Front would have collapsed if it all depended on motivation
Sometimes I think about it and ask myself: What the f#cking miracle is it that we still have a frontline?"
I think about how each of my soldiers feels when:
- there is no end in sight after years of service;
- there is no such thing as rotation with civilian meatheads pumping their biceps in clubs;
- the government keeps tightening the screws on service members with harsher penalties while making it easier for civilians to dodge mobilization with no accountability or consequences;
- they’ve fallen out of life, careers, families, jobs, while the world keeps living, studying, developing, reaching new heights at work, vacationing in new countries;
- the country hasn’t planned a damn thing in terms of a war-footing economy;
- and the Russians keep pushing, killing, killing, killing while we’re constantly forced to withdraw.
Do you think that if a person serves, this stops scaring them? That it doesn’t get to them?
Do you think a uniform makes someone a superhuman?
Right away, you’re no longer afraid of death, you wake up healthy and motivated every day, you fill up on 20,000 hryvnias, you embrace the expectation laid on you by nation, you’ll show up and set things in order, and you live only with thoughts of holding back the Russians.
Do you think the uniform seizes the brain, a "pixel" neocortex forms, and a person acquires the sole purpose of fighting and nothing but fighting?
No.
Each individual soldier is a living human being.
And utterly f#cked, believe me. Very. Very, f#ck it.
Why does an army that has, f#cking, no upsides except those it forcefully manufactures in its own head (if there`re wits) still hold the line?
Why isn’t AWOL at 100%?
Why haven’t we lost yet?
Because an army is a system.
A system of interacting factors, components, levers; a system of interconnections, incentives, and constraints.
It’s an organization, a country within a country, a mechanism.
And it doesn’t run on individuals.
Not on their emotions, motivation, or views.
The primary driver of an army is its institutional internal linkages.
What each individual commander and soldier can and cannot do, who influences them, what resources are available, what the consequences are, and so on.
Whether you want to or not, whether you came on your own or were brought in a van — you fight. You’re in the system; keep rowing.
Motivation and emotions are overrated.
We fuss too much about how to sway the emotions of those outside the military.
How to calm them, comfort them, coax them, lull them, and motivate them up to the level of a soldier in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Because there’s this illusion that everyone in uniform, if you poke a needle through that uniform, just gushes motivation by default, made of it a priori.
No.
We need a system that works.
Right now it’s punitive.
Right now, it’s objectively a prison.
Right now, it’s serfdom.
Right now, service members and their families are condemned to pay with themselves for the comfort and full lives of others.
Right now, there are no conditions that would force those others to worry about this, except out of their own great goodwill and a token gesture.
We’re holding on only because what’s against us is an even worse prison. We are a slightly reformed Soviet army against an authentic Soviet army.
We need a RADICALLY reformed system.
With rights. With privileges to be part of it. With protection for the members of this system. With harsh punishment for the loss of personnel and for corruption. With the rule of internal law.
In practice, this means:
- reform and tightening of mobilization;
- military ombudsman;
- reform of training centers — adaptation to modern combat conditions;
- the ability to transfer without the current commander’s approval;
- real penalties for "meat-grinder" commanders;
- real anti-corruption measures, especially in supply and materiel services;
- rotations with 2–3 months of rest;
- reform of the military medical commission (MMC);
- reform of everything related to the support of wounded soldiers;
- a bottom-up communications system in the military without punishment for reflecting the real state of affairs;
- an expanded, real benefits package for service members (not f#cking discounts on coffee and coupons for three rides on a trolleybus).
And then the motivation to serve, to stay in the military, and to belong to it will follow.
But yes, it’s cheaper to toy with the people’s emotions and say "we did what we could" than to actually do the work.
Because the government does F#CKING nothing of the above. Whether consciously or not, whether they’re fools or criminals, or foolish criminals — that’s not the main point.
The fact remains that they really do F#CKING nothing for the army that is still holding the enemy back. And they expect it to keep doing so.
How?
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