Confronting Complacency
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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NATO Enhanced Forward Presence
13 min read
The article discusses NATO's NSATU and security assistance to Ukraine. Understanding NATO's Enhanced Forward Presence provides crucial context for how the alliance has been deterring Russian aggression in Eastern Europe since 2017, directly relevant to the complacency theme about democratic nations' defense postures.
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Totalitarian democracy
10 min read
The article's central theme contrasts democratic complacency with authoritarian aggression. This concept, exploring how democracies can become illiberal or how democratic processes can be subverted, provides intellectual context for understanding the vulnerabilities the author warns about in Western societies.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is the slogan of the complacent, the arrogant or the scared. It’s an excuse for inaction, a call to non-arms. It’s a mind-set that assumes (or hopes) that today’s realities will continue tomorrow in a tidy, linear and predictable fashion. Pure fantasy. Colin Powell, “Lessons for Living, and Success in Business or War”
It has been a few days since I posted here.
Sorry!
I have just returned from a 22 day overseas trip which saw me visit Ukraine, Poland, Germany and Canada. Frankly, the jet lag on return home to Australia has been a little more than I expected. For a couple of days, this has interfered with my writing in general, and my posts here.
Now my brain seems to have returned to normal operations, I wanted to post a couple things about my just-completed visit. I know that many of you have read my Ukraine Dispatches.
My first dispatch, which covered Ukrainian military training as well as a certain incident with a snake, is available to read at this link. My second one is available here. My third dispatch, an interview with Nataliie Lutsenko, is available at this link. The fourth dispatch is here. My fifth dispatch, about Ukraine’s assault forces, can be read at this link. The sixth dispatch, on air defence, is available here.
Thank you for reading these articles. I hope they provided some insights about the war in Ukraine that were useful. I will be posting another piece shortly that wraps up the Ukraine visit from the strategic issues through to battlefield insights.
Ukraine was just the start of my around-the-world research trip. During a short trip to Germany, I was able to visit the Security Assistance Group-Ukraine (SAG-U) as well as the organisation called NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU).
The SAG-U is a U.S. initiative that has handled the coordination of security assistance to Ukraine. Its role has been transitioning to NATO’s NSATU (see below) but it still is responsible for many operational aspects of the combined efforts to support Ukraine.
A NATO-led NSATU has assumed many training and force development responsibilities from SAG-U. Its mission is to coordinate the provision, transfer, and repair of military equipment, and to lead training efforts for Ukrainian forces in allied
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