Veterans should volunteer to train soldiers in Ukraine

Ukrainian Mobilization method A bill lowering the conscription age from 27 to 25 took effect on May 18. The country’s beleaguered military and political leadership hope this will fill a personnel shortage and ensure there are enough men to keep the Russian advance at bay. With new equipment and ammunition provided by Western countries, the country continues to fight on.

The best way to help? Volunteer. But this comes at a high cost, especially for foreigners. Wages are low and complex laws must be adhered to. And this is not just a war of self-defense, but a highly dangerous conflict with a high probability of serious injury or death.

Americans and Europeans, content to lobby for aid from afar, may be pleased to know that ammunition, weapons and vehicles are on their way from their countries, and that these supplies are certainly doing a great deal to protect lives in most parts of Ukraine. Russia launched an invasion in 2022 hoping to plant its flag in Kiev and Odessa, and is now being thwarted again north of Kharkiv.

Some countries have begun to openly consider returning their soldiers who were withdrawn from Ukrainian territory at the start of the invasion, with the aim of training their recently mobilized nationals. Simple and easy to understand As much as possible.

There are other ways to help: experienced military veterans from countries such as the US, Germany, the UK and France can volunteer their expertise and training.

Training is the thing people with an interest in the military least talk about or think about. Training is not as glamorous as the advanced technology packed into an F-22, or as breathtaking as exercises with tens of thousands of soldiers on a battlefield, or as awe-inspiring as an aircraft carrier. Training, done properly, is boring, dirty, and exhausting. But done properly, it wins wars.

One might counter that at this point, even highly experienced veterans of the US, UK, German and French armies have very little to contribute in Ukraine’s war of self-defense. Western training does not envisage tactical considerations, such as soldiers going from trench to trench in search of drones and fighting defensively from fixed positions and buildings. This is a valid counterargument. The only veterans who can fully train Ukraine at this point are Ukrainian veterans of this war; specifically, veterans from the last year when Russian drones and trench warfare surged.

But there is no need for “perfect training” here. The foundations of successful military action, of successful warfare, are small unit tactics and small unit leadership, which have remained virtually unchanged for 100 years. If we broaden our perspective a bit and blur the details, even this broad generalization holds: The fundamentals of successful warfare have remained unchanged for thousands of years.

What are those foundations? Teamwork, maneuvering as a group, and empowering people to lead larger groups. The insights and technological advances of the last 100 years have led to decentralization. So training that focuses on preparing squad leaders to handle two or three teams of three or five people also prepares platoon leaders to handle three or four platoons of 20 or 40 people. And that is the foundation of all other modern warfare.

No military is more skilled in small-unit tactics and leadership than the U.S. and other nations that have embraced the Enlightenment principles of egalitarianism and meritocracy and the humanism on which they are based. Training unlocks the potential of these insights and disseminates and invigorates them throughout the force.

The ideals on which U.S. and allied forces are based are the very ideals Ukrainians are fighting for, which is why Ukrainian troops and citizens are so receptive to this type of training.

Ukraine’s revolution against Russian domination is to a large extent a revolution of decentralization, and over the past decade that revolution has taken place, out of necessity, most quickly and effectively in the Ukrainian military. If it had not happened there, Ukraine would have been defeated by Russia long ago. The degree to which Russia has been successful militarily is the degree to which it has fought Russia itself, the Russian colonels and generals who trained alongside Ukrainian colonels and generals as part of the Soviet army decades ago. The degree to which Ukraine has been able to frustrate and confuse Russia is the degree to which it has empowered and promoted junior officers from a decade ago. Meritocracy is at work.

All of this makes the Ukrainian culture and military highly competent in thinking and acting the way Western militaries are trained to think and act: people quickly adopt small unit tactics and small unit leadership that wins fights at the platoon and squad level. Me and others I saw this firsthand on two trips I took in 2022-23 to train Ukrainian citizens and soldiers, and it’s a big reason why I co-founded it with an Iraq and Afghanistan combat veteran. From Citizen to Soldier, International — a group aimed at recruiting volunteers to help with training.

We weren’t the only ones. In the early days, many other veterans were also organizing training protocols and traveling to help train Ukrainians. It was beneficial to support these efforts then, and it would be beneficial to organize and support them now.

The arms and ammunition that Western countries are sending to Ukraine are badly needed and useful; free nations must continue to supply them. But Ukraine needs more than just weapons. As it prepares for a new wave of mobilization, it also needs experienced veterans to help train its soldiers in the basic tactics and leadership mindset that have been key components of every great military.

Ukrainians are temperamentally suited to this kind of fighting. Give them the support they need to protect their families and strengthen the instinct that drives them to join the fight. They will also be of great help in fighting the Russian-style corruption that post-war Ukrainians are battling in their own country. And veterans of the fight against Russia are ready to usher in a new era of justice, innovation, cooperation, and good governance.

Adrian Bonenberger is a writer and a United States Army veteran. He American Veterans for Ukraine.