Some Weapons and Strategy readers say that there is a strong resemblance between the current Kursk battle and the Battle of Bulge that raged in December, 1944 to January, 1945. It is a topic worth exploring.
It seems unplausible to me that a success of the Bulge by reaching Antwerp could have made the western Allies "open to making a deal with Hitler." As early as January, 1943, the Casablanca Conference had set the aim of Germany's unconditional surrender, and a separate armistice with Hitler wouldn't have saved Germany from losing the war, but would have only turned the Westwall into the western border of the Eastern bloc, and adding a tale of capitalist treason and fascist-capitalist collaboration to the Soviet propaganda portfolio. So I'd conclude that a German success in the Ardennes would only have delayed VE-Day long enough to make a major German city target of the Bomb instead of Hiroshima.
I can't say how the US would have reacted to a major defeat in Europe, or the UK for that matter, but it could well have triggered extreme pressure to end the war
I agree that was Hitler's intention and perception. Equally I don't think the success of the Bulge would have been sufficient to force negotiations. I definitely agree that Hitler's strongest argument would have been to hold back the Soviet advance by making peace in the West. But it's a very high bar for the Allies to have agreed to do that.
It's so high a bar so that the chances, of "the Allies (meaning there ONLY U.S. and UK)" negotiating with Hitler at that point, would have been probably less than 1%, and here is why: The Battle of Kursk (Jul 5, 1943 – Aug 23, 1943) was the decisive battle of WW2, Hitler lost it, the USSR won it, and everything after it was already after the mountain of WW2 had already been peaked (scaled) and so was only on the trip down from that lone peak of WW2. Hitler had no chance after that enormous loss, to win; and the assumption that Roosevelt and Churchill would have reversed their prior and deep commitment for Germany's unconditional surrender after such a setback, is therefore ludicrous.
In his reflections on the execution of Eddie Slovik, Eisenhower had remarked that his armies were experiencing many desertions before and after the Battle of the Bulge due to the German armies fighting like cornered tigers. His main fear was that if the desertions didn't stop he'd have to stop the march on Germany. Perhaps Hitler gambled that the Allies would forget the unconditional surrender aims and settle for peace if they no longer had the wind at their backs and their soldiers refusing to fight.
According to Wikipedia ("Eastern Front"): "The Belorussian Offensive (codenamed Operation Bagration), which was agreed upon by Allies at the Tehran Conference in December 1943 and launched on 22 June 1944, was a massive Soviet attack, consisting of four Soviet army groups totaling over 120 divisions that smashed into a thinly held German line. They focused their massive attacks on Army Group Centre, not Army Group North Ukraine as the Germans had originally expected. More than 2.3 million Soviet troops went into action against German Army Group Centre, which had a strength of fewer than 800,000 men. At the points of attack, the numerical and quality advantages of the Soviet forces were overwhelming." Soviet forces (we are talking now of December 1944 and January 1945, when the Battle of the Bulge occurred in the West) were already heading unhindered into Berlin to finish-off Hitler and end the war, REGARDLESS OF WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN THE WEST. So: even if Eisenhower would have had to "stop the march on Germany," WW2 would still have been won by the Soviet Union. Eisenhower's forces were already irrelevant to that victory. Your presumption that it was America and the UK who defeated Hitler is false. You have been deceived. That's common in the U.S. empire.
-3 mn. Soviet POWs died/got killed in German internment camps
-France and GB had thwarted any serious attempts by the Soviets pre 1941 to rekindle an Entente against Germany.
So the Russians knew very well that the West was abusing this situation to get USSR destroyed. After all, right after 2,5 mn. Russians had gotten killed in WWI, this was followed by another much worse 10 mn. dead in the Russian Civil War which was handily buried by Western scholarship.
Imagine what these losses of human life meant.
Add the famines (5 mn.) and the constant meddling by hateful emigré generals in Berlin and Paris.
-"Generalstabsplan Ost" was never carried out but it was the equal of exterminating most citizens of the USSR.
This was the total opposite to conduct towards France, Skandinavia, Belgium, NL, etc. also GB.
Von Ribbentrop had founded a think tank ((German Institute
for Foreign Policy Research) to work out the basics for a European Union under German leadership. While economically German industry did take advantage of occupation the major continental heavy industrial players preferred -to quote an infamous parol of the era - "Hitler to Blum".
