Changes to the C2 system urgently needed. Lt. Gen. Król: The Polish military is ready [PART 2 OF THE INTERVIEW]

The new command system is intended to make integration into the Alliance system easier, as the current arrangement is not fully compatible with NATO’s system. How will the new system address regional security challenges? Cooperation with Germany is also becoming increasingly important in this context. This was discussed at the NATO summit, as the Americans are making certain adjustments.

As far as contingency plans, the roles of individual Allies and the principles governing their cooperation are concerned, many issues are classified. I can say, however, that the system we are building will be institutionally and procedurally fully consistent with NATO’s system. We want to create a situation in which our national structures can be integrated into Alliance structures and will also be capable of commanding Allied forces. 

We must be prepared for various scenarios, including those involving a reduction in US forces in Europe. The system under construction will give us full national flexibility and preserve our ability to command the Polish Armed Forces irrespective of the configuration of the chain of command and the role played within it by Allied forces.

The Polish Land Forces, also as a result of modernisation and the expansion of capabilities, including artillery, are becoming one of the leaders on NATO’s eastern flank. Is the command system intended to reflect the potential that we already possess and continue to develop?

Absolutely. At present, the territory of the Republic of Poland contains the potential for two corps and, in practice, three. It is essential to build a structure within a single national and Allied command network that would have the authority to coordinate preparations for defence as early as peacetime, including activities connected with deterrence. The expanding artillery and missile strike capability will be properly incorporated into the command system being built, ensuring that operational effects are used to the greatest possible extent in order to achieve the objectives of a joint operation. This will apply at the tactical and operational levels and, in the future, also at the strategic level, across multiple domains rather than the land domain alone.

I would emphasise that this is not about implementing regional plans, but about ordinary activities associated with maintaining coherent deterrence against an adversary. The future commands responsible for our security will have this within their remit. As I have already mentioned, in peacetime, during the deterrence phase, commands operate in much the same way as they do in wartime. We deter, but if deterrence fails and a direct threat emerges, we will take decisions connected with Articles 4 and 5 of the Washington Treaty and respond to the situation in a manner appropriate to the threat, while being properly prepared for defence.

Critics of the reform argue that the command system should not be changed while a war is taking place abroad, because we might become confused by the new system ourselves while simultaneously making the adversary’s task easier. What is your response?

If we had a system in which service commanders were responsible for individual domains, we could introduce any minor adjustments that might be required over very extended timescales.

I would, however, like to point out one thing: both Russia and Ukraine are introducing a very large number of structural and organisational changes, including changes to their chains of command, while the current conflict is still under way.

While combat operations are being conducted.

During the transition from peacetime to war, non-combat organisational structures require transformation, procedural harmonisation, and a process through which personnel from the various commands, and the commanders themselves, become familiar with one another and learn to operate as an integrated team. A system that was not ready to command a defensive operation, together with personnel unprepared to exercise command, would mean that we could not generate the best decisions in either operational or time-sensitive terms. We would pay for the disruption caused by implementing structural changes during a conflict, while having to fight and transform simultaneously, with the blood of our children.

The Russians are establishing additional divisions and have completely changed the structure of their military districts on our eastern and northern flanks during this war. The Ukrainians are additionally establishing 16 corps, including 13 army corps, because their previous command structures, which were based to some extent on the Soviet model, have proved ineffective. Those structures are unable to coordinate a large number of brigades across an extensive area or integrate them with additional higher-echelon capabilities, such as fires or reconnaissance. 

The Ukrainians are conducting intensive activities in the deep-operations area and are consequently establishing a deep-strike command and a joint rapid-reaction forces command. We began analysing what the future command system should look like in the context of deep strikes more than a year ago. Everything we observe in Ukraine is analysed and, following adaptation to Polish conditions, incorporated into designs for implementation. 

The worst possible time to introduce structural changes in the Polish Armed Forces would undoubtedly be the moment at which we were forced to begin them because war had broken out. Ukraine has given us time, and we must use it to prepare an optimum command system before a potential conflict begins. We nevertheless intend to implement the changes in an organised manner, while remembering one thing: the present command system works, albeit imperfectly. We do not intend to dismantle it in any way during the reform. The most important premise of the command-system reform is that throughout the entire process we will retain the ability to respond to potential threats by consolidating and reorganising structures, rather than implementing change by completely disbanding existing commands.

What does the above mean, in practical terms?

The Air Operations Centre, the Maritime Operations Centre and the Corps Command in Kraków will remain operational at all times and, should there be a need to command designated elements of the Armed Forces, they will be capable of carrying out their tasks.

It is not the case that we are dismantling existing structures. We are reorganising them, but we are doing so on the basis of centres that already perform operational tasks today. We are expanding them by adding significantly greater planning and combat-support capabilities, together with the ability to adapt and modernise continuously.

