Security is trust
Trust does not tolerate hesitations rooted in uncertainty. The global security system cracks under its own incapacity to call things by their proper names. Inability to face the reality and to call wars – wars, and the aggressors – aggressors, undermines trust of people towards international security institutions. Without this trust security agreements become meaningless, alliances depreciate, and guarantees do not have power.
Without trust the legitimacy of the international security order will melt away. Disintegration processes within the EU, partiality charges against the OSCE, chronic deep concern of the UN are all consequences of the institutional legitimacy inflation.
It is inevitable that a new model of international security will replace the current one, which was supposed to protect people from the specter of the world war. The resilience or fragility of this new model is subject to the level of trust it will enjoy by people who remain trapped by uncertainty and fear.
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is a platform for discussion in pursuit of finding the answer to question what the new international security order wood look like.
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Oksana Syroyid: War is a fantastic excuse
Oksana Syroyid, Vice-Speaker of Ukrainian Parliament I will follow up with what general Hodges…
More Info All NewsOksana Syroyid, Vice-Speaker of Ukrainian Parliament
I will follow up with what general Hodges has mentioned first, namely, the legal status and the perception of the war. And I will refer to the quite well-known now case of Serhyi Kolmohorov, who is unfortunately now under the severe threat. So, mostof you are probably aware of the fact that he had volunteered to the army, well, not to the army, but to volunteer battalion in 2014. He was in the mobile patrol, close to Mariupol in August 2014. There was a suspicious car and there was an order to stop it. Then there was an order to shoot. There were 9 guys shooting at a driving vehicle. And in the end, one guy was sentenced for murder, because one person has been killed by the unknown person actually, because you cannot verify whose bullet has actually shot the poor lady.
We have a number of issues that this specific case has risen, and be sure that Ukrainian army is following this case closely, because they understand that it has to do with everyone. And now we come to the actual legal framework of the military conduct, when we have it in the hybrid perception, in a hybrid reality. There is a question whether Ukrainian army, volunteer battalions, and national guard perform their duties at the East with accordance to the Constitution. Of course. Because they had the duty to protect, to defend their country, and they performed their duty constitutionally.
But whether the State has acted constitutionally to protect its soldiers is a big issue. Because, according to the Constitution, in case of threat to the state, the president, firstly, is obliged to impose martial law, and secondly is obliged to issue a decree on deployment of the armed forces.
When is it needed? Exactly for the cases like this. When the soldier uses weapon in the military conditions, he is the most vulnerable person, because eventually he may end up in court. And how a court should decide, whether the soldier acted appropriately or not? It’s only a decision of a chief commander who can say that there was a threat to the country, the threat which demanded the deployment of Armed Forces, and moreover, which required the use of a weapon. And that could be the condition to protect people. Moreover, why was the car on the move anyway? If the martial law was duly implemented, there would be limits for the freedom of movement, according to the martial law. Unfortunately, since it was not implemented, again, the soldiers were (and are) vulnerable, because they didn’t have enough legal grounds to act. And this is a question which we are now debating. Finally, after almost four years of war, we started to debate the fact that we are in a hybrid that we have ourselves created. And the question is how shall we get out of this hybrid? Because we will need to do this to protect our soldiers. And this is for all of us to consider.
My statement is very clear — we cannot reinvent the wheel. Those rules of the war are way more mature than we are, they last for thousands of years, we cannot invent anything new. We just have to follow the common sense. And when it comes to the budget and transparency, it is very simple. A war, again, and especially the hybrid war, is a perfect excuse. Whenever you want to justify something you have done, you just say that we are in war, we are in a hybrid war — it is a fantastic excuse. Now hybrid war appears to be very convenient to everyone.
But here it comes to the budget. We realize that we have to increase our defense spending. But these defense spending come from people, these are not the money of the state. And to make sure that people will be willing to pay more for their army, we have to make sure that we report to the people back how their money are spent. And here can be no secrecy, because, again, those are not the state money, so there shall be no state secret on this. Yes we can cover some specific articles with secrecy, but not the whole defense budget. So here I refer to what general Hodges has mentioned, that the army is a part of society, established for the sake of the society, to follow the interests of the society, and it cannot be disconnected. The army has to be subordinate to the society exactly through the represented issues of parliament.