So yes: it was virtually USSR alone. The land-lease was well acknowledged by Stalin and keep in mind the special role of FDR. Yet, there was no structural sympathy or even genuine alignement with Russian interests.
Supporting them was pure business. Stalin demanded Normandy 1 year earlier to not jeopardize Bagration. Allied wanted the opposite, let the Russians bleed.
The Britain didn´t even have to really touch the colonial armies or its major war-fighting resources overseas to save its skin.
Yet despite of all the anti-Nazi redderick Germany held a secure grip on Western Europe, which was impossible without the other countries´ elites complicity.
French resistance was tiny compared to Dutch, Poland or Serbia.
p.s. There were German attempts to negotiate with the British by 1938 and post 1942 via e.g. Switzerland (Gesevius and Dulles), Rome/Vatican, or the Abwehr (Canaris) and Menzies, perhaps even Himmler and Schellenberg. And some lesser known names e.g. via Sweden.
The evidence that USSR was the main enemy possibly uniting the entire West is there. It didn´t happen for various reasons, almost none of them love for the USSR.
Bravo to you, AG, for providing those additional details, which I am delighted come from someone other than myself, because I know how deceived Westerners are about this history, by our 'historians', who hide, instead of expose and write and speak about, these incontrovertible realities. On 1 April 2023 I headlined one article "How Billionaires Fund Scholars Who Pump U.S. Imperialism" at https://archive.is/YwDBE giving Harvard's Graham Allison as an example, and had already posted another, "How the U.S. Created the Cold War" at https://archive.is/sKLQr on 9 September 2019, detailing how this extremely influential U.S.-empire scholar deceives about the Marshall Plan and about all of U.S. foreign policy after 25 July 1945 which was when the U.S. started the Cold War, as I have documented at "How & Why the UK, U.S., and Canada, Governments imported Nazis into Canada" posted at https://archive.is/jJo9a on 7 April 2024, where (as in all of my articles) all of the primary sources can easily be accessed by the reader merely by clicking onto the respective links. As an investigative historian, I had decided, after Obama's coup that grabbed for the U.S. empire Ukraine in February 2014, to focus on the U.S. regime's building now to WW3 (which will destry the entire world) in order to keep its billionaires' empire growing to encompass ultimately not only Russia and China but all countries as their colonies. There's a lot to hide, and I focus on finding it and writing about it.
Thank you, for having used them! You are the first person who ever said to me anything like "Thanks for the links." Only few people realize that the SOURCES are more important than anything, because the truth or falsity of an allegation can be evaluated ONLY by accessing its source. This is why the public are so easy to deceive -- they don't care about what the sources for an allegation are.
Your premise is that Russia defeated Germany by itself and that America and the UK played no role. Really? So what was all that lend-lease aid? Did that not help Russia?
You're exaggerating Eric's statement. He's just saying that as of Summer 1944, Russia's resources were sufficient to win the war in any case and on their own, if necessary. That doesn't mean Lend & Lease hasn't been helpful (or that Allied bombing of German industry made no difference, btw). But Kursk burned German resources that had better been put into defense, and after "Bagration" had sacked Army Group Center, there was no more hope of recovering.
In my 2 June 2024 "U.S. President Truman’s Historical Achievements and Ranking" at https://archive.is/7Rwy1 I describe how radically Truman reversed FDR's carefully planned post-WW2 international policies and so started the Military-Industrial Complex and the permanent-warfare economy that have slaughtered millions and now brought us to the brink of a world-destroying WW3. Lend-lease was FDR's policy. There would not be/have-been a Cold War if FDR had lived out his fourth term as the President. He was AGAINST there being ANY American (or any OTHER) empire, and had designed his U.N. so as to be the world's Government on all international law and its enforcement -- NOT for America's Government to become that. Truman took over and sabotaged FDR's design for the U.N.
This greatly overstates the Battle of the Bulge: Hitler's objective was to capture Antwerp, an unrealistic stretch according to Gen Hasso von Manteufel who commanded one of the armies. But even if it had been achieved, Germany was still doomed as the Western Allies would still be in the same position as after the Normandy breakout, with all of France's Atlantic ports at their disposal. On the East, the Germans had no chance of stopping the Russians after the destruction of Army Group Center in the summer of 1944.
