears to be nowhere. You have to be over 25 to do any of that. And in the meantime they read about the terrors of the frontline and as we saw recently, even those now 25 and mobilized into a new Brigade, 1500 of them ran off at the first sign of incoming. No discipline, no backbone. 500 were still missing by the time they’d been fully deployed. Part of that was having a mass of newly trained soldiers with poor leadership, rather than feed them into a unit that’s already experienced and can teach them. To Zelensky’s credit it took him 36 hours to overrule the policy on deployment in new brigades. But that’s not the point.

Such instances tell you there’s a propaganda war at home, messaging that’s not getting through from Ukrainian authorities, and perhaps messaging that is getting through from the enemy.

The failure to inspire the 18-24 year olds to want to take part, to understand that the defence of the nation is in many ways for them is existential, is beyond me. I simply do not understand how you can see what is happening every day and want to do nothing but run away from it. Whatever happened in the year 2000, seems to have made for a demanding, entitled generation who think that everything is easy come easy go. They’ve never had to fight for anything much – and when they have its been the wrong war in the case of the United States.

Ukraine is under an existential threat. If the new American administration behaves anything like the people appointed to run it so far, and Ukraine carries on with its current approach I fear it may well end up getting nothing. If it will not persuade its youth that their country is worth fighting for, it’s going to have a hard time getting more aid out of the Americans. And with elections in Germany, recent ones in Croatia where an anti-support for Ukraine President won 75% of the vote, with Hungary and Slovakia opposed, Austria about to do a right wing volte face again, it may not be long before the EU can no longer persuade its membership to participate as fully as the Scandinavians, Poland and the Baltic’s might like.

So much depends on how Ukraine deals with the US and its vacillating and ill-informed leaders whose transactional behavior drives their every move. This could be the year of victory, of overcoming Putin, of putting him back in his box, just long enough to deal with China, because that’s next.

Beyond all of that, I find it kind of morally wrong that Ukrainians 18-24 do not see what this is all about. How can you possibly stand by and do nothing?

So that’s my moan about Ukraine. No state is perfect, but Ukraine seems to want to try and make the best of its future. All it need do is persuade its younger men and women to play their part, so they have a world and a nation they’re happy to live in.

The Analyst

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