Tuesday, March 22, 2022

Commentary on these three entries in the last article linked to:

Russian troops appear bogged down in the face of relentless attacks from a much weaker, though far more maneuverable, Ukrainian military.

...the challenges of the Russian military’s top-heavy command structure in the face of a much nimbler Ukrainian fighting force.

... As convoys of Russian armor have lumbered along Ukrainian highways, Ukrainian forces have deployed drones and highly maneuverable infantry units to devastating effect.

I allow that you can learn too well the lessons from a war fought 160 years on a different continent. You would have to be ignorant of the American Civil War to not see parallels in those entries on Ukraine.

United States boys didn't ride horses as much as did Confederate States boys. Fucking Jeb Stuart rode his goddamned cavalry clear around the Army of the Potomac one time. Just because he could. 

Confederate soldiers knew the terrain and were fighting on their home turf. The vast majority of United States soldiers had never been in any of the Confederate states previous to the war. (That is shocking to the point of provoking disbelief, but it is fact. Think for a moment of the means of transportation in 1861-65. Weren't no thing as a vacation road trip know whad I mean?

I am shocked that Russian soldiers knew so little of Ukraine's people and its terrain.

The United States was an industrializing economy at the time of the Civil War. The Confederate States was a "planting", i.e. slave-based economy. The U.S. had significantly more modern infrastructure and munitions manufacturing capacity. The U.S. had a greater population and the numerically superior army, both advantages that Russia has over Ukraine. The Confederate soldier fought better and with more tenacity than his U.S. counterpart, as the Ukrainian soldier has. It was not until Gettysburg, a "reverse invasion" that the U.S. soldier showed equivalent mettle. Only when Abraham Lincoln settled on Ulysses S. Grant and Grant on William Tecumseh Sherman did the worm turn. 

Perhaps like the Russian military command responsible for targeting civilians in Ukraine Sherman deliberately employed at-the-time unheard of  "total war." Gonna make the Confederate civilians "howl!" And so the March to the Sea, the burning of Atlanta and so on. And howl, they did. In Grant, Sherman had his equal in tolerating U.S. military losses. Grant didn't give a shit how many of his own men got killed as long as he won the war. He knew as Lincoln did that lopsided U.S. casualty figures were still sustainable. Even proportional Confederate losses were not. Between them Slash and Burn Sherman and Butt Your Head Grant led to Appomattox. 

The Civil War lasted four years. Russia is not quite one month in to its war on Ukraine. Lincoln considered and Putin considers an actual defeat as inconceivable and did not and will not let that happen. Lincoln was wrong and Putin is wrong. The United States would have survived a successful war of secession and Russia did okay without Ukraine. No matter. Defeat was and is inconceivable to the leader of the far stronger nation. Lincoln prevailed despite draft riots, generals who wouldn't fight and low troop morale, and unless Putin chooses to fight with one arm tied behind his back, I mean of course by foregoing "total war" with wmd, he too will prevail. War has no Miss Congeniality award.