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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29283 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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So, in Polish internet, there's currently some noise about mobilization. One user got summoned for the month-long military exercises, which supposedly ends with being forced to take an oath (which seems like a weird concept), and then being moved into 'active reserve'. Which means you can potentially get summoned for such exercises for 90 days per year.

A (translated) summary/context from /r/Polska:

1/ On the first of December, on the Wykop.pl, one user made an submission, saying that he had received a summons to undergo 33 days of training from the WCR (military recruitment center) in Sieradz. He had not done any military service before.

The post was quickly upvoted onto the frontpage and received nearly 7000 upvotes and 2000 comments.

2/ Gradually, from the Wykop portal, the topic began to make its way into our subreddit. One of the first extensive posts analyzing the situation was I got a summons to the army - what's next? by /u/emotional_penalty, which got almost 1500 upvotes and over 1000 comments.

3/ Questions and discussions began to emerge en masse both on Wykop and here to determine the grounds for such an appointment. The same user posted a local radio station's interview with a WCR Sieradz employee, who said that such summons are correct, and failure to appear comes with severe consequences.

4/ The topic began to grow more and more. Someone threw around the idea that the cause of the problem is the amendment to the Law on Universal Defense Obligation passed in the parliament this year, which imposes the possibility of taking a civilian with an assigned category of military fitness for military exercises.

5/ Upon reaching the parliamentary vote, it turns out that all deputies of all parties voted in favor of the law, except for half of the Confederation, who abstained.

Direct link to the results of that vote. Voted: 455, For: 450, Against: 0, Abstained: 5, Didn't vote: 5

6/ At this point, the "Wykop Effect" is now in full force, and the mainstream media are beginning to write about the issue. Examples of publications from more reliable and well-known media: 1, 2, 3

In addition, all sorts of commentators, influencers and various other social media figures + some politicians also write about it, some even manage to enrage their constituents

7/ Here we are.

Note that there are a lot of inconsistencies in individual posts, but also in individual media articles. This is characteristic of this "affair". Some sources say that no one at all except volunteers will be taken for the exercise, others that there will be 200000 people, others that several thousand. The form and timing of the exercises also varies, from 33 days as in "patient zero" from the Wykop, to 2 days as in a recent interview with the WCR's head of recruitment

As for the bill and the vote, it's worth noting that one of the biggest misrepresentations right now is to blame the issue on the current law. Yes, such a provision for the possibility of calling up a passive reserve for exercises exists, and deputies actually voted for this law. However, this is not a new provision.

In the amendment to the law from 2014, adopted by the Ewa Kopacz government, one can find:

1a. The peacetime military service obligation of persons transferred to the reserve who are not reserve soldiers shall consist of military exercises.

The law introduces the possibility of a civilian with a military category being called up for compulsory military exercises. Interestingly, concerns were already raised back then, and the military leadership reassured the public that this regulation is just a legal loophole, and that in practice they will not use it. Sample article from 2015

TL;DR: It is unclear what is true and what is not. Since 2014, the military has had the legal possibility to call up civilians for military exercises. In all likelihood, a summons does not yet imply the necessity to go to the exercises, but only to appear and present one's opinion on the subject and an individual assessment of whether or not the person will take such exercises. Potentially, if there are any such summons at all, they will mainly involve people in the medical field and, for example, professional drivers and mechanics.

@AM_Zukowska is a member of parliament, left-wing. Translation of some tweets:

@KorolukM: I pay mandatory taxes and expect the government to ensure my defense from that, not treat me like potential cannon meat. If it's not enough, I can pay more.

If you like the state shitting into your face, then by all means, no kink shaming. But don't throw that shit at others.

@AM_Zukowska: That is, how exactly, with whom is it to provide defense? Someone has to serve in the army and in case of war the state has to have trained conscripts. Sorry. Ideally, wars would not exist. But there have been wars since the dawn of mankind.

@nalu__xx: For you to write such a thing.... Well, I won't say that I'm not disappointed

@AM_Zukowska: I wrote that, because I feel responsible for the country.

@MoistureBusters: And is Private Anna-Maria going for training too?

@AM_Zukowska: I do not have a military qualification. I think that, unfortunately, with an eye defect of -7 diopters and retinal detachment I would not get one.

@Vimis23: So then what do you think, compulsory service for men and women? What do you say to that? Everyone for conscription. Equality is equality.

@AM_Zukowska: There has been no compulsory conscription for anyone since 2009. Military service is voluntary. There are, however, military exercises for those with a Category A military qualification. Since 2014, they are no longer only for reserve soldiers, because since 2009 we have less and less reserve.

I've also translated a text published by "Krytyka Polityczna", which is left-wing. Relevant context: in February there was a poll asking about support for mandatory conscription, here are the results, by gender. Women: 49% for, 47% against. Men: 39% for, 58% against.

Translation is in the separate comment (reply to this one), due to character count limit.

Interesting. Poland has been conducting a major military build up recently, buying a large number of Korean and American tanks, to go with their Leopards and upgraded T-72s. This quasi-training/mobilization would make sense to go with that. I don't understand what the point is, in strategic terms. They're in NATO, they've got good relations with the US. They've already got a large army by NATO standards. They can expect the rest of NATO to support them in a war.