Ben Hodges: Different kind of fight
Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, Commander of the US Army Europe What I’d like to…
More Info All NewsLieutenant General Ben Hodges, Commander of the US Army Europe
What I’d like to do is to take a few minutes and address three main topics. Then I’ll look forward to any challenges or questions.
The first one is to reaffirm the commitment of the United States along with our allies, Canada, Lithuania, Poland, United Kingdom, to help Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression. I’ll touch on that.
Secondly, I looked at the questions for this panel. One of them was about whether we are serious and whether we are taking war seriously, particularly when talking about hybrid war. I’ll talk briefly about that.
The third category that I will address briefly and look for the questions is on the relationship between the military, the state, the people; what are the implications for legal status; what does it mean to be a soldier, if there are correct legal protections to do your duty, but also there are broader policies. For if you don’t get the policy right, it makes it difficult for the soldier to do its duty.
So those are the three categories.
Firstly, it should be very apparent to everybody that the United States is committed and has been committed to Ukraine now for several years. Today we have 250 American soldiers that are at the training center just an hour from here. I was here last week to see them. It was a transition for a new group. The United States has provided supplies now for three years: counter fire radar, medical supplies, equipment. We delivered 35 ambulances that just arrived. I have personally visited four different military hospitals in Kyiv, Dnipro, Mariupol, Kharkiv. I saw terrific medical professionals and wounded Ukrainian soldiers in each of those facilities. I saw the full range of high quality and low quality facilities. We’re committed to continuing to help develop Ukrainian military and health care as well.
We have benefited also from our interaction with Ukrainian soldiers. While you mentioned that Ukraine had to build and rebuild its military from scratch, what Ukraine has always had is terrific young men and young women who were tough, they’re very smart and they are great fighters and they are committed to the defense of their country. I’ve never been on the receiving end of Russian artillery fire, I have never received Russian rocket fire, I have never been on the receiving end of Russian electronic warfare, but all of these Ukrainian soldiers and commanders have. So we have learned a lot from our Ukrainian partners and now all the lessons that we’ve learned for them are part of our training center at Owen fields and at the two transit centers in the United States we’ve incorporated everything that we’ve learned about Russia from Ukraine.
I’ve also discovered that Ukrainian soldiers are technically extremely competent and professional. The radar can we provided, it turns out it’s even better than we realized. When you give it to a Ukrainian soldier who is receiving Russian artillery fire and rocket fire, you get motivated and that radar is even better than I knew it was. We’ve learned there as well. Of course the Russians know how good it is and they immediately came after that radars, they destroyed one but not the rest of them. So the commitment of the United States, the amount of money, the amount of people… When the United States is serious about something, we put money in it and we put people in it. That’s happening right here in Ukraine.
Our Ambassador Yovanovitch and her predecessor Pyatt, is very active, so is the special ambassador Walker, who is working very hard to hold Russia accountable for implementation of Minsk agreement. As long as this continues, you can be sure United States Army will continue being here.
Finally, we are working very hard at Yavoriv to help develop the Ukrainian Army’s training center there. I’ve been amazed at the progress that’s been made over the past year. I know that general Muzhenko and general Popov have worked very hard to provide resources for that training center to improve its capability. I would anticipate that we will branch out and help other training centers in Ukraine.
But one last thing, the lethality of the battlefield. You talk about taking war seriously. When I look at all of Ukrainian vehicles, the Russian vehicles, the Russian led separatists’ vehicles, they are covered with what we call «reactive armor». This is something that provides additional protection to the steel of the tank. Then you still see vehicles completely destroyed by Russian artillery, Russian rockets and Russian tanks. This is the reminder of the lethality of the battlefield.
With Russian UAVs, Russian ability to intercept the communications, we have all had to get serious again about camouflage, about dispersion, about using secured communications to avoid being targeted. Because the Russians clearly have the ability to combine UAVs, radio intercept and rockets very quickly. So we’ve learned that watching the Ukrainian soldiers. That was the first topic.
The second topic was that you talked about taking war seriously. All of us in the West have to make an adjustment. Because of what we’ve seen Russia is doing, we’ve had to adjust our posture. I was a brigade commander during the first year of war in Iraq from 2003 to 2004. For the next 14 years all of us have been fighting counter-insurgency, stability operations, living far off the operating base, very concerned about civilian casualties, our intelligence was focused on intercepting cell phones. It was a different kind of fight.
