Ukraine's strong military - and its ties to California's National Guard

Jump to 1993 when Ukraine became a charter member of the U.S. National Guard Bureau’s State Partnership Program along with Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Each country was paired with a state, and Ukraine paired with California.

The program was based on an American suggestion to NATO. It began as an effort to help former Soviet and Warsaw Pact nations reform their militaries along Western lines, National Guard Bureau officials said on background. The program had many objectives, including helping the nations become more interoperable with NATO forces, helping the partners become more transparent in military affairs and, perhaps most importantly, helping the nations know how a military works in a democracy...

Click to expand...

Today, there are 93 nations partnered with Guard organizations from all 50 states, three territories and the District of Columbia.

Click to expand...

Trust was further cemented when partners fought alongside U.S. service members in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Click to expand...

Baldwin said the effort to train the Ukrainian military is really a team effort. California Guardsmen worked alongside NATO trainers and trainers from the active-duty forces — especially after Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014 and illegally annexed Crimea.

Ukraine’s government turned decisively to the West, and the training took on new importance. Ukrainians were very receptive. Before 2014, the California Guard would send a few dozen trainers at a time to Ukraine. After the Russian invasion, this commitment numbered in the hundreds and training accelerated...

In training areas in Ukraine and California, the Army Guard and Air Guard in California worked to develop Ukrainian capabilities. If they didn’t have the capability, Baldwin worked with National Guard units around the United States to make sure Ukrainian service members got the training they needed.

It was more than small unit tactics, he said. The Guardsmen worked in logistics and sustainment — the lifeblood of any military. They worked to establish and build a Ukrainian NCO corps. They helped train staff officers in defending against and launching cyber operations.

Guardsmen even worked in the headquarters of the Ukrainian military to establish command and control procedures and help build a Joint Operations Center modeled on what the U.S. military would have. Guardsmen helped them “reorganize the way that their staffs are organized at the general staff and at the Ministry of Defense,” he said. “We even embedded (Ukrainian) staff officers as members of our staff.”

Baldwin went to Ukraine in November and discussed with Ukrainian military leaders the disturbing buildup of Russian troops on Ukraine’s borders. “At the time, they kind of knew that it was coming, but they didn’t want to believe it,” he said. “It wasn’t until January that the most senior Ukrainian leaders started [to] recognize that this could be a possibility.”

Ukrainian leaders then began talking about specific needs they would have if Russia invaded. “They came within a day or two of predicting when the invasion was going to come,” he said. “But because of that partnership, and our ability to have frank discussions about what they needed in the eleventh hour to get ready, I [hope] it very much helped them prepare and to do so well in the opening hours of the invasion.”

Baldwin said that within half an hour of the Russian invasion, he began getting calls from senior Ukrainian leaders. “The first calls were, ‘Hey, we’re under attack,’ and then the calls through that night were, ‘Here’s the help that we desperately need,’” he said.

The first calls were for more Stingers, Javelins and other anti-tank weapons, he said.

“Within 24 hours, we had a pretty comprehensive list of all of their requirements for military equipment — both lethal and non-lethal,” the general said.

The California Guard stood up their Joint Operations Center and they were seeing the same things their Ukrainian partners were posting in Kyiv. Baldwin passed the request to U.S. European Command and the Joint Staff in the Pentagon.

Click to expand...

Antiwar said:

The sooner humans destroy the environment beyond disbelief, the sooner humanity will seriously try to take care of the only habitable planet.

Click to expand...

Rexedgar said:

How is this relevant to the thread?

Click to expand...

Antiwar said:

Warring (and just your everyday militarism) are one of the most destructive things on the planet.

Click to expand...

Rexedgar said:

, &

Click to expand...

Antiwar said:

Wisdom doesn't always come with age.

Click to expand...

Rexedgar said:

Proving that ignorance is bliss…….

Click to expand...

Antiwar said:

I get it. You were in the US armed forces, you're retired, you're bored, you're trolling, you lack wisdom regarding the environment, and you're afraid to engage my commentary directly. You're probably not unlike the older gentleman at the library yesterday that I politely said "Excuse me please" to twice because his stuff was blocking the computer I was assigned. I should've tried to log in on another of the several open computers, especially since he wasn't wearing a mask, and because I didn't want to bother him.

Click to expand...