The only new element in this arrangement will be the Land Forces Command, which we will have to build from the ground up. A corps cannot perform several operational functions simultaneously, particularly during high-intensity operations.

What is the timetable for the reform? Will 2027 be the key year?

If we are able to secure an amendment to the Homeland Defence Act, we will begin the process of changing the command-and-control system as quickly as possible.

General, you have also spoken about long-range strike capabilities, referred to as Deep Strike, which are becoming increasingly important in NATO planning. Do we want to establish a separate deep-strike domain, or should it operate within the Land Forces?

As you have observed, we now speak of multi-domain operations, which means that deep-strike tasks cannot be performed by a single domain alone. We assume that effectors may come from different domains, and we do indeed intend to develop such capabilities.

By their nature, these capabilities must operate and be refined at the tactical level while carrying out tasks in support of the operational and strategic levels.

What about the capabilities and command connected with space operations, ARGUS? Are they to be linked to the General Staff because that is where the strategic level is located?

Yes, for a very simple reason. Joint operations are conducted on the basis of the three traditional domains: the Air Force, Navy and Land Forces. One of those commands is always designated as the priority command by the joint commander because, during a particular phase of an operation, it is generating the most important effects and must therefore be supported by the others.

All three of those commanders will certainly be subordinated to the Commander of the Joint Armed Forces.

As regards the cyber and space domains, however, no state places them under the direct authority of NATO command structures. They remain national domains. They generate effects for the operational commander and for the domain commanders carrying out tasks both on the main axis of operations and on supporting axes. In the cyber domain, this includes securing all command-and-control and data-exchange systems, but it may also include cyber strikes against specific targets in order to generate an operational-level effect and support combat in the traditional domains. Effects in the space domain may include securing communications systems and providing situational awareness, including information on the condition of the operational environment. These domains do not, however, perform tasks solely for the operational commander. They also support the strategic commander and carry out additional tasks for the benefit of the state defending itself. That is why they will be subordinated within the structure of the Chief of the General Staff.

We plan to establish a Space Operations and Environmental Support Command. This will be a new command. Today, we have the Geospatial Intelligence and Satellite Services Agency, and we want to begin building space forces.

Based on ARGUS?

Yes. I would emphasise that we are not dismantling anything. Rather, we are reorganising and expanding existing capabilities, providing more resources for their development and planning to increase personnel numbers wherever necessary.

During the first half of July, General Salzman, the Chief of Space Operations of the US Space Force, visited Poland. We signed a cooperation agreement with the United States Space Command. We need American support in many areas, including the coherent development of the space domain in both its civilian and military dimensions, the establishment of a Space Operations Command, and the training of our personnel within US space-domain structures. We must develop new capabilities to defend national assets in space. In the future, we must also establish our own courses from the ground up for personnel assigned to the space domain, as well as for decision-makers and commanders. The Americans will assist us in this process.

General Salzman made a very interesting observation about what we will require in order to fight effectively in a future war: “You will not have the capability to conduct multi-domain operations unless you have capabilities in the space domain.”

Space capabilities are very important, but I would like to return, so to speak, to Earth. This is not connected with the command-and-control system, but it has a major impact on the functioning of the Armed Forces. Around 4,000 personnel are involved in duties on the border. Many officers and commanders argue that the military should withdraw from the border and return to training because the current model is ineffective. We can see that various technological solutions, including unmanned ground vehicles, are to be deployed there. Could they be introduced more widely across the Armed Forces?

The time for changes on the border has certainly arrived. I always look at this from an operational perspective.

The Armed Forces have lacked a particular capability that I call operations assessment. This means conducting a military assessment of whether we are carrying out an operation properly, for example, on the border, how we are conducting it and what effects we are achieving. Within the new structures, we would also like staff planning elements and other operational components of the system to analyse the effects being achieved and the purpose of the operation: whether we are conducting the operation correctly and in the correct manner. The military should periodically present the political leadership with the results of such an analysis in the form of a professional report containing recommendations on how operations should proceed. This is a fundamental requirement for operations conducted by democratic states and has been described for many years in Alliance doctrinal documents.

As regards the operation on the border, we are at a very important point. Even with our currently limited analytical capabilities, we are able to provide the political level with a military assessment of the next phase of the operation. I do not want to go into detail, but we would like to reduce this part of our activity.

What about the use of modern technologies?

We must expand the use of modern technologies, not only on the border. During and after the First World War, mass was built using manpower. Today, mass is generated using drones, robots and technology, so that people do not have to perform extremely dangerous tasks that machines can carry out ten times faster and ten times better. The principle is becoming that drones and robots are used first and on the front line. Only when no other option exists, or when the situation permits, do professionally trained and best-equipped soldiers enter. We will fight as commanders fought on the Western Front during the Second World War, using the method of “steel against steel”—iron against iron—and not as the Soviets did then and the Russians do today in Ukraine: “blood against steel”—blood against iron.