I think the more accurate story of the Battle of the Bulge is that a vastly outnumbered Germany in both troops and materiel flung its last reserves into a desperate offensive that had no possibility of changing the outcome of the war. In that sense, it does parallel Ukraine's use of some of its best troops at Kursk while its Eastern front is slowly but steadily being reduced from multiple axes.
I don't actually agree --had the Germans defeated the allied armies in the field it would have been quite dramatic. I agree that the plan was not only audacious but unlikely to be successful. But the Germans were on their heels. The Germans were outnumbered because they were fighting on two fronts. But initially they had a significant advantage in the west.
The Germans were outnumbered just by the Russians alone and moving the 500 tanks and 500,000 men from the Ardennes to the Eastern Front would not have changed that. The total German forces for that offensive are dwarfed by just one of the Russian Army Groups, First Ukrainian Front commanded by Konev and equipped with thousands of T34-85 tanks, far superior to the M4 Shermans the Germans faced in the West.
An Allied defeat then would have meant at most a retreat as the German forces were too few to make a massive battle of encirclement.
A ploy to obtain more USA tax dollars….and borrowed money!!!…to distribute to the elites and to obtain some new weapons…..Oh sure there may be an element to sone sort of settlement but the Russians WILL repulse this bulge as did the US in the Battle of the Bulge and thus weaken further the Ukraine interior defenses. DESPERATION is all this Ukraine offensive is all about coupled with the globalist US govt to waste more money in this self-created destruction of the Ukraine people and its infrastructure…appalling and totally preventable!!! How many more good people on both sides have to die for such a distorted effort!!
"In parallel the Russians were wrecking Ukraine's critical infrastructure, including electrical power, sending a political message to Ukraine's leadership and populace."
This also is foolishness. Nobody in Washington, Brussels or Kiev cares about Ukraine or Ukrainians.
I lived much of my adult life in Ukraine, aka "Orkaina", aka "Hochlandia". Alexei will get the jokes.
I still have many people I love there, people who suffered at the hands of the regime. The idea that depriving the citizens of Ukraine of heat or light will cause the West to allow a surrender is another unrealistic fantasy on the part of Russia.
You overestimate the tenacity of the U.S. America will simply move on from Ukraine at some point when it becomes bothersome to persist in involving itself. In fact, they are already moving on. America's role in Ukraine isn't even being discussed in the current election campaign.....but China certainly is. Ask the Kurds about their experience in Iraq. Or what was left of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. (or just about anybody in Afghanistan actually)
Stephen is correct. Russia completely misread Ukraine's intentions. Russia was assembling forces to attack a strategic town in the region called Sumy. This would have opened yet a another front in Ukraine. One that led to Kiev.
Russia was happy to see Ukraine assemble its elite forces in the area because they thought those forces would be used for defense of the town and what lay after. Then the Russians could destroy them when they were ready to pull the trigger. It never entered the Russians' minds that Ukraine would waste them sending them a few miles into territorial Russia for no *achievable* purpose except a few headlines in the western media.
Another perspective about the Kursk encroachment -- there is even some deeply cynical speculation that the Ukrainian assault heading along a major gas line from Russia to the EU and also towards a Nuclear Power Plant was likely to cause significant movements in European energy prices. Someone in the Ukraine and/or US/EU/NATO who knew what was about to happen could have made herself very rich by taking appropriate positions in the futures market. There are even speculations that the Zelensky regime may have used this attack to bolster the Ukraine's financial reserves.
Of course, like all such speculations, we will never know the truth.
Good points. My personal thought is that with the sudden change of the US elections, Zelensky (and quite possibly his MIC friends) thought this might be a way to bring Ukraine back into the news with a small victory. However, I think this is like a flare - bright but brief. I also think Russia is now going to show no mercy to both the Ukrainian troops as well as its citizens and is going to slowly but surely take all of Ukraine just as the Soviets sought not only victories but revenge for Operation Barbarossa. And while, this time it was the Russians who invaded another country, the Russians can be ruthless and vindictive when necessary.
