The article will deal with the boundaries of what Morgenthau once called "national power". According to Morgenthau, national power depends on geographical potential, resources, industrial potential, military component, population size, national character, morality and the quality of diplomacy. However, national power is limited by at least three paradoxes.

Three paradoxes of using force 1 To achieve the objectives of any war / campaign, military superiority is required. However, the more ambitious goals of a military campaign, the more resistance the enemy grows and the balance of power changes in his favor.

Strengthening the military component of the state is detrimental to national strength, namely, national endurance and changes the alignment of national forces for the worse.

Unbridled use of forces leads to their reduction, t. National consensus and national motivation - fall.

The use of force in a democratic state causes disagreement and resistance. Even in an authoritarian state, because of the use of force, resistance to the state system sometimes develops, which undermines the stability of power.

The military power of the parties is subjective and objective components. The objective military power depends on the three components of the enemy's strength, the strength of the allies, the strength of deterrence. Competent authorities all three objective components are not so difficult to measure.

Another very important aspect, difficult to measure - the subjective side of the question.

There is a direct correlation between subjective perception and the importance of national interest and the willingness of the sons of a particular people to pay the corresponding price.

The subjective component in the Ukrainian-Russian context Any Ukrainian leadership will need to take into account the degree of unity of the Ukrainian people, which is based on a common religious and historical interpretation of events and on existing mythology, as well as from a common vision of the future (for example: in Jewish history, such a vision from a passive The phase of the expectation of the Messiah in the active passed only in the 19th century with the development of the Zionist movement, which saw the task of gaining statehood and gathering Jews in the Land of Israel). However, in the context of Ukraine, there are a number of questions, the answers to which have yet to be given, both to its citizens and to the entire world Ukraine. Among such questions: What is the modern Ukrainian national idea? What kind of movement implements it? What are the centers for the implementation of the national idea in the Diaspora? And a number of other question.

There is also a direct link with the degree of readiness of the sons of the Ukrainian people to lay down their lives for the military and political goals of Ukraine as a state. The degree of such readiness is in direct connection with the "vitality" of the Russian threat. In this context, one can cite Israel as an example, where the subjective side of the issue has always served military-political purposes: Jewish history and national narrative (oppression, pogroms of the catastrophe) for 2 thousand years created a very special type of national identity, and high ambitious Arab regimes (full Destruction of the State of Israel) maximally strengthened the Jews in understanding the "vitality" of the threat. (After the total failure of the pan-Arab goal of the destruction of Israel, the less ambitious declared goals of the Palestinians - their state in part of Israel - as a result of the Oslo Treaty - immediately reduced the willingness of the Jews of Israel to pay the appropriate high price - watch the paradox number 1. ) In the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, both components are rather weak - there is no all-Ukrainian national historical narrative, as there is no Ukrainian national idea, which would be implemented by the national movement on the basis of national consensus. Instead of such a narrative, deeply developed, confirmed by qualitative scientific research and delivered to the masses, we have a competition of myths, but no more. The vitality of the Russian threat to Ukrainian statehood is also not perceived by the broad Ukrainian public as a real and "vital" threat. There is a threat of destroying the sprouts of national thinking, as well as the threat of the non-conversion of several ethnic and linguistic groups into a political nation, t. There is a threat of destruction of the Ukrainian political nation, but there is no threat of physical extermination of the Ukrainian (and not Ukrainian) population of Ukraine on a large scale (for example, in the mashbanats of genocide or ethnocide).

National motivation still has a very important quality - it is consensus in society and consent to the use of force that gives legitimacy to the leadership of the state for its application. When such a consensus on the use of force - no, then the leadership is acting hesitantly. Whether or not there is such a consensus and motivation among the Ukrainian society, we can judge by many criteria. It is quite easy to draw conclusions on the recent voting in elections in territorial communities where the parties Our Land and Opoblock won the most votes in Central Ukraine, who openly and consistently act from the position of "pigeons", but not as "hawks".

The society decides what it stands for, and why not give their sons their lives, and in this regard, local elections should serve as an alarm signal to the authorities and national-oriented circles.