New and disruptive technologies mean that we must keep pace with changes in the operational environment, hence the investment in technology. This is happening everywhere. Personnel involvement will also be reduced because we will be able to use significantly more sensors and drones to monitor the entire length of the border. 

In recent years, the Chief of the General Staff has stressed that the focus should not be solely on modernisation, but more broadly on transformation. Nevertheless, we must also say something about acquiring new equipment. The procurement system has evolved considerably, including through the establishment of the Armament Agency and the Technical Modernisation Council. Under the new system, will the service commanders regain a stronger position in defining requirements and developing capabilities? 

I would prefer not to comment on the Armament Agency because that falls within the remit of the Minister of National Defence. I can, however, explain what our plans envisage in relation to transformation and technical modernisation.

First and foremost, it must be properly understood that transformation is a continuous process, continuous transformation in NATO terminology. The Americans have been speaking about this for many years and implemented such an approach in their own forces a long time ago, at least from 2024.  Transformation rests on three pillars. The first is technical modernisation. The second comprises organisational structures, processes and procedures. The third is organisational culture.  

We have not yet discussed the third pillar, but it will involve a very substantial change in the culture within which commands operate. As regards technical modernisation, we would like to retain the sound principles associated with the operation of expert institutions. In our opinion, that was the correct solution. Commanders were able, through their representatives, to have a voice in the process of selecting and procuring the best means of combat. We would now like directorates, including those responsible for particular branches and capabilities, to be responsible within the new structures not only for participating in Armed Forces programming, but also for planning the development of their respective branches and, most importantly, implementing those plans.

So there will not be a single decision-making chain for modernisation, but several lines of responsibility?

It will work as follows: the service commanders will assume the General Commander’s role in technical modernisation because they will be responsible for developing capabilities within their respective domains. The Commander of the Joint Armed Forces will be responsible for harmonisation and for ensuring the capability to conduct joint and multi-domain operations.

The Joint Armed Forces Commander will have to oversee the acquisition process to ensure that systems can “talk” to one another and that commands are able to prepare for joint, coherent action. The point is that, for example, the Navy Commander, acting as the supported commander in a joint operation, must be able to employ combat units and effectors belonging to the Land Forces and Air Force. Cross-domain interoperability between communications systems, weapon systems, sensors and effectors at the tactical level must be ensured and must become the standard.

All these matters will subsequently be referred to the General Staff. The Land Forces Commander—not the Commander of the Joint Armed Forces—will be the Chief of the General Staff’s principal adviser on capabilities developed in the land domain.  The Air Force Commander and Navy Commander will perform the same role as principal advisers. Responsibility for modernisation will therefore rest with the domain commanders, not with the Commander of the Joint Armed Forces.

So the objective is to prevent institutions from obstructing one another?

The objective is to ensure that two institutions are not responsible for the same thing. The Commander of the Joint Armed Forces cannot become an additional level through which domain development is channelled using further administrative procedures that would generate a substantial number of additional posts.

There is a direct transformational command relationship between the Chief of the General Staff and the domain commanders. NATO operates in the same way. The individual domains report their requirements and needs directly to SACEUR, while informing the Joint Force Commanders at Naples, Brunssum and Norfolk.

The joint commander is not interested in the precise details of every capability held internally by each domain commander. The joint commander is interested in the operational effects that the domain commander can contribute to an operation. The most important question is whether the commanders of the traditional domains will be able to support one another and whether they will have the capability and capacity to integrate capabilities and effects from the cyber and space domains.

Not whether it will be a particular tank, but what capability will be achieved.

Exactly. It is about the capability to perform eight operational functions: command and control, intelligence and reconnaissance, fires, manoeuvre, force protection, logistical support, information activities and civil-military cooperation. These functions must enable effects to be achieved in accordance with the operational plan: for example, determining what effect the land domain can generate within the individual operational functions in support of an Air Force-led effort to degrade the adversary’s anti-access/area-denial system.

We have covered many subjects, but finally I would like to ask about the Special Forces, one of the flagship capabilities of the Polish Armed Forces, which have been capable of commanding a NATO component for more than a decade. Do we still intend to expand them in terms of personnel and modernisation? What structural role will they have in the new system? 

In our view, there is a significant need to invest in modern Special Forces whose fields of activity and operation will be considerably broader than they are today.

The war in Ukraine, the activities of the United States Armed Forces in Venezuela and elsewhere, and Israel’s activities in Iran all demonstrate that we must prepare our Armed Forces for operations in the twenty-first-century operational environment.

For offensive operations?

For all activities that protect the state and provide the political leadership with flexibility in employing the capabilities of the entire Armed Forces, across all domains and all operational environments, including the cognitive environment and combat in cyberspace.

