Thread by @Jack_Watling

I'd agree the UAF took the importance of NCO's to heart but Brig Gen Hilbert is I think mistaken that the Ukrainian military had built an effective NCO corps by the time the war started. Important not to draw false lessons. Some observations... 1/13

https://twitter.com/JackDetsch/status/1521870171073351682

Just before the conflict Nick Reynolds and I had long interviews ranging from junior enlisted on the line of contact to the deputy chair of the national security and defence council about the structure, planning, and preparations of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. 2/13

We haven't published a lot of the material because much of it could have been useful to the Russians just prior to the invasion. However, I heard very consistent messages on NCOs and junior leadership from all ranks. 3/13

While the UAF aspired to have a professional NCO corps it was very nascent. There was not a strong PME structure for their NCOs. Nor was the exact role of these personnel consistent across formations given a lack of institutional culture. 4/13

Furthermore, before the conflict the UAF had significant retention problems, especially among enlisted personnel who had received specialist training, which included many junior NCOs. However... 5/13

What the Ukrainians did have was a large body of older troops who had experienced fighting in 2014/2015 - and in some cases going back to Afghanistan - who were serving across all ranks. If you went to UAF units you would find 20 year olds and 40 years at the same rank. 6/13

In addition, because of the retention problem, and therefore training more specialists than normal, there was a large body of experienced military personnel in civilian roles who could be mobilised. 7/13

Another aspect to this was that commanders kept rollerdexes of old comrades with specialist skills in areas like signals and logs and when their unit was rotated into the JFO - for example - would call them up and issue short term contracts. 8/13

So in many respects, roles that in a NATO military would be the preserve of a long service NCO were actually being filled by very motivated and experienced short-notice reservists (without said reservist being afflicted by stupid quantities of pointless paperwork). 9/13

The result however is that UAF units have lots of very experienced troops serving next to and at the same rank as newly mobilised troops, and this is not concentrated in a few formations but actually distributed across a lot of the force. 10/13

The UAF were enthusisatic about training provided by the US, UK and Canada (and it was a package at ascending echelons so the aid by these three countries can't really be separated out). But the Ukrainians entered this war at the beginning of reforming the force. 11/13

There is a false narrative that UAF success is because of NATO training. NATO training helped. But in many ways the 'eight years' that Brig Gen Hilbert speaks of both shows how much impact training can have, and how much more could have been achieved. 12/13

There is an interesting lesson here about avoiding self-replication when providing training. The Ukrainian model has proven successful, but resembles Finland's approach more than the US. NATO should be cautious about telling Finns about 'best practice' if it joins. 13/13