Some historically sourced advice from the guy who got me through Thucydides..
Posted on 03/31/2022 4:53:03 PM PDT by shadowlands1960
There are several historical referents we should keep in mind about the Ukraine war.
First, no-fly zones. Lots of Westerners are calling for NATO aircraft to establish a no-fly zone above Ukraine to stop Russian bombing of Ukrainian cities.
That is a terrible idea. Russian planes can still launch missiles from the nearby airspace of Russia and Belarus. No nation in history has declared a no-fly zone against an adversarial nuclear power.
No-fly zones are best known from the 12-year air block over Iraq in between the two Gulf Wars.
NATO also imposed a no-fly zone over Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s, and again over Libya in 2011.
These efforts were aimed respectively at the bloody though small-time dictators Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milošević, and Muammar Gaddafi. None had nuclear weapons.
Eventually the air patrols withered away. Often allies bickered about their relative contributions. Sometimes the zones failed to stop ongoing anarchy on the ground. Enemies often still used low-flying ground assault helicopters.
The United States never attempted a no-fly zone against either nuclear Russia or China during the Cold War—despite a long history of these countries supplying wartime enemies of ours.
No nation wishes to risk Armageddon over the skies of a third party.
Second, regime change. There has been a lot of wild talk—from Joe Biden and various U.S. senators on down—about removing or assassinating Vladimir Putin to achieve “regime change” in Russia.
(rest at link)
(Excerpt) Read more at victorhanson.com ...
That man is an excellent teacher. I love listening to him when he comes on TV, often wish someone would let him talk for the entire show.
He’s on some good YouTube vids.
We could use someone like him teaching history today. Should have a show on every Saturday
I agree. Love his dispassionate approach. A very level headed person. A great read when studying classical history also. I used his ‘A War Like no Other’ when studying ‘The Peloponnesian War ‘by Thucydides. It was really helpful.
A couple corrections:
No-fly-zone isn’t black or white. A middle ground is placing ground-based anti-aircraft missiles into Ukraine. We can call our people advisors until their people are trained-up. Combined with our air- and satellite based radars, these anti-aircraft missile batteries would be very effective.
Hanson corrects himself on whether Russia has been defeated “on its soil,” citing the Russo-Japanese War. But, he should have also cited Germany’s defeat of Russia in WWI. Russia’s loss in WWI is quite relevant, since its army disintegrated and started to walk home.
As for Russia defeating Germany in WWII, that was with a lot of help from us. Stalin was able to empty the steppes because his country was supplied by us. Without such support, Russia’s army will fall apart in this war as it did during WWI.
I will now address the nuclear question. Russia would lose a nuclear war against NATO. They have something like 6,000 nuclear missiles that they inherited from the Soviet Union. I suspect many of those missiles would fail to launch and many others would be intercepted. The problem is we would suffer huge losses, even though victory would be certain.
Putin’s recourse to nuclear weapons would be yet another war crime, on top of the war crimes he and his military are committing right now.
Responsibility for these war crimes would rest heavily on Russia. Hanson is wrong to absolve Russia, as though they were all innocent 19-year pimply-faced sheeple. No. We see the counterpart 19-year olds of Ukraine standing up. Ukrainians are not so different from Russians. They are both fierce and determined people, capable of enormous sacrifice and heroism.
There are many Russians in positions of responsibility who should, right now, be disavowing Putin. I will start with the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Many priests of the Russian Orthodox Church resisted the communists to the point of martyrdom. I am calling on you Patriarch Kirill, to stand with Christ and the saints, to demand that Russia live up to its commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and desist from threatening the first use of nuclear weapons upon the risk of excommunication.
I won’t reply point to point, but in regards to WW2 and allied assistance to the USSR. I don’t believe it was as decisive as you appear to think. Once the routes through Iran were established after the old Reza Shah was deposed, it’s true supplies starting reaching there in quantity but Churchill in his memoirs makes no bones that it was too little too late (to mollify Stalin he means). The vast bulk of Russia’s arms were Russian, including pretty much all of her armor.
Thanks for posting. Very sensible.
I use the word “supplies” and you shift to “arms”. If you want to disagree with something I said, please do.
I didn’t shift, I was emphasizing what was most important... this also applies to food, minerals, fuel... all of it.. Russia supplied most of her own throughout the war. What we supplied was certainly helpful, just not decisive in the way you seem to believe. The USSR would have won the war if we hadn’t supplied a dime.
He is an advocate for Realpolitik.
You don’t actually disagree with anything I said, but make a point that you say is most important. Your point (the Russians produced almost all the weapons they used during WWII) is correct. As to whether this is “most important” is a judgment.
The Russians have always boasted of the burden they bore during WWII. We, in America, find it hard to relate to the losses Russia suffered.
In terms of soldiers, Russia lost 10 million or more soldiers dead, captured or missing, and Germany 2 million. Russia lost 83,000 tanks, to German loses of 25,000. Hitler killed almost one-third the number of Soviet civilians (20 million) as the communists killed during the time they ruled (60 million). In the face of such losses, how could Russia have defeated Germany?
In my view, Stalin’s ruthlessness was the deciding factor in the war in the east. Just as Stalin was a bigger murderer than Hitler (and second only to Mao Zedung in the history of the world), Stalin was more ruthless than Hitler. Thankfully, the politburo removed Stalin after WWII when Stalin was contemplating nuclear war with the western democracies.
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