Public administration of the development of the professional army: foreign experience

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to substantiate the theoretical provisions regarding the improvement of public management by building a professional army in the context of foreign experience.

The processing of the research material was carried out on the basis of historicism, objectivity, systematicity and comparative analysis. Interdisciplinary approaches are the basis of the research toolkit. The functional and structural approaches formed the basis of the characteristics of that segment of the researchers’ work related to the institutional and organizational aspects of building a professional army. The techniques of historical chronology and comparative studies made it possible to trace the stages of formation and development of the Armed Forces of foreign countries, the reflection of these processes in scientific discourse. The experience of encouraging and stimulating voluntary recruitment into the army, the experience of training and distribution of command staff, their promotion, the organization of periodic renewal of contracts with them, and the system of social security of military personnel seem to be promising for implementation in Ukraine. It is well-founded that the army is an instrument of the political community and its governing structure, an organization authorized, trained and equipped to use lethal force. The legitimacy of the use of lethal force stems from the fact that it is used only on behalf of and at the behest of the governing structure of the political community it represents, and within the limits of international law, conventions and recognized moral norms. It was established that the decisive successes of the Ukrainian army are inspired by the same decisive position of the President of Ukraine V. Zelenskyi and the entire military and political leadership, as well as the solid support and trust of the people of Ukraine. The army is a moral construct in at least three dimensions: tactical, institutional, and civil-military. The moral coin in every dimension is trust and confidence. That is, the combat power of the army increases or decreases depending on the degree of trust and confidence, or incompetence and betrayal, in each dimension.

Tactically, trust and confidence are the result of how confident soldiers are in themselves, their individual and unit training, their equipment, their leaders, and the systems designed to increase the likelihood of their survival and success.