Remember when Ukraine’s former top general warned the West it needed to prepare for war?

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 revealed that large-scale war in the modern era was still a frighteningly real possibility that Western nations needed to take very seriously.

However, after more than two years of full-scale war in Europe, Ukraine's former Chief of the General Staff, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, still believed he needed to warn Western nations that they needed to prepare for war.  

In a June 2024 speech, Zaluzhnyi warned that unless the West started to prepare for the problems it would encounter in a future modern war, the collective countries of the free world risked a global conflict becoming a reality. 

Zaluzhnyi gave his speech at the Royal United Services Institute Land War Conference, the former Ukrainian commander, and at the time the newly appointed Ambassador to the United Kingdom, provided a chilling warning about the future of warfare. 

“The experience of our struggle will be useful to everyone looking for a path to peace. And the path to peace can also be through war,” Zaluzhnyi began his speech. 

Zaluzhnyi wanted to share the lessons Ukraine learned following the Russian invasion of his country in February 2022, and the overarching message of his speech was that if the West wanted to avoid global war, it needed to prepare. 

“Si vis pacem, para bellum,” Zaluzhnyi said according to a transcript of his speech that he posted on Telegram. The phrase is a quote from Roman historian Cornelius Nepos and it means: “If you want peace, prepare for war.”

“Free and democratic nations and their governments need to wake up and think about how to protect their citizens and their countries,” Zaluzhnyi explained before he went on to share what Ukraine had learned since February 2022. 

Zaluzhnyi said the first lesson was to avoid war at all costs, but if war does come, it is best to be prepared for the conflict. But readiness was about more than stockpiling a large amount of weapons according to the former general. 

Preparing for the future means preparing society for the sacrifices it will need to make to survive a future conflict. “Society must agree to temporarily give up a range of freedoms for the sake of survival. Modern wars, unfortunately, are total,” he said. 

“They require the efforts not only of the army, but also of society as a whole. Politicians can and should mobilize society,” Zaluzhnyi said, adding economic, financial, and population resources should be marshaled to be ready for war. 

Zaluzhnyi said the second lesson he could impart to the Western nations was that “war can in no way be seen as part of the domestic political process.” But this lesson was far less important than what he revealed about technological development. 

Zaluzhnyi argued that technological development has changed modern warfare since it has allowed smaller armies to fight and win against larger armies. This is evident from what has happened in Ukraine, and it is for this reason that the West must prepare. 

“The Russian-Ukrainian war is not yet a war of the future. It is only a war of transitional period. But it is our war that forms new rules. We, Ukrainians, with our blood and thirst for victory, are forming new patterns of a new war. A war that will be the war of the future,” Zaluzhnyi said.

“A new stage in the forms and methods of military operations has begun. We see how scientific and technological progress has set in motion the wheel of history and brought to the battlefield the technologies,” Zaluzhnyi would go on to add. 

The battle-hardened general said that the world’s newest technologies were likely to be decisive in modern wars, and would become the basis of global security in the future. 

However, Zaluzhnyi questioned who would master these technologies, hinting that whoever does would direct the future global order and that it might not be Western nations if they didn't begin preparing. 

“Who will quickly master these technologies – the democratic world or the world of tyranny – will depend on us,” Zaluzhnyi said. "Whoever masters them will solve the issues of global security," he added.

“It is difficult to say how the situation will develop in the future. Only one thing is certain – tyrants will need war constantly for internal use as a tool for retaining power. The rest should build reliable protection against them,” Zaluzhnyi added.

The Telegraph reported on Zaluzhnyi’s comments and noted specifically that the rise of drone warfare during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine changed the nature of war and made “battlefield transparent and difficult to concentrate forces in conventional ways.”

Zaluzhnyi likely wasn't just referring to drone warfare, however. His speech showed that new technologies should be used to marshal and prepare Western society for a new era of conflict, one that the West can avoid if it is ready. 

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