Now as we watch Russia’s aggression, what they’ve done in in Georgia, there are still ten thousand Russian soldiers occupying 20% of the Republic of Georgia and Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Watching what they’ve done when they invaded Crimea, watching what they’ve done when they invaded Donbass, watching their exercises, watching what they’ve demonstrated in Syria, we obviously pay close attention to that, we’re having to adjust or to relearn how to conduct large-scale maneuver warfare with artillery, aircraft, armor, infantry, engineers — all of the combat arms. We’ve had to change that, as well as modernize our equipment. But what I was slow to realize is that we have to change the policies too, the legal status. When you have a NATO mission ISAF in Afghanistan, you operate with a certain number of tight rules, rules of engagement.
Most of the countries in the West have signed agreements about the use of land mines or the agreements to limit the use of certain munitions for good reason. The Russians are not bothered about the use of land mines. They’re happy to use every ammunition they can to cause as much damage as they can. We are all having to adjust and look at our policies about precision weapons. If you’re in a fight that has thousands of artillery rounds being fired back and forth, that’s completely different from if you’re shooting one round at one Taliban on a motorcycle. It’s a completely different environment for permissions and speed and the estimates the risks that you take to collateral damage.
So that’s about getting the policy right there. How do you handle prisoners of war? In Afghanistan some people are reluctant to use biometric data because they were worried that a Canadian citizen who is also an Afghan, that his biometric data could end up in the US database. That’s a normal concern. If you’re fighting in the large scale conventional war, where you’re gonna have thousands or hundreds of prisoners, do you have the procedures correct for that? It’s completely different. We have to address that policy.
If you are fighting in the sovereign nation, for example, if we were in Estonia, or Latvia, or Lithuania, or Poland (these are NATO allies, sovereign countries), if we were fighting inside one of those countries against the Russian attack, the policies would have to address how to do that. That’s completely different than fighting in Afghanistan or Syria. Are we taking that seriously? Absolutely. All of these policies are under review.
And then, finally, the ammunition. The amount of ammunition and the types of ammunition that we would need if we had to fight against the Russian attack of some sort is so significantly greater than the ammunition that we are using in Afghanistan. Particularly precision munitions and long-range rockets. Getting the industrial base ready for that is also part of it. North Korean just fired another missile in the last 48 hours and we’re also having to prepare for a possibility of that as well.
Finally, the third category that I wanted to address briefly is a relationship between the military of the state, population.
The United States has a tradition because of our experience as former British colonies, the Americans did not want a large standing army. But whatever army we’re going to have, had to be under total control of the civilians, of the elected civilian officials. The president is the commander-in-chief, but the Congress has responsibilities.
I always keep a copy of the United States Constitution with me. I worked three times in what we call the office of Congressional Liaison for the United States Army. My job was to help answer questions from the Congress or to explain to the Congress our budget requirements or the rules, the regulations, the modernization. It was not always fun. But I knew it was always essential. In fact, when I became an officer a brand new officer about a hundred years ago I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States which enshrines civilian control of the military. This is not a coincidence.
It’s a very small document but the very first article the Constitution focuses on the Congress, the legislative branch of the government. The second article goes to the executive, the President.
Article I Section 8 of the Constitution, where it lays out the powers of the Congress (by the way, I did this years ago), says: «The Congress shall have the Power to raise and support Armies; to provide and maintain a Navy, to make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces; to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, to suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions». And this is where the Congress is given not just the power, but the responsibility, «to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States».
So all of those things that I’ve just described, that’s the responsibility and the authority of Congress. Then Article II says: «The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States».
So there’s a tradition of civilian control, civilian responsibility over the military. That means that the Congress has to perform its duty to provide enough resources, to pay attention to make sure the soldiers are properly trained, have the great equipment have the right place to live and that their families are cared for, that there’s a medical system that not only helps them recover from being wounded, but also rehabilitation.
One last piece of this is connection between the population and the military. During the Vietnam War the army went to Vietnam. The United States did not go to Vietnam. The army, which was a conscript army, was sent to Vietnam. The chief of the Army at the end of the war said, «We’re never doing that again». He took most of our logistics, most of our engineers, most of the military police, most of everything that’s required for long-term sustained land operations, for a war. Аnd he put it into the Reserve Component, what we call our National Guard (which is different from Ukrainian National Guard). When he did that that meant that no president could send the army without the Congress and every community knew about it. So it made sure that there was a connection between the population and the military, that it was not a separate stand-alone force that was a tool of the executive.