Regarding what Zelensky was thinking - I think it's even simpler than that. I think the Kiev leadership were told that they'd get support, the basis for the support (i.e. what's expected of them) is the common desire to hurt Russia, and that they'll get financially taken care for doing the necessary managerial work
One possible motivation for this Kursk incursion may be a simple test of a new(?) NATO strategy. (Given that the previous offensive did not follow NATO doctrine, NATO may have insisted on a second offensive to study the effects of a modified NATO strategy in a time of drone warfare)
Of course. Once the Soviet Union disappeared, it was no longer necessary to offer citizens a better deal. As Thatcher famously put it "There is no alternative."
Nazi Germany, at that historical point, had no imperial sponsor. The war was locked into a trajectory for allied victory due to resource balance and (later in the war) demographic exhaustion. The plausible strategic purpose of the Germans continuing, was to improve the end state simply by making the inevitable allied victory more painful. It has been suggested that it was also a matter of pride for some of the military leadership.
Today's Ukraine is a proxy with an externally sponsored government. They do not face the same material resource constraint, since they're abutted to NATO. Though the potential for demographic exhaustion looms in the coming years.
Ukraine's main function for the sponsors is to go down fighting, and cause as much damage to NATO's opponents as possible. It's now clear, despite prewar expectations, that grinding it out for two years in Slavyansk or Kramatorsk wouldn't do much to harm Russia beyond putting a modest dent in the male demographics. Thus the endless series of crazy gambits. Ukraine's own interests do not figure in the calculus - other than maintaining a requisite level of bakshish for the key figures.
In 1944, the German generals considered the objective of taking Antwerp to be unrealistic, but nevertheless prepared the offensive very carefully because they thought it would still be possible to reach the Meuse and destroy its bridges. This would have delayed the Allies. I wonder what the state of mind of Zelensky's generals is?
So, after that comparison, Zelensky is trying to do what the Nazis tried to do in 1944 - driving a wedge between allies - and head to Antwerp through Belgium. The only similarity is that both were desperate attempts to - for the Germans : keep the UK and US allies joining force - for Zelensky to prolong as long as possible, and at least until November 5th, the pretense of fighting off Russia, and perhaps to get some negotiating pawn, when comes the unavoidable outcome.
My still very much alive father-in-law, age 99 now, was a rifleman in Co. C 329 RCT 83rd Div. He was with them since Normandy and was medevac’d out with frozen feet when the weather cleared.
I do not agree with the term “the greatest generation.” Both the allies (US, Britain, France and Holland) were just as evil as the Nazis except that their actions brought more sorrow and destruction to far more people over a much longer period (European colonialism, genocide of indigenous people of the Americas and Australia). After the end of World War 2 these same “greatest generation” were trying to impose their will on the Koreans, Indochinese, Malayan, Algerian and African people as part of the attempt to reimpose or maintain colonialism. Westerners typically ignore the sufferings of racialized peoples, a majority of the world’s population. Consider the different attitudes of Europe and North Americans to the Ukraine war and the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Perhaps Zelensky thought he could gain momentum and capture the nuclear power plant in Kursk. We all know he's a lunatic. Or it's even simpler than that. Pull a PR stunt to get more money and equipment. In a few days or weeks nobody will talk about this anymore.
It seems unplausible to me that a success of the Bulge by reaching Antwerp could have made the western Allies "open to making a deal with Hitler." As early as January, 1943, the Casablanca Conference had set the aim of Germany's unconditional surrender, and a separate armistice with Hitler wouldn't have saved Germany from losing the war, but would have only turned the Westwall into the western border of the Eastern bloc, and adding a tale of capitalist treason and fascist-capitalist collaboration to the Soviet propaganda portfolio. So I'd conclude that a German success in the Ardennes would only have delayed VE-Day long enough to make a major German city target of the Bomb instead of Hiroshima.
it was plausible to Hitler, which is what matters
I can't say how the US would have reacted to a major defeat in Europe, or the UK for that matter, but it could well have triggered extreme pressure to end the war
I agree that was Hitler's intention and perception. Equally I don't think the success of the Bulge would have been sufficient to force negotiations. I definitely agree that Hitler's strongest argument would have been to hold back the Soviet advance by making peace in the West. But it's a very high bar for the Allies to have agreed to do that.
