Strategy&Future

On the fields of Ukraine, the twentieth-century method of conducting land war (centred on attack, tank columns, a fairly shallow front, and always incomplete reconnaissance, where the fog of war still reigns) is dying out. After the inevitable winter break, a new way will appear — one from the 21st century. It will be a way of waging a more positional war, where it is difficult to make a decisive offensive manoeuvre, where a modern reconnaissance battle reigns along with the related information dominance, possible thanks to the widespread use of sensors, including cheap drones. Where a manoeuvre of masses of tanks over a long distance will be costly for both sides, and the ubiquitous sensors and precision fire will make it possible to strike deeply into the enemy group and its base. Where there will be plenty of artillery and rocket duels and raids and subversive actions through the obviously porous front lines. That is unless Germany and France, “concerned” with their citizens’ standard of living in the face of the energy and food war that Russia is waging, force Ukraine in the winter to accept a Russian victory and Russian political conditions that will dominate our part of Europe.

The current crisis related to Russian political and military maneuvering, and the West’s reaction to it, forces us to reflect on several issues concerning Poland’s vital interests.

We repeat: the key factor is the level of autonomy, i.e. that (and whether) we build these systems ourselves, put them into orbits, then maintain and supplement them, command and repair them, also controlling the data transfer, collecting and analysing the data. We have to think this over carefully, bearing in mind the always more or less limited financial and organisational possibilities.

It is very puzzling, the calmness with which public opinion received the statements of the most important politician in the country on the real possibility of a war with Russia (and Belarus) and the need to start major preparations for it.

Ultimately, the phenomenon of senility enhances geopolitical change by giving advantage to one side and taking it away from others.

The costs of designing, developing and producing weapons increase with the need to find a remedy for the enemy’s means of combating these weapons. And so the race between defence and attack is in full swing.

Warsaw, 11th November 2021, Independence Day, 12:00 p.m., the long-announced speech of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in the presence of Jarosław Kaczyński, Deputy Prime Minister for National Security and Defence Affairs, Mariusz Błaszczak, the Minister of National Defence and the Chief of General Staff, General Rajmund Andrzejczak. A typical November day in the capital city, the morning drizzle starts to clear from noon, during the speech the shy rays of the November sun appear. Despite the bad weather and the cold season, the square is crowded; from the Saski and Królewska gardens to the Europejski Hotel and the former Victoria Hotel, the crowd even undulates. For weeks, the Warsaw streets have been full of rumours that the government is working on the New Model Forces. People hope that the “new” proceeds.

Just as art arises from the meeting of culture with circumstances, and just as great art arises from an encounter with extraordinary circumstances, the way of waging war is a meeting of the strategic culture of a state with extreme circumstances, bringing death and destruction, sometimes even the end of that state.

In 2021, any thinking about reform or innovation in the Polish Armed Forces, or more broadly – in the immunity system of the entire Polish state, should begin with the correct shaping of the so-called decision loop and the integration of its elements with completely in-house control. A properly shaped and integrated decision-making loop is the backbone of the modern military and the state’s capabilities in the event of the escalation or outbreak of a conflict, including, to an equal extent, a hybrid warfare.