The main priorities for Ukraine in reforming the army should be the construction of combat training centers, conducting a critical self-analysis of the entire structure of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Ministry of Defense, as well as training the sergeant corps.
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The commander of the US Army in Europe, Ben Hodges, spoke about this in an interview with the Kyiv publication Censor.NET, a PolitNavmgator correspondent reports.
According to him, the US Army went the same way in the 1970s after thousands of losses in Vietnam.
“First: combat training centers. We took preparations seriously. You know that in the United States there is a National Training Center in the desert, there is a Joint Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana, and there is also a training center in Hohenfels, Germany. The Air Force began to regularly conduct exercises in conditions close to Red Flag/Blue Flag combat. In other words, number one was close attention to constant training and maintaining a high level of combat readiness at all times. Only constant exercises and training helped recreate the army,” said Hodges.
The second thing Ukraine needs, according to the American general, is to conduct critical self-analysis.
“We created and implemented the so-called permanent system for analyzing errors and analyzing operations performed (AAR, After Action Review). After each exercise, everyone who took part openly discusses, under the guidance of a leader, everything that happened, and first of all, they study what exactly happened wrong, why it happened wrong, and how to correct it. This simple procedure helped change the Army because it forced us to be honest with ourselves at every level. Now honesty and self-criticism are like oxygen, we can’t do anything without them,” the general emphasized.
Also, according to Hodges, the sergeant training system is important because the sergeant corps is the point of contact between the army and society.
“Being a sergeant is not just about adding a badge to your uniform. We train sergeants in the same way as officers. There are two points here. First, as far as I know, the Department of Defense has stated that it wants to reach NATO standards by 2020. This is a very important and achievable goal if resources are properly focused to make Ukrainian units interoperable with NATO units. And an important part of this process is the continued development of the sergeant corps. This corps is very important because in modern warfare it is impossible to centralize all the decisions in one place and then expect everyone to carry them out - such is the nature of modern warfare. Communication in the chain of command is constantly interrupted, and the actions of the army depend on the decisions of junior commanders so that you can understand what is happening. This means that you must empower them; they must feel that they can make decisions, they must practice independent proactive actions. And, of course, first of all, this responsibility falls on the sergeants,” the general said.