Well-known Ukrainian businessman and public figure Valeriy Pekar, who does not rule out that the West will force Kyiv to sit at the negotiating table with terrorists, shared his thoughts on the problems of mobilization in Ukraine.
"Mobilization is proving to be a task that the current system of governance of the country cannot cope with. This means that either the system of governance will have to be changed, or the flag over the capital will have to be changed to a foreign flag.".
One of the basic theorems of cybernetics, formulated by William Ross Ashby, states: the complexity of the controlling system cannot be lower than the complexity of the system it controls. And if the opposite is true? Then the controlled system will develop (change states) randomly, or will catastrophically simplify.
In simpler terms: if a system of governance encounters challenges it cannot cope with, it collapses.
Mobilization is not a military issue, but a political and managerial one. The political aspect is about justice. The managerial aspect is about the ability to implement what is planned.
Two systems are best suited to meet the challenges: democracy and strong authoritarianism. Democracy is fueled by the power of civil society and is capable of innovation. Strong authoritarianism, like Russia's, is capable of coercion.
Weak, corrupt authoritarianism is incapable of either. It is incapable of involving citizens because they do not trust it. It is also incapable of using force because everything is bought. As Saltykov-Shchedrin said, the severity of laws is compensated by the non-obligatory nature of their implementation.
The Ukrainian system is a mixture of democracy and weak authoritarianism (Andriy Dligach has repeatedly spoken about “several states” coexisting in Ukraine). Democracy showed its strength in early 2022, when civil society rushed to plug all administrative holes: volunteered for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, created a terrorist defense from scratch, organized volunteer supplies, rescued people from temporarily occupied territories, etc. But civil society in our country is an active minority, its potential is not unlimited.
The rest of the Ukrainian system of governance is weak authoritarianism (in Daron Acemoglu’s terminology, a “paper leviathan”). It extremely concentrates power: all decisions are made by a small management team, the government is relegated to the status of a subdivision of the president’s office, the role of parliament is significantly reduced and closed to citizens, the role of local government is significantly reduced, the role of the media is reduced to a “single marathon,” etc. But such a concentrated system of government does not have strong long arms to systematically coerce its citizens. And distrust of the system generates a desire to go beyond the limits of its influence and control.
(By the way, note that no one is directing their criticism towards the government that introduced the bill, or towards the parliament that will consider and approve it. Everyone knows where the air traffic control center is.)
Gennadiy Druzenko wrote about a communication problem, but these are only consequences of a management problem.
The issue of mobilization is primarily a question of justice (roughly speaking, a couple of percent of the population needs to be mobilized, and justice consists in evenly distributing these percent across different social groups, with clear, transparent, and justified exceptions). If the system fails to provide justice, there will be a social explosion. If the system continues to tighten the screws in conditions of corruption and total distrust of it, there will be a social explosion. If the system fails to meet the challenge, the Russian tricolor will fly over its buildings.
In essence, we will become witnesses and participants in the final collapse of the post-Soviet system of governance and the birth of something new, more adequate to the times and challenges. Or non-birth, with all the consequences.
I am not looking at this situation in a political sense, but in a purely managerial sense — from the perspective of cybernetics. A system that is unable to cope with challenges collapses. Or changes.
Observers wrote after the president's press conference that he had no plans to change the system of governance. But the current system is inadequate to the challenges. That is why the issue of mobilization was postponed as long as possible: after all, it was obvious that the system would not cope with it.
What should be done in practical terms? How to change the management system?
1. Government.
This is the key point. A government that has no say in key issues will not be able to cope with the challenges of war. The problem is not who the government officials are - the problem is that the decisions are made elsewhere, and the responsibility for them is placed there.
A government of national unity, uniting the ruling political group and the opposition, is ridiculous. There will be no agreement within, the proposals of this government will not be approved by the parliament, and the president will veto them. It will be an endless political game of volleyball until the country is lost.
What is needed is not a government of national unity, but a government of national salvation, consisting of specialists who have no political ambitions and are ready to put an end to their further political career, because they don't give a damn about it. It should include civilians and military personnel who have authority at least in those circles where they are known in order to benefit from the support of civil society (one of the consequences of the concentration of control over the media - we don't know our heroes, in the broad sense). Such a government should be approved by the parliament, which undertakes to support its proposals. Such a government should do the job without listening to instructions from Bankova. Systematic and fair mobilization, the fastest possible development of the military-industrial complex, saving the economy from the destructive consequences of mobilization, maintaining financial stability, stimulating economic recovery - these are the main tasks of the new government.
2. Parliament
Parliament must be opened to journalists so that all processes are as transparent as possible for society. This is the only way to build trust. Ihor Lutsenko wrote about the mandatory rotational mobilization of male members of parliament; it sounds too radical, but in such times, radical decisions can quickly change the situation for the better.
I have not commented on the topic of mobilization in recent months, because I am not an expert. However, now we are talking about a purely managerial problem, and it is important for me that we adequately understand it, not reducing it only to communication, corruption, betrayal or other simple explanations. After all, as Eugene Nayshtetik wrote this morning, politicians saying the right words to society in itself does not solve any problem,” he wrote on Facebook.