It's so high a bar so that the chances, of "the Allies (meaning there ONLY U.S. and UK)" negotiating with Hitler at that point, would have been probably less than 1%, and here is why: The Battle of Kursk (Jul 5, 1943 – Aug 23, 1943) was the decisive battle of WW2, Hitler lost it, the USSR won it, and everything after it was already after the mountain of WW2 had already been peaked (scaled) and so was only on the trip down from that lone peak of WW2. Hitler had no chance after that enormous loss, to win; and the assumption that Roosevelt and Churchill would have reversed their prior and deep commitment for Germany's unconditional surrender after such a setback, is therefore ludicrous.
In his reflections on the execution of Eddie Slovik, Eisenhower had remarked that his armies were experiencing many desertions before and after the Battle of the Bulge due to the German armies fighting like cornered tigers. His main fear was that if the desertions didn't stop he'd have to stop the march on Germany. Perhaps Hitler gambled that the Allies would forget the unconditional surrender aims and settle for peace if they no longer had the wind at their backs and their soldiers refusing to fight.
According to Wikipedia ("Eastern Front"): "The Belorussian Offensive (codenamed Operation Bagration), which was agreed upon by Allies at the Tehran Conference in December 1943 and launched on 22 June 1944, was a massive Soviet attack, consisting of four Soviet army groups totaling over 120 divisions that smashed into a thinly held German line. They focused their massive attacks on Army Group Centre, not Army Group North Ukraine as the Germans had originally expected. More than 2.3 million Soviet troops went into action against German Army Group Centre, which had a strength of fewer than 800,000 men. At the points of attack, the numerical and quality advantages of the Soviet forces were overwhelming." Soviet forces (we are talking now of December 1944 and January 1945, when the Battle of the Bulge occurred in the West) were already heading unhindered into Berlin to finish-off Hitler and end the war, REGARDLESS OF WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN THE WEST. So: even if Eisenhower would have had to "stop the march on Germany," WW2 would still have been won by the Soviet Union. Eisenhower's forces were already irrelevant to that victory. Your presumption that it was America and the UK who defeated Hitler is false. You have been deceived. That's common in the U.S. empire.
Thx for reminding of Bagration, at last, someone.
Also one should keep in mind:
-3 mn. Soviet POWs died/got killed in German internment camps
-France and GB had thwarted any serious attempts by the Soviets pre 1941 to rekindle an Entente against Germany.
So the Russians knew very well that the West was abusing this situation to get USSR destroyed. After all, right after 2,5 mn. Russians had gotten killed in WWI, this was followed by another much worse 10 mn. dead in the Russian Civil War which was handily buried by Western scholarship.
Imagine what these losses of human life meant.
Add the famines (5 mn.) and the constant meddling by hateful emigré generals in Berlin and Paris.
-"Generalstabsplan Ost" was never carried out but it was the equal of exterminating most citizens of the USSR.
This was the total opposite to conduct towards France, Skandinavia, Belgium, NL, etc. also GB.
Von Ribbentrop had founded a think tank ((German Institute
for Foreign Policy Research) to work out the basics for a European Union under German leadership. While economically German industry did take advantage of occupation the major continental heavy industrial players preferred -to quote an infamous parol of the era - "Hitler to Blum".
So yes: it was virtually USSR alone. The land-lease was well acknowledged by Stalin and keep in mind the special role of FDR. Yet, there was no structural sympathy or even genuine alignement with Russian interests.
Supporting them was pure business. Stalin demanded Normandy 1 year earlier to not jeopardize Bagration. Allied wanted the opposite, let the Russians bleed.
The Britain didn´t even have to really touch the colonial armies or its major war-fighting resources overseas to save its skin.
Yet despite of all the anti-Nazi redderick Germany held a secure grip on Western Europe, which was impossible without the other countries´ elites complicity.
French resistance was tiny compared to Dutch, Poland or Serbia.
p.s. There were German attempts to negotiate with the British by 1938 and post 1942 via e.g. Switzerland (Gesevius and Dulles), Rome/Vatican, or the Abwehr (Canaris) and Menzies, perhaps even Himmler and Schellenberg. And some lesser known names e.g. via Sweden.
The evidence that USSR was the main enemy possibly uniting the entire West is there. It didn´t happen for various reasons, almost none of them love for the USSR.