Glen Howard: Russia can’t be imperia without Ukraine
Mr. Glen Howard, President of Jamestown Foundation Studies There are three points that I…
More Info All NewsMr. Glen Howard, President of Jamestown Foundation Studies
There are three points that I would like to talk about and I was actually asked to speak principally about where’s Ukraine in іnternational system and why it is not working. And so the second point that I am going to talk about is Ukraine’s National Security dilemma in identifying its national security priorities and how to react to the threats. And the third thing which might be surprising for you is that I’m going to discuss briefly the case study of one of those national security problems, which is the Ukrainian navy. Everybody talks about Donbass and the army, but does anyone look at the Ukrainian national symbol? The trident is very much a part of that national symbol. Ukraine has 3000 km of seaboard with the Black Sea, 20% of your GDP comes form the sea and the maritime kilometers, so that’s very critically important for Ukraine.
Ukraine and international system and why it’s not working. First of all, I appreciate the comment about Voltaire: «Ukraine is a land of Europe, but it’s unknown to Europe». And I would echo that point by American security policy makers that ambassador Herbst has talked about. US policy makers keep looking at Ukraine through the prism of Russia’s imperial history, and Russian history, Soviet history. And so, in many ways they have to relearn that process. And I think that’s a very critical point that ambassador Herbst has made, because it is how we look at Ukraine in the International System. When Ukraine gave three thousand nuclear weapons, in many ways it has sort of stopped being the national security priority and issue for the United States.
And one of the problems is that Henry Kissinger has talked about that in his experience of trying to educate americans that there’s something called in Europe the balance of power. And he had understood, where Ukraine fits in within that regional balance of power.
I think doctor Zbigniew Brzezinski, someone that I’ve worked for four years, constantly talked about geography and the need and importance of history, so he once said about Ukraine that Russia cannot be an imperial power without Ukraine. And that’s a critical point. If Russia was to occupy Ukraine, it would once again be the mighty power. It would be on the doorsteps of Europe in a way that it would constantly continue to influence the geography and influence the balance of power. But that’s what Russia’s imperial role is. And this is one thing that is critically important, because americans don’t really understand where Ukraine fits.
In 1943 an American political scientist by the name of Nicolas Spykman wrote a book called «The Geography of Peace». This book was very influential, because it influenced John Foster Dulles, and when George Kennan wrote a «long telegram», he tried to identify the issue in strategy of containment. But Spykman talked about the importance of geography and geopolitics. And for that time this determined how the US looked at the idea of containment.
In 1946 there was something called the Straits Crisis with Turkey, which led to Turkey joining NATO, when Stalin tried to control the straits. It was a major international crisis. And this led to us here today talking about the Yalta, the influence of Yalta, again, what we are seeing here now and with the 2014 — annexation and occupation of Crimea, is that back again the Black Sea region and Ukraine are very much what american policy makers are looking at and trying to understand Ukraine. There is a debate now in the United States on whether to give Ukraine the Javelin anti tank missles. Ukraine is very much of what we’re thinking about, but americans don’t understand where Ukraine fits within these national security priorities. Even within Ukraine itself, there’s problem with understanding its own national security priorities and strategies.
And that’s that I briefly get to here today in my own discussion, but how Ukraine looks and identifies in some national security threats. That’s very interesting. You know, I keep on telling many americans, friends of mine, who talk about tiny Georgia getting threat and getting the US in the war in 2008 when russians invaded South Osetia and Georgia, nation of three million, fought a brief war with Russia. The point that I try to make about Ukraine is that we need to stop thinking about Ukraine as if it is Georgia. Ukraine is a nation of 45 million, it is a nation that had three thousand nuclear weapons and gave those up, it is a modern industrial capacity, and basically, it is a country that has the capacity and wants to build aircraft carriers. So there’s problem with how Europe and the US look at Ukraine in terms of what it could be, its potential.
As it was said at the beginning: Ukraine has to survive. And that is very much true. And the problem in Ukraine is that they keep looking to answers like Javelins and etc. As if it could solve all of the Ukraine’s problems. And I would disagree. The problems in Ukraine are really deeper and much broader in its national security than just getting Javelin anti tank missles.
