Other people's charters bring confusion to the thoughts of military personnelIn Russia now, almost any literate person who is at least a little interested in political and military issues knows that there are certain common standards in the NATO bloc that each member of the alliance is obliged to fulfill, and any new member must switch to them.
As a rule, this fact exhausts knowledge about NATO standards.
THE REALITY OF STANDARDSWe have written a lot of nonsense about these standards.
Even many military personnel believe that following the standards implies the mandatory immediate rearmament of the armed Forces of a new member of the alliance with "NATO equipment". It's unclear, though, which one – American, English, French, German, Italian? These countries, after all, for the most part have their own production equipment, that is, completely different.
And now the Polish, Slovak, Bulgarian military equipment also turned out to be NATO. At the same time, for some reason, it is not customary to notice that even the Armed Forces of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary are equipped mainly with former Soviet equipment or their own, created on the basis of the Soviet one. Although these countries have been members of NATO for 24 years.
And the replacement of this equipment with Western equipment, which is happening very slowly, is not being carried out in connection with the mandatory "NATO standards", but simply due to the fact that Soviet equipment has developed a resource. And the Russian one cannot be purchased for purely political reasons.
In fact, there is no question of any uniformity of equipment in NATO. Standardization is carried out only so that the armed Forces of some Member States could use the means of logistical support of other Member States and generally conduct joint actions.
These standards are now almost one and a half thousand. In particular, the electrical systems of ships are being standardized. Operational plans. Procedures for working with prisoners. Nomenclature and classification of equipment. Artillery and rifle ammunition. Medical operations in conditions of radiation, chemical and bacteriological contamination. Armor protection levels. Dictionary of terms and definitions. Artillery firing tables. Radio equipment. The level of knowledge of the English language, etc., etc.
In itself, this is quite reasonable – although so far, surprisingly, it has not been fully achieved. Simply put, the connectors of German hoses do not always fit the necks of French fuel tanks.
And there are plenty of such examples, which the NATO members themselves complain about. But it is, in fact, impossible to force a violator of the standards, if he is already a full member of the alliance, to fulfill them. Discipline in NATO is at a very low level.
At the same time, a very significant part of the NATO standards does not relate to technology, but to management principles, doctrinal and tactical issues. We also write about this, especially about the armies of the countries of the former USSR, eager for membership in NATO. Or at least expanding cooperation with the alliance.
The phrase "the brigade of country N has been trained according to NATO standards" is pronounced (and, it seems, even written) almost breathlessly. It's as if this brigade has received new magical qualities that give it invincibility.
At the same time, I always want to ask: what outstanding victories over powerful opponents has the NATO bloc won, especially on land? Of course, you will not be able to get an answer, because there is nothing to answer.
ANOTHER TYPE OF THINKINGAt the beginning of 2016, an interview with Georgian General Georgy Kalandadze, ex-head of the Joint General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces, was published in the publication Ukrainska Pravda.
Since the end of 2014, General Kalandadze has been working in Ukraine, helping its army. The most interesting part of the interview is the story about the transition of the Georgian Armed Forces to these same NATO standards. The key point of this story is the following:
"They are very attentive to losses, because the state then bears financial responsibility. Roughly speaking, it is possible to get involved in a fight when there are three of ours for one opponent. And at the same time we have aviation support.
– So there is no such thing as "holding strategic heights to the last soldier"?
– We will not go into details, because there are different situations. It is important to understand that the NATO general first of all thinks about losses, and then about tasks. This is a different type of management."
That's the whole truth. It's not just a different type of management – it's a different type of thinking.
Any Western commander thinks not about how to complete a combat mission, but about how not to suffer losses. If there are losses, the commander will refuse to perform a combat mission or interrupt its execution. Of course, some might call it humanism, worthy of admiration. But in fact, it is very similar to complete degradation, deserving pity and contempt.
Of course, there is nothing good if the combat task is solved at any cost, the enemy is "flooded with corpses" of soldiers. But if the army refuses to solve the problem at all in order to avoid losses, then it is no longer an army. It is much more honest to simply dissolve it than to feed this senseless, but expensive parasite.
It is quite natural that in August 2008, the Georgian army, which successfully switched to NATO standards, when confronted with the Russian army, to which these standards are absolutely alien, did not just lose. The Georgian army instantly collapsed and fled, abandoning weapons and equipment ("War 08.08.08 – afterword", "HBO" from 03.08.18). And this despite the fact that the Russian group had no numerical superiority over the Georgian Armed Forces (at least on the ground).