That is why we want the Special Forces to be subordinated to the Chief of the General Staff: precisely because of the modern requirements governing their employment and their conduct of operations from the strategic to the operational level.

There are also legal provisions restricting the employment of the Special Forces both within the country and outside it. Could those regulations be amended as part of the reform?

The problem is that the current arrangements restrict, to some extent, the flexibility with which the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland can be employed. The Russians do not have this problem.

The reform should support greater flexibility in the employment of the Polish Armed Forces. Not every necessary provision has to be stated explicitly in publicly available legislation. Other documents can contain matters required from the perspective of our national interest. I would prefer not to discuss this in too much detail.  

We want to create the best possible conditions for the state to use its military instruments flexibly. The legislation will also provide for several tasks intended to serve that purpose. We want to ensure the flexible employment of the Polish Armed Forces, particularly during the deterrence phase. Once war breaks out, no one has any doubts about what must be done, and we must prepare ourselves properly for it. The deterrence phase is crucial.

The security environment and the operational environment are changing rapidly. Threats are increasing, and our law should give us flexibility in preparing for active defence and preventing surprise. We are part of NATO, so we will not conduct aggressive operations. We must, however, prepare to conduct modern defensive operations during the deterrence phase, as well as modern multi-domain (all-domain operations) before war breaks out.

Does the political will currently exist to bring the reform to completion? We know that attempts to introduce such changes have been made before.

This is already the third attempt. In fact, the military is ready. We have even prepared the infrastructure for the new commands. The reform will therefore not be particularly expensive. As I have already said, establishing the new commands will not require everything to be built from scratch. Many elements are already prepared. Preparatory activities began in 2020.

I would add that representatives of departments within the Ministry of National Defence, the National Security Bureau and other structures are participating in the current work. My deputy is General Dariusz Łukowski, Director of the Strategy and Defence Planning Department. This is not an individual project. It is a team project being prepared in close cooperation with other state authorities.

Will the system also result in changes within the General Staff itself?

We would like it to.

In order to strengthen the role of the Chief of the General Staff?

We want the General Staff to become a strategic-level command. Its precise internal configuration is a secondary matter. The most important thing is for the Republic of Poland to possess a strategic-level command, because the General Staff is currently part of the administrative apparatus of the Ministry of National Defence.

There are many ambiguous provisions in our legislation, including the Homeland Defence Act and the Act on the Office of the Minister of National Defence. For example, the law states that the Chief of the General Staff exercises command through the service commanders. But what about other structures, such as the Support Inspectorate? The inspectors responsible for the branches of the armed forces, training and unmanned command systems are located within the General Command. This raises the question of how the command relationships between them and the inspectors of the Land Forces, Air Force and Navy should be understood. Which of them has priority, and under what circumstances? It should also be noted that the General Commander of the Branches of the Armed Forces is the direct superior of 49 organisational units. That is several times more than the number indicated by the fundamental principles of management science.

Amending the legislation should also allow us to introduce provisions that will make the commands more operationally focused. Each of them must be prepared to operate in peacetime, crisis and war. Each must have its own place, role and specific tasks. We want the internal structures of the three new service commands and the remaining commands to be as consistent as possible in both structural and procedural terms. The same processes and the same design philosophy should be applied—a highly NATO-oriented, doctrinal approach, while taking account of the distinctive characteristics and separate tasks performed by each command.

Complete harmonisation from the lowest level to the highest?

From the lowest level to the highest, including the strategic command.

This is a major problem because, until now, every commander participating in the optimisation process developed their own internal solutions, often in isolation from the rest of the Armed Forces. They approached different superiors and generally obtained approval to introduce all kinds of changes, which were not always consistent with the remainder of the Armed Forces.

We are now trying to establish organisational and procedural coherence so that the Armed Forces genuinely become an organisation in which decision-making processes are prepared rapidly and professionally, and in which activities and operations are commanded effectively.

This is a very difficult task, given the legacy issues. Is the underlying objective to reduce the proliferation of processes, procedures and decisions that have expanded both horizontally and vertically throughout the system?

Yes. We also want to make the entire system easier to operate by changing the organisational culture. We want units and commands to stop concentrating on their peacetime functioning. They must focus on the purpose for which they genuinely exist and the reason taxpayers finance these structures.

They should focus on their wartime purpose, preparing for war, preparing for operations and training their subordinate units. A commander should not concentrate on administration and the daily signing of thousands of administrative documents. The commander should focus on exercising command, maintaining relationships with subordinates and superiors, and cooperating with other commanders. We want to introduce operational thinking among commanders at every level and relieve them of administrative responsibilities.

Administrative tasks will be assumed by the chief of staff and their deputies.

Thank you for the interview.