Ukraine’s problems and challenges today are that you have a vast amount of resources and people. You are rebuilding an army, but basically you are a country that in 25 years of your independence, 23 years beginning with the war in Donbass, with a large army like it had, Ukraine had never organized a military exercise more than for a thousand men in those 23 years of independence.Ukraine had a military but it did not know how to basically fight for its independence because the military had been so ignored. And now Ukraine is looking at its military and trying to rebuild and identify its national identity. And it’s very important. But there are certain national security strategies and priorities in Ukraine that they’re not focusing on, that they’re not doing.
Three years after Donbass: Ukraine still doesn’t have any ability to produce ammunition. This is a critical national security priority that’s not being paid attention to. It is not because of Western companies are not offering you things. They’re offering you the abilities to build an ammunition plant, but he government is turning it away. Why? Is that the responsibility of US? No. We’re herе to help you. But Ukraine has to defend itself, it has to accept these offers to build the ammunition plants. Ukraine’s greatest enemy is bureaucracy. Ukraine can be a modern military power if it overcomes the problems and the challenges with its national security.
Currently today there’s a major security crisis going on today with the building of the Kerch Bridge. Everyone talked about Donbass and Donbass’s strategic importance. But the Kerch Strait is the gateway to Mariupol, and if it’s closed off, if Donbass and Mariupol cannot export steel, Russia will strangle Ukraine in Donbass. So Ukraine has a maritime priority. It’s trying to rebuild the navy, but if it looses the Kerch Strait and the ability to control it, it will have no point at all. When this crisis emerged on August 1, officials in Kyiv were on vacation. The crisis was happening, the strait was closed, nobody said anything. They had a meeting at security council in Ukraine, but high level officials from the military and also various other officers, I’m not going to mention the names, didn’t even go to the meeting.
If Mariupol has to close these new plants because it cannot export the steel, it will have a major effect on the Donbass. And why am I talking about this? I’m talking about this because Ukraine has a vision for the navy. It wants to build the navy. This week I’ve just been to the conference, we were sitting here in the audience. They tried for the first time a branch of the Ukrainian Armed Forces had a public event to discuss its strategy. In Kyiv this is unprecedented. They discussed their strategy, they had US friends come and discuss it with them. It’s very critically important, because they were openly talking about their problems and their issues. Ukrainian navy wants to send naval vessels into the Kerch Strait to exercise what they call freedom of navigation. They want to show that their straits are open and there’s freedom of navigation and that the UN convention is being open and not being enforced. But this won’t happen, unless Ukraine does something about it.
The other part about the Ukrainian navy is that the part of their vision of building a navy is to get help from the US. Sitting in Baltimore harbor are two what they call island class cutters. And these two island class cutters are a gift from US to Ukraine. But they’re sitting there and they’ve been sitting there since July and they’re not moving here to Ukraine. Why? We don’t know. We can guess as to why it is not happening. Because there’s certain naval shipyards that you know exist in Kyiv, they’re building vessels there called the «Grisha» class boats. And some people believe that the class cutters are a threat to these boats in the Kyiv naval shipyards. Because the problem with Ukraine’s national security is that it is also becoming a money-making venture for national security and we’ve really got to talk about this today and get this thing moving and get it further discussed. Because the US is offering to give Ukraine a certain weapon which could be used in the Kerch Strait, but it’s not happening.
Ukraine has to survive. Geography determines your future. I think this is very critically important and I very appreciate the opportunity to speak today. And so if there is one thing I can leave with you in the audience it is the idea that the trident is also about the sea, it is about Ukraine and its maritime kilometers.
And I would say one thing, that the US Navy began in 1794 with 6 frigates, they were constructed by the US Congress. Аnd Ukraine had 70% of its navy destroyed and taken by the Russians during the invasion of Crimea. You’re trying to reveal the navy. You’re starting again. Just like the US did in 1794. You’re starting with your own ability and you have your own vision for that navy called the «Mosquito-fleet strategy» and they openly talk about this to the public. And that requires public support through that strategy and the navy. Mao Zedong once said that the army swims with the people. And so the people, volunteers in Ukraine have to get together and have
to develop strategies and work for that so that you could develop Ukraine’s
national security strategy in the way that it is very balanced and that you appeal
to the US and that you survive based not just upon asking help, but Ukraine helping itself.