What is the point of scrambling to buy hundreds of modern MBTs and creating a logistical nightmare? They're under a nuclear umbrella and their treaty allies have a military budget 10-20x larger than the only vaguely threatening force in the region? The only area Russia has parity is nuclear weapons, indeed they have superiority in that they have 2000 tactical nukes, much more than NATO. So what good is this large conventional force? I suppose it could help out the Ukrainians. But how does assisting Ukraine improve Polish security?

Imagine that the Russians had quickly won the war in Ukraine. Does it follow that they would invade Poland, who is in NATO and protected by nuclear powers? Poland also hasn't been fighting a low-level conflict with a Russian minority either, as in Ukraine and Georgia. There are Russian minorities in the Baltics and there's Transnistria, but there's no actual fighting there.

Now since Russia hasn't quickly won the war in Ukraine, surely it is even less likely that they would attack Poland. If there is a war between NATO and Russia, Russia would quickly start to lose. Then they'd use their massive advantage in tactical nukes to compensate, that's longstanding Russian doctrine. So what good are the tanks and the large conventional force Poland is making? Other than assisting with delusional US wars in the Middle East (Poland was amongst those who enthusiastically joined Iraq II), what can they do?

I suppose the Poles have been burnt by trusting their allies before. Maybe they think it's better to be safe than sorry. However, I think that the armies of Poland and Europe generally are just opportunistically expanding themselves now that they've got a decent-sounding excuse. Apart from tactical/strategic nukes and an embarrassing shortage of ammunition, they've already got more than they need.

Setting aside projecting one's own viewpoint of someone else's interests onto them, the key point of the armor procurement is likely tech transfer and modernization away from Warsaw-pact era templates with an eye for future European market competition. The Ukrainian purchase Korean tanks has indicators of a technology transfer and local production deal, with the potential for a future Europe-based tank co-development program between Poland and Korea that could try and compete in the European market.

In general arms procurement, the seller wants to make the tanks at their own home, and keep the techs involved to themselves, while the buyers want the tanks made in their home, and to get technology transfers. The major western tank producers- US, UK, France, and Germany- have export-variants, but are generally tight-fisted with technology transfers. In the European military market context, the German Leopard 2 is the main legacy main battle tank of Europe, and has a preponderance of scale, but with modernization techs controlled by the German industry. The Koreans, by contrast, have a low-key reputation of being a bit more flexible with technology transfer concessions as their way to try and break into other markets, and Polish government's press on their priorities indicate Polish manufacturing base was a key priority. Add in that one of the model purchases is a model which allegedly hasn't even finished the design phase yet, as well as some floated discussion of future joint ventures, in the context of the European market dynamics where many military sales in most European countries must de facto come from another European country outside of technology-specific offerings...

In the near term, the immediate purchase of Korean tanks is more akin to a ring-swap replacement of the legacy Soviet-era T-##s the Poles still have. These Soviet tanks remain a major part of the inventory, but are long-term dead ends. These are almost certainly going to be sent to Ukraine in some form or fashion in the next year, when an infusion of armor would simultaneously give Ukraine armor and maneuver capacity and reduce the Polish logistics burden. Whether you agree with it or not, the Poles believe helping the Ukrainians throw the Russians out entirely is a major national interest, and playing a key role in doing so is almost certain to get them far more reconstruction access and integration for longer-term alignment for the post-war. Your evaluation may differ, but in consideration of future transfers, the immediate purchases is a substitution for 'good enough' tanks in the interim, but also the hook to open/expand the longer-term benefits.

In the medium term, Poland- which while it's had a large tank industry hasn't had exactly a modern one- will likely receive Korean technology transfers as part of the manufacturing/maintaining the current and future design tanks. The Korean technology transfer will be used to modernize Poland's own military industrial base, increasing its competitiveness inside the European market and abroad and reducing dependence on the primary European tank supplier, Germany, for non-warsaw pact tanks. This is, on its own, raising another competitor for the Koreans, but the opening purchase and Korea's own strategic prioritization is a 'worth it.' The Koreans get market access into Europe, expand production lines and logistics support that could be used to support Korea in case of a future conflict disrupting South Korea's domestic supply lines, build internal rapport with a fellow American ally, and so on.

The longer term prospect, more tentative and possible than decisive, is the prospect for Korea and Poland to do future joint armor/APC/combat vehicle design projects in the future, with the goal of competing with established European producers. The Koreans on their own would have virtually no hope of breaking into the European arms market, where many domestic procurement pressures are for European-production lines, but a 'Polish' vehicle could easily become a standard in parts of Europe, especially if it comes with the sort of integration/technology transfer that the Germans and French resist. In turn, joint ventures could also have variants aimed at other regions, whether the South Koreans and the Poles could work their separate lines of influence when lobbying for the sale on joint projects that- because of tech alignment and shared base- both would split the profits. This is all tentative, but possible, if developed on the basis of a techs-for-tanks transfer.

Perun came to much the same conclusion with some additional minor comments about why Poland might want a large conventional military force rather than just relying on NATO/Nuclear options. Essentially +1 to above.

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