Michael Jones, The Retreat: Hitler’s First Defeat (2009) — a Book Review — and My Critique of U.S. Army General Mark A. Milley’s Statement — that the Russian Federation Currently Poses an Existential Threat

25 January 2016

Introduction

This review takes two parts:

First is a short book review.

Second is my comment that American leadership today contains elements that repeat Germany’s World War II strategic stupidity vis a vis Russia. Like the Germans then, we Americans seem to be incapable of learning from History.

The Retreat is recommended to readers interested in military history and war’s core realities

Michael Jones’ The Retreat masterfully cobbles together predominantly German troop observations about the Nazi retreat from Moscow during the winter of 1941-1942. It provides an overview of the command stupidity that guarantees that war becomes unadulterated Hell.

Jones begins the account by carefully laying out Nazi imbecility’s parallel with Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow in 1812. He asks how the German High Command could have repeated Napoleon’s mistakes with such rock-headed complacence. The Retreat is an unrelieved account of the incalculable suffering that results from engaging in military viciousness that drags everyone down, self and purported enemy alike.

Being personalized at the troop level, Jones’ account is, however, not useful as a tactical or strategic account of the drawn out engagement.

Extracts

Clothed in summer weight uniforms and using equipment lubricated with summer lubricants — which congealed in low temperatures, making vehicles and weapons inoperable — German forces found themselves unable to cope with the Russian winter that arrived in the second week in October. Thus, in December 1941, reeling under Soviet General Georgy Zhukov’s counterattack protecting Moscow, Hitler continued to refuse to deal with substantive issues, instead issuing a “Stand Fast” order and adding the following silliness:

‘Our ranks are growing thinner and thinner,’ wrote Lieutenant Gustav Schrodek of the 11^th Panzer Division. ‘Today we received an astonishing order — to excavate the graves of our dead, and remove them — so that we can conceal the extent of our losses from the Russians. This is hardly a morale-raising exercise — and more easily said than done in such freezing conditions. We ended up carrying back the marker crosses, designating our comrades’ names and units.’

Temperatures had been minus 30 degrees or more Fahrenheit for weeks. Digging in the frozen ground was impossible and everyone engaged along this portion of the Eastern Front knew it:

[Major General Hans von] Greiffenberg observed: ‘Hitler did not want to realise what was really happening. Instead, he began to believe that all difficulties could be overcome by sheer, unbending willpower. That was the moment when the Führer finally lost touch with the realities of war in the east.’

Compounding command’s lack of touch with reality, Nazi orders were to torch Soviet civilian centers during the retreat from Moscow — thereby guaranteeing increased resistance from both the Red Army and the nation’s citizens at the very time that frostbitten Nazi forces were least able to cope with the uptick:

‘More and more Russian villages are burning,’ said German staff officer Carl Wagener of the Third Panzer Group, “and at night the sky is stained blood red.’ Many German troops became inured to the destruction. ‘We continue to set villages alight,’ said Lieutenant Kurt Grumann of the 87^th Infrantry Division. ‘The inhabitants fled their homes, but later returned and begged for food. We drove them away. We cannot share our meagre reserves — we must be merciless.’

Mercilessness begat counter-mercilessness and eventually unconditional defeat.

Memorable quotations

The Retreat is filled with memorable vignettes. Here is a graphic one with a take-away message:

I was moving along a forest track when I came across a wounded Russian soldier — a Siberian by the look of him — crawling with agonizing slowness along the snow-covered path, on all fours. With horror I realised that the top part of his cranium was entirely missing — a fragment from an exploding shell must have torn it off. His condition was hopeless, and yet he was still determinedly trying to reach his comrades. As I watched his laborious progress, I was struck by the incredible way Russians are able to endure suffering, and what strong will can achieve. On the approaches to Moscow, this was what confronted us.

