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On killing – or, why do we need a military strategy at all?

Avatar Strategy&Future Strategy&Future
Darmowy! ·  0 · 27.07.2023
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Radzyń Podlaski (source: Wikipedia)

 

They must represent enough class and quality to be able to make quick and decisive decisions related to this: when to act (reactively or perhaps preventively; immediately or as soon as something happens), who is to act (the police, the army, special forces, artillery, aviation, special services, maybe even someone on enemy territory and in advance), how they should act (quietly or spectacularly, with massive fire with the risk of destroying the buildings and infrastructure of eastern Poland, or by means of intricate and precise action of special forces). 

 

It may even turn out that it is worth carrying out the action in advance, after obtaining information from secret services or electronic interception, and acting decisively without looking at an American security patron who would “authorise” such a decision and behind whom our politicians could hide, so to speak, from the consequences of their decisions (this is probably the “instinct” of our politicians — I am waiting for evidence to the contrary).

 

Are our politicians prepared for this type of action against those who violate our security to the east, and do they have detailed reaction scenarios written out? Do they have the strength and means to implement these scenarios? This is precisely the key element of military strategy. Have they (or will they have) negotiated with the Americans in advance what our authorities can do in the face of such a raid or other hostile or provocative actions from the territory of Belarus?

Furthermore, what should be determined so that the Americans consider that our response is sufficiently proportionate that there is no risk of a world war, and at the same time strong and decisive enough to deter the enemy from further actions hostile to the Polish Republic or depriving the lives of our citizens. And will we always have to wait for President Biden to wake up 6 hours later due to the time difference between Warsaw and the East Coast of the United States, or will we make the appropriate decisions ourselves in Warsaw, even if only after agreeing in advance an “admissible proportionality” protocol with Washington and SACEUR, i.e. NATO military command, and always also an American. 

 

The obvious goal of Poland’s military strategy is to ensure the physical security of its citizens. Fulfilment of this condition is the basis without which there are no other tasks of the state or the life of society: all interests and values on which society operates depend on physical security, without which people cannot realise their freedom, personal and professional life or get rich. 

 

Physical security is not everything. It is the necessary minimum, and our state should also have ambitions to have the largest possible field of agency in international relations, in order to be able to pursue its interests and choose the path of development. In times of a breaking or fracture in the international system, it is the army and military strategy that give (if the strategy is correct and others see it, and the military is efficient and others count on them) the greatest “political manoeuvrability.” 

This is probably why, instinctively, Jarosław Kaczyński decided to expand the Polish army and make even wider military purchases, and the society generally supported these decisions, understanding somewhere at the subconscious level the dependencies described above. Another matter of course, for a later stage, is what reforms and what capabilities will achieve the intended effect, but this is already a discussion about the evolution of the battlefield and predicting what will be effective. 

The international system is anarchic, and Poland must survive in it, and we should even be so bold as to believe that it should develop proudly, because we all want to live well. The system is anarchic, because there is no sovereign or supreme court in the world that adjudicates disputes between states, and then enforces its judgments like a bailiff, with other states meekly accepting them. This may be true in a well-governed state, but not between states.

 

This means that security, prosperity and freedom are not given by nature, because it is natural that stronger countries, and even more so empires, limit the freedom of weaker countries to choose development and alliances, imposing their will if they are stronger and if this is what they want to do. This is why wars have broken out since the beginning of time. In order for this not to happen, states, for their own security and the remoteness of such a risk, are forever balancing on the international arena, concluding alliances, developing their military capabilities or looking for economic advantages and other “guarantees” that are supposed to give them “space for security and development.”

 

In other words, there is always a dynamic calculation of the balance of power. At S&F, we have explained many times what Poland’s key geopolitical interests are: pushing Russia outside the European system and breaking the economic dominance of the countries of the western part of the continent over us. The rest are just means to accomplish these two things. 

That is why the Polish state balances Russia and its demand for dominance in the Intermarium (from our perspective, this is what the war in Ukraine is about) and contests (though less loudly) the belief of the Germans that they will always rule Europe, and in particular Central and Eastern Europe, by defining the economic-development parameters of our part of the world. That is why we are happy about the US presence in Poland and Ukraine’s successes in the war. That is why we are expanding the armed forces without looking at the Germans (but in consultation with the Americans). In other words, we want to protect ourselves from the hegemony of Russia and Germany over us, even if the desires of Moscow and Berlin are implemented differently.

Physical violence, in particular the ability to kill another human being, is, as Elbridge Colby put it in his book “Strategy of Denial,” the highest form of violent dependence on another human being. There are other sources of influence on the behaviour of others: wealth, persuasion, charisma, but these always give way to the ability to kill another, especially to kill with impunity.

 

Therefore, as the German and Soviet occupations showed us, having the ability to kill with impunity allows those who possess these abilities to quickly escalate any dispute or conflict over agency to the level of killing, and thus win the existing dispute over agency, even without resorting to physical killing the victim — sometimes it’s enough to threaten those who do not have a response to this threat, that is, there is no good military strategy compatible with real and practised abilities and the political will to use them decisively. In other words, the principle of “a tooth for a tooth” should apply to the Wagners, and I personally even think — “a tooth for merely preparing to deprive us of a tooth.”

 

Hard power dominates soft power. Whether we like it or not. When violence goes unpunished, it tramples justice, rightness and beauty. That is why the Polish state must have a real army and a real military strategy and real political decision makers. I will repeat this especially for a NATO frontline state located at the centre of gravity of the eastern flank during the transformation of the world system, when there is no supreme court settling disputes, when the unipolar moment of US dominance has passed into history and Washington failed to prevent the war in Ukraine or lost Afghanistan in 2021, and a Pacific War between the US and China is in the air. 

Military violence is not the most visible element of state power. And that’s good. Other sources of strength: commercial, economic, monetary, innovative and even ideological, tend to be more tangible on a daily basis, jointly giving strength to a given state. But that’s not enough in times of chaos, which is why the European Union is so powerless now, and it looks helpless and insignificant, it’s a shame to see. For these other elements of strength to matter, a foundation must be laid: the ability to kill and respond to the threat of killing that the enemy makes to you. 

Poland must have such military capabilities such that Russia or Belarus cannot force it (either alone or by putting pressure on us through our allies in NATO or the EU) or create a situation where killing Polish citizens will be easy or – God forbid – unpunished. The response to the deployment of the Wagner group in Belarus should therefore leave no doubts as to the determination of Warsaw to protect eastern Poland from various types of hostile actions. And when they happen, the hand of the Polish state should be very heavy.

 

Autor

Jacek Bartosiak 

CEO and Founder of Strategy&Future, author of bestselling books.

 

Jacek Bartosiak NATO Poland Poland&Europe S&F Hero USA strategia wojskowa
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