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Scott's avatar

It’s just insane that the counteroffensive designed by the brilliant NATO strategists relied on a frontal assault on a heavily fortified position, carried out without air support and at a 3:1 (or worse) deficit in artillery.

History is full of those failures with the accompanying comment that the designer of the plan should have flunked out of staff college. Nevertheless, they persist.

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Mike Hampton's avatar

Was it ego or deliberate loss? I don't know.

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Scott's avatar

I read that the training wasn’t well suited to the war. A lot of focus on spotting insurgents in a hostile crowd and eliminating the threat. And there really is no training for this war except fighting in it.

I think they had to announce an objective that sounded decisive, and the breakthrough to the sea was the only option that sounded worth the risk.

Another in a long list of military adventures that seemed like a good idea once but soon acquired a momentum of their own and lost all touch with reality.

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Mike Hampton's avatar

That's what fits into the ego option, and even that has the fundamental mistake of not caring about the Ukrainians as if they were American soldiers. Forward, the foreign General cried from the rear, over the sea, on another continent, in a bunker whilst wondering what the football score would be tonight.

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