Bravo to you, AG, for providing those additional details, which I am delighted come from someone other than myself, because I know how deceived Westerners are about this history, by our 'historians', who hide, instead of expose and write and speak about, these incontrovertible realities. On 1 April 2023 I headlined one article "How Billionaires Fund Scholars Who Pump U.S. Imperialism" at https://archive.is/YwDBE giving Harvard's Graham Allison as an example, and had already posted another, "How the U.S. Created the Cold War" at https://archive.is/sKLQr on 9 September 2019, detailing how this extremely influential U.S.-empire scholar deceives about the Marshall Plan and about all of U.S. foreign policy after 25 July 1945 which was when the U.S. started the Cold War, as I have documented at "How & Why the UK, U.S., and Canada, Governments imported Nazis into Canada" posted at https://archive.is/jJo9a on 7 April 2024, where (as in all of my articles) all of the primary sources can easily be accessed by the reader merely by clicking onto the respective links. As an investigative historian, I had decided, after Obama's coup that grabbed for the U.S. empire Ukraine in February 2014, to focus on the U.S. regime's building now to WW3 (which will destry the entire world) in order to keep its billionaires' empire growing to encompass ultimately not only Russia and China but all countries as their colonies. There's a lot to hide, and I focus on finding it and writing about it.
thx for the links!
Thank you, for having used them! You are the first person who ever said to me anything like "Thanks for the links." Only few people realize that the SOURCES are more important than anything, because the truth or falsity of an allegation can be evaluated ONLY by accessing its source. This is why the public are so easy to deceive -- they don't care about what the sources for an allegation are.
Your premise is that Russia defeated Germany by itself and that America and the UK played no role. Really? So what was all that lend-lease aid? Did that not help Russia?
You're exaggerating Eric's statement. He's just saying that as of Summer 1944, Russia's resources were sufficient to win the war in any case and on their own, if necessary. That doesn't mean Lend & Lease hasn't been helpful (or that Allied bombing of German industry made no difference, btw). But Kursk burned German resources that had better been put into defense, and after "Bagration" had sacked Army Group Center, there was no more hope of recovering.
In my 2 June 2024 "U.S. President Truman’s Historical Achievements and Ranking" at https://archive.is/7Rwy1 I describe how radically Truman reversed FDR's carefully planned post-WW2 international policies and so started the Military-Industrial Complex and the permanent-warfare economy that have slaughtered millions and now brought us to the brink of a world-destroying WW3. Lend-lease was FDR's policy. There would not be/have-been a Cold War if FDR had lived out his fourth term as the President. He was AGAINST there being ANY American (or any OTHER) empire, and had designed his U.N. so as to be the world's Government on all international law and its enforcement -- NOT for America's Government to become that. Truman took over and sabotaged FDR's design for the U.N.
This greatly overstates the Battle of the Bulge: Hitler's objective was to capture Antwerp, an unrealistic stretch according to Gen Hasso von Manteufel who commanded one of the armies. But even if it had been achieved, Germany was still doomed as the Western Allies would still be in the same position as after the Normandy breakout, with all of France's Atlantic ports at their disposal. On the East, the Germans had no chance of stopping the Russians after the destruction of Army Group Center in the summer of 1944.
I think the more accurate story of the Battle of the Bulge is that a vastly outnumbered Germany in both troops and materiel flung its last reserves into a desperate offensive that had no possibility of changing the outcome of the war. In that sense, it does parallel Ukraine's use of some of its best troops at Kursk while its Eastern front is slowly but steadily being reduced from multiple axes.
I don't actually agree --had the Germans defeated the allied armies in the field it would have been quite dramatic. I agree that the plan was not only audacious but unlikely to be successful. But the Germans were on their heels. The Germans were outnumbered because they were fighting on two fronts. But initially they had a significant advantage in the west.
The Germans were outnumbered just by the Russians alone and moving the 500 tanks and 500,000 men from the Ardennes to the Eastern Front would not have changed that. The total German forces for that offensive are dwarfed by just one of the Russian Army Groups, First Ukrainian Front commanded by Konev and equipped with thousands of T34-85 tanks, far superior to the M4 Shermans the Germans faced in the West.
An Allied defeat then would have meant at most a retreat as the German forces were too few to make a massive battle of encirclement.