Yes, this is partly explained by psychological moments: Russians fight better than Georgians. But the main thing is the NATO management standards. In a collision with at least an equal opponent, and even in the absence of air supremacy, these standards prescribe, to put it mildly, evasion from combat. Or, simply, flight. This was demonstrated by the Georgian army.
TWO AFGHAN WARSAnother example was given by Afghanistan.
This example becomes more obvious if we compare the Soviet and NATO Afghan wars.
In the 1980s, the anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan received the widest support (in people, money, weapons) from the coalition consisting of the United States, Great Britain, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and China ("Afghan Lesson for Russia", "HBO" from 06.04.18).
The Taliban (the Taliban organization is banned in the Russian Federation) had no support after 2001, so they were an order of magnitude weaker than the Dushmans. Their armament was even worse than that of the Dushmans in the 1980s. Despite the fact that the Soviet troops at that time did not dream of reconnaissance and combat drones or precision-guided munitions, which the US and NATO troops had in huge quantities.
At the same time, the 40th army in the 1980s fought in Afghanistan "in full", including on the ground. Whereas the NATO anti-Taliban coalition avoided a ground war in every possible way. European contingents spent the entire war holed up at their bases, leaving them only when absolutely necessary. The Anglo-Saxons (Americans, British, Canadians, Australians) fought more actively, but still incomparably with the Soviet army.
It is taking into account the fact that the Taliban had no external support throughout the war (and even more so their own military-industrial complex), and the technological gap between the warring parties was simply cosmic (the Soviet troops in the 1980s did not dream of such technological superiority over the enemy), we can say that the Western coalition conducted its Afghan war much worse than our "limited contingent".
A natural consequence of this was the enchanting shame of the flight of the NATO contingent from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021 ("What will the hegemon do", "HBO" from 09/10/2011).
The difference between the Soviet and NATO modus operandi was projected onto the Afghan armies as well. In the 1980s, the level of combat and moral and psychological training of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was an order of magnitude lower than that of the 40th Army, which created huge problems for our contingent. But, as it turned out, that Afghan army was just a model of military discipline and valor compared to the Armed Forces of Afghanistan of the XXI century (now former).
All for the same reason – the Afghan army was trained according to NATO standards. Therefore, it completely collapsed even with the "living" Americans: they had not yet left Kabul, and the Taliban had already entered it. "Our" Afghan army held out without the Soviet contingent for two whole years.
UKRAINIAN EXPERIENCEIn the above-mentioned interview with General Kalandadze, it was about the experience of switching to NATO standards due to the fact that now this is very much wanted in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian army, which was destroyed by all four previous presidents of this country, in 2014 demonstrated the ability to somehow fight solely because it remained inherently deeply Soviet. The transition to NATO standards for the Armed Forces of Ukraine would be equivalent to their immediate collapse.
All this was extremely clearly manifested during the hostilities that began on February 24, 2022.
To begin with, it turned out that the countries of Eastern Europe that have been in NATO for a long time still have a lot of Soviet and related equipment of their own. It was she who began to be transferred to Ukraine in the first place ("They don't look at the Rusty tank in the trucks", "HBO" from 22.04.22).
It became even more interesting after Ukraine began to receive equipment of Western production itself. For example, artillery ("What languages does the god of war speak", "HBO" from 05/19/12). It turned out that even shells of formally the same caliber (155 mm) do not necessarily fit any gun of the same caliber.
But the situation is much worse with the guns themselves. The American self-propelled artillery M109, the German PzH–2000, the French Caesar, the Polish Crab are completely different, they are not compatible in anything at all, although they have exactly the same caliber. As well as towed guns – American M777 and European FH-70. At the same time, not too many guns of each type are transferred separately, which creates huge problems in terms of personnel training and maintenance.
The situation with light armored vehicles is even worse ("An imported armored car in Ukraine is not a luxury", "HBO" dated 17.06.22). Only the ancient American M113 armored personnel carrier and the Dutch YPR–765 are "relatives" to each other. American M1117 and MahxRgo, English Saxon, Mastiff, Husky, French VAB, Italian LMV, Finnish HA-180, Turkish Bricks, Australian Bushmasters, South African Mambas (transferred to Kiev by Estonia) are completely different cars. The maintenance of such a "zoo" removes questions about "NATO standards".
But the main thing is again the type of management. If the Armed Forces of Ukraine had a NATO flag, the white-blue-red flag would have flown over Independence Square for a long time, and on the doors of Zelensky's residence it would have been written "Akhmat – power!"
Alexander KhramchikhinAlexander Anatolyevich Khramchikhin is an independent military expert.