In general, in democratic countries, restrictions on the use of force fall, when the threat to freedom and life from the enemy increases. I think that we can draw conclusions about Russian propaganda and Ukrainian counterpropaganda, which largely determine how Ukrainian society perceives the Russian threat. For the effectiveness of counterpropagandistic efforts and the creation of a state strategy on this issue, it is very important for leaders to understand the paradoxes of the use of force and its subjective factors.

National power - the concept of relative, depending on the place and time of its application. It is important to understand that the national power of the state during the conflict directly depends on the subjective "limits of the use of force," which in turn depend on national history and narrative, the sense of community of national destiny and other factors. One and the same nation or people can breed great fighters for one's freedom and national interests in one period of history, in others - mediocrities, cowards or leadership unable to take responsibility for the fate of the people. A vivid example of this is the Jewish history in exile and on its land. If in 1941-43 Jews with almost no resistance obediently went to slaughter, then in 1948 and later the Jews showed themselves as desperate fighters who wrested their lives and statehood from the hands of numerous, more armed and powerful enemies. In the 1967 Six-Day War, the Jews inflicted an astonishing defeat on the Arab armies, which, in almost all military parameters, surpassed the IDF. After 6 years, it was the disdainful underestimation of the enemy by the politicians and military intelligence of Israel, AMAN, that nearly led to disastrous results as a result of the Yom Kippur War (in spite of the precise data on the preparations for war provided by the Mossad to the top military and political leadership of Israel, quite clearly showed the preparation of the Arab regimes for War and the huge supply of the most advanced Soviet weapons to their armies). However, at that time politicians did not give "facts to confuse themselves," because they convinced themselves that there would be no more wars with the Arab regimes. But the objective reality was clearly different from the sweet fantasies of politicians. Israel and its citizens had to pay dearly for the sweet dreams of dreaming politicians, but in the case of the War of Judgment Day, the strength of the nation multiplied by the sense of justice of its own struggle for the right to live under the Sun on its land and a healthy instinct for self-preservation led Israel to another victory. The question is only in the price of victory, which, in the opinion of most Israelis, seems to them unjustifiably high, since with more determined and wise leadership it was possible to achieve the same results bearing much less losses.

Similarly, it is necessary to analyze the national power of any people and state. It is impossible to build your strategic plans on unreliable and outdated data and to be stereotyped by the enemy, or to fall into the euphoria of pseudo patriotic shenanigraphy.

The national power of a state can not be greater than the aggregate of its military / strike power and state endurance, which is determined not only by objective factors like the economy, strategic depth and population, but also subjective - morality and motivation.

Several conclusions:.

A) Limiting the range of issues considered in the Strategic Bulletin exclusively to defense ones is, in our view, an erroneous approach since it reduces the country's defense capability solely to the number of personnel and weapons.

B) Absence of the concept of Ukrainian patriotism (but not nationalism of a right-radical nature that is not acceptable due to a number of negative historical examples and the lack of inclusive ideas capable of rallying Ukrainian-speaking and Russian-speaking ethnic Ukrainians to the political nation, as well as their national minorities living in Ukraine - and Russian, Crimean Tatars, Armenians, Jews, and T.

C) Practically complete absence of state (and any public) strategy in matters of informal children's education. D) Weak involvement of the numerous Ukrainian diaspora in building a successful Ukrainian state. The urgent need to strengthen the interaction of the Ukrainian state with the diasporas, their cohesion and involvement in the processes of real, and not only symbolic support of Ukraine.

E) Creation of a modern inclusive national narrative, based on deep and comprehensive objective research of history, with an emphasis on the positive (and not eternally defeatist-oppressed) mission of Ukraine and Ukrainians in world history.

E) Encouragement of healthy initiative in all spheres of public life, from culture and economy, to the army.

G) Building an innovative model for the development of the state, society and the defense sector.

Only bold modernization of economic, political, military and other aspects of national life on the principles of inclusiveness will allow Ukraine in the 21st century to strengthen its national power and rationally use it for the benefit of the state and its citizens, taking into account the three above-mentioned paradox of national power according to Morgenthau.

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