And they came pretty close to reaching Antwerp. They wasted huge resources doing it but defeat was certain, hence a hail mary. Nice analysis.
erh, I think Germans did not reach Meuse.
A ploy to obtain more USA tax dollars….and borrowed money!!!…to distribute to the elites and to obtain some new weapons…..Oh sure there may be an element to sone sort of settlement but the Russians WILL repulse this bulge as did the US in the Battle of the Bulge and thus weaken further the Ukraine interior defenses. DESPERATION is all this Ukraine offensive is all about coupled with the globalist US govt to waste more money in this self-created destruction of the Ukraine people and its infrastructure…appalling and totally preventable!!! How many more good people on both sides have to die for such a distorted effort!!
"In parallel the Russians were wrecking Ukraine's critical infrastructure, including electrical power, sending a political message to Ukraine's leadership and populace."
This also is foolishness. Nobody in Washington, Brussels or Kiev cares about Ukraine or Ukrainians.
Foolishness???? A strange comment. Kiev cares for sure.
Kiev doesn't care at all, I have a lot of relatives there. I know from their words.
I lived much of my adult life in Ukraine, aka "Orkaina", aka "Hochlandia". Alexei will get the jokes.
I still have many people I love there, people who suffered at the hands of the regime. The idea that depriving the citizens of Ukraine of heat or light will cause the West to allow a surrender is another unrealistic fantasy on the part of Russia.
Yes, I understand you.
My elderly relative in Zhytomyr was killed by nationalists for his Russian speech on May 9, 2020.
And the Western owners do not care about the population of Ukraine.
I know that town fairly well. Not Zhitomir, but Oles' Buzyna was a friend of mine.
Memory Eternal+ to your relative.
You overestimate the tenacity of the U.S. America will simply move on from Ukraine at some point when it becomes bothersome to persist in involving itself. In fact, they are already moving on. America's role in Ukraine isn't even being discussed in the current election campaign.....but China certainly is. Ask the Kurds about their experience in Iraq. Or what was left of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. (or just about anybody in Afghanistan actually)
Stephen is correct. Russia completely misread Ukraine's intentions. Russia was assembling forces to attack a strategic town in the region called Sumy. This would have opened yet a another front in Ukraine. One that led to Kiev.
Russia was happy to see Ukraine assemble its elite forces in the area because they thought those forces would be used for defense of the town and what lay after. Then the Russians could destroy them when they were ready to pull the trigger. It never entered the Russians' minds that Ukraine would waste them sending them a few miles into territorial Russia for no *achievable* purpose except a few headlines in the western media.
Why would America move on? They are getting everything they want, and at practically no cost in American or NATO lives.
Because they are losing and it's becoming clear it is time for America to put up in a big way (manpower) or shut up. Currently, they are shutting up.
What makes you think so? The elites are safe and snug. And that is all that matters.
You think a farmer cares whether his chickens are happy?
A good farmer bonds with his animals.
I am yet to meet such a farmer, and I grew up in Iowa.
No farms in the city.
https://youtu.be/sutx_6oHRQA?si=25WEoRQsCLqWzV1p
There certainly were where I lived.
Ever see a chicken operation up close?
A very welcome historical review. Thank you Stephen.
Another perspective about the Kursk encroachment -- there is even some deeply cynical speculation that the Ukrainian assault heading along a major gas line from Russia to the EU and also towards a Nuclear Power Plant was likely to cause significant movements in European energy prices. Someone in the Ukraine and/or US/EU/NATO who knew what was about to happen could have made herself very rich by taking appropriate positions in the futures market. There are even speculations that the Zelensky regime may have used this attack to bolster the Ukraine's financial reserves.
Of course, like all such speculations, we will never know the truth.
Good points. My personal thought is that with the sudden change of the US elections, Zelensky (and quite possibly his MIC friends) thought this might be a way to bring Ukraine back into the news with a small victory. However, I think this is like a flare - bright but brief. I also think Russia is now going to show no mercy to both the Ukrainian troops as well as its citizens and is going to slowly but surely take all of Ukraine just as the Soviets sought not only victories but revenge for Operation Barbarossa. And while, this time it was the Russians who invaded another country, the Russians can be ruthless and vindictive when necessary.