And another about (interpreted) battlefield necessity:

Ahead of us lay a meadow, and then a forest — from which we were expecting a Russian attack. It was snowing heavily. Suddenly, a group of small figures emerged from the trees and began walking slowly towards our positions. As the group drew nearer, we saw that it consisted of about fifty young boys, none older than six or seven. We realised to our horror that the Russians were using these children as decoys, while they prepared to attack — and were moving up behind them. Every second counted. I was in charge of the heavy machine guns — and I gave the order to fire. In moments, every boy was mown down.

Welcome to the Eastern Front, the deadliest extended military confrontation in recorded history.

The Retreat’s arguable pertinence to American policy today

The day I finished reading Jones’ book, I serendipitously came across the following quotation from U.S. Army Chief of Staff, General Mark A. Milley:

"In terms of capability, Russia is the only country on earth that has the capability to destroy the United States of America," Milley said here at the Defense One Summit, Nov. 2.

"It's an existential threat by definition because of their nuclear capabilities. Other countries have nuclear weapons, but none as many as Russia and none have the capability to literally destroy the United States."

Milley noted that while neither he nor anyone else knows what Russia's true intent is, his best guess at intent is based on past behavior over the last few years - a reorganized military, increased capabilities and aggressive foreign policy.

"The situation with Russia in my mind is serious and growing more serious," he said.

"I see Russia as aggressive, not just assertive. They attacked Georgia; they illegally seized Crimea; they have attacked Ukraine… all those countries were free and independent and have been sovereign nations now for a quarter century, since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

"I would say, Russia's recent behavior is adversarial to the interest of the United States," Milley said, adding that the United States and its allies have to approach Russia with a strength and balance approach.

"So, we want on the one hand to maintain strength in order to deter further Russian aggression and we need to stand firm where that aggression manifests itself, hence things like sanctions and what NATO is doing right now," he said.

"On the flip side, you don't want to shut them off completely, so we have our hands outreached where you have common interests and there are a variety of areas where the U.S., NATO and other friends to the U.S. have common interests with Russia… so, it's not a zero and one calculation… there's more nuance than that."

General Milley may indeed have the ability to nuance his take on the Russian Federation in a productive way . . .

But I would critique General Milley’s (as reported) statement as one that hinders reality-based thinking in the same way that Germany’s baseline hostility toward “Bolshevism” self-destructively led the Third Reich into taking the Soviet Union on. How we frame our “existential” threats subliminally controls our perceptions in usually dangerous ways. We almost always make unspoken assumptions that blind us to what is actually going on:

First, just because another nation has a countering ability to “take us out” does not mean that it automatically becomes an existential threat.

If Milley’s construct were accurate, just having a neighbor with a competent firearm would make him an existential threat to us as the family next door. Most of us do not (and should not) act as if this is the case.

Second, General Milley completely ignores American and NATO actions that have arguably encouraged the Federation to act in self-protective, aggressive ways.

By eliminating these policy-modifying nuances — which would otherwise encourage us to comprehend other nations’ geopolitically legitimate self-interests — we encourage ourselves to misinterpret them as being unrelievedly and dangerously hostile to us.

General Milley, as do virtually all of American military and political leadership, conceptualizes American geopolitical interests in ways that “enemize” virtually everything that other powerful nations might do that irritates us. Our unsuccessful military engagements from Vietnam on are examples of this strategically unnecessary enemy-making.

The moral? — An excellent book and a parable for current American policy

The Retreat memorably demonstrates what happens when national leadership forgets History and Humanity in the same breath.

Unfortunately, understanding the past and acting intelligently with regard to it are not American strengths. Virtually none of our highest ranking American leaders could (arguably) read this book and reliably interpret its underlying strategic message.

We wake up only to the extent that we are forced to. As did many of the combatants in Michael Jones’ account of the Moscow retreat. It is too bad that we learn as individuals and not societies, as generations and not species.

PeteFree.com

Michael Jones, The Retreat: Hitler’s First Defeat (2009) — a Book Review — and My Critique of U.S. Army General Mark A. Milley’s Statement — that the Russian Federation Currently Poses an Existential Threat