Regarding what Zelensky was thinking - I think it's even simpler than that. I think the Kiev leadership were told that they'd get support, the basis for the support (i.e. what's expected of them) is the common desire to hurt Russia, and that they'll get financially taken care for doing the necessary managerial work
Russians do not consider Ukraine to be another country. For Russians, Ukraine is a part of Russia that has been temporarily separated.
Historically, Moscow was the daughter of Kyiv, and Russians and Ukrainians were the same people.
Not quite like that. It's just that for a while the capital of Russia was in Kiev. And the people in Kiev and Moscow were really the same.
I agree, this is not comparable.
One possible motivation for this Kursk incursion may be a simple test of a new(?) NATO strategy. (Given that the previous offensive did not follow NATO doctrine, NATO may have insisted on a second offensive to study the effects of a modified NATO strategy in a time of drone warfare)
I know I would want a such a test if I were NATO
Both are/were last gasp attacks by regimes that were losing the capacity for sustained large-scale offensives.
(Ukraine's manpower shortage threatens to become crippling.)
At that time, the Western bourgeoisie tried to isolate themselves from a more progressive social system, from socialism. They did it.
Seems that "more progressive social system" stopped progressing long before 1989 ...
Of course. Once the Soviet Union disappeared, it was no longer necessary to offer citizens a better deal. As Thatcher famously put it "There is no alternative."
Nazi Germany, at that historical point, had no imperial sponsor. The war was locked into a trajectory for allied victory due to resource balance and (later in the war) demographic exhaustion. The plausible strategic purpose of the Germans continuing, was to improve the end state simply by making the inevitable allied victory more painful. It has been suggested that it was also a matter of pride for some of the military leadership.
Today's Ukraine is a proxy with an externally sponsored government. They do not face the same material resource constraint, since they're abutted to NATO. Though the potential for demographic exhaustion looms in the coming years.
Ukraine's main function for the sponsors is to go down fighting, and cause as much damage to NATO's opponents as possible. It's now clear, despite prewar expectations, that grinding it out for two years in Slavyansk or Kramatorsk wouldn't do much to harm Russia beyond putting a modest dent in the male demographics. Thus the endless series of crazy gambits. Ukraine's own interests do not figure in the calculus - other than maintaining a requisite level of bakshish for the key figures.
In 1944, the German generals considered the objective of taking Antwerp to be unrealistic, but nevertheless prepared the offensive very carefully because they thought it would still be possible to reach the Meuse and destroy its bridges. This would have delayed the Allies. I wonder what the state of mind of Zelensky's generals is?
So, after that comparison, Zelensky is trying to do what the Nazis tried to do in 1944 - driving a wedge between allies - and head to Antwerp through Belgium. The only similarity is that both were desperate attempts to - for the Germans : keep the UK and US allies joining force - for Zelensky to prolong as long as possible, and at least until November 5th, the pretense of fighting off Russia, and perhaps to get some negotiating pawn, when comes the unavoidable outcome.
One could phrase the similarity a bit differently, as I did several days ago:
Both are/were last gasp attacks by regimes that were losing the capacity for sustained large-scale offensives.
(Ukraine's manpower shortage threatens to become crippling.)
My still very much alive father-in-law, age 99 now, was a rifleman in Co. C 329 RCT 83rd Div. He was with them since Normandy and was medevac’d out with frozen feet when the weather cleared.
Part of the Greatest Generation. You must be very proud.
I do not agree with the term “the greatest generation.” Both the allies (US, Britain, France and Holland) were just as evil as the Nazis except that their actions brought more sorrow and destruction to far more people over a much longer period (European colonialism, genocide of indigenous people of the Americas and Australia). After the end of World War 2 these same “greatest generation” were trying to impose their will on the Koreans, Indochinese, Malayan, Algerian and African people as part of the attempt to reimpose or maintain colonialism. Westerners typically ignore the sufferings of racialized peoples, a majority of the world’s population. Consider the different attitudes of Europe and North Americans to the Ukraine war and the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Perhaps Zelensky thought he could gain momentum and capture the nuclear power plant in Kursk. We all know he's a lunatic. Or it's even simpler than that. Pull a PR stunt to get more money and equipment. In a few days or weeks nobody will talk about this anymore.