World War II Lessons For Russia

In September 1939 the German war machine rolled over Poland in a few short weeks. Blitzkrieg, the original version of “shock and awe”, overwhelmed Poland, which quickly succumbed to the might of the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht.  The Russians adopted this German WWII strategy during its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine but failed miserably. Why?  Russia never gained air superiority over Ukraine, a necessary precursor to land invasion. Russian paratroopers initially seized the Gostomel airport north of Kyiv but were quickly wiped out.  Additionally, the Russians grossly underestimated Ukrainian organizational skills, preparedness, and willingness to fight a tenacious defensive war.  A poorly trained Russian conscript army equipped with dated Soviet weaponry wasn’t a formula for success on a 21^st century battlefield either. Finally, Putin was fed faulty military and political intelligence from the FSB; in effect the FSB told Putin what he wanted to hear, not the facts on the ground. Once the initial invasion plan collapsed, Russia lost the initiative and pivoted to a grinding WWI style war of attrition, albeit with high tech drones. Unlike the Germans in Poland in 1939, Russian pre-invasion planning, training, and actual attack were lacking.  By not securing a quick knock-out blow the Russians effectively lost this phase of the war.

During the Battle of Britain, in the summer of 1940, German Luftwaffe attacks initially focused on the RAF and RAF air bases.  Control of the air was the Luftwaffe’s objective as a preliminary requirement to invasion.  The Germans unwisely switched their attack from military to civilian targets even though the RAF was close to breaking.  They expected terror bombing to compel surrender.  Targeting civilians provided no military benefit and effectively snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by diluting the attackers primary focus on the RAF.  Russia has similarly made the strategic mistake of targeting Ukrainian civilians instead of focusing entirely on the Ukrainian military.  Far from breaking Ukrainian morale, attacking civilians has stiffened their resistance, just like it did in England in 1940. Russians fail to realize that killing women and children isn’t a path to victory. Every Russian missile or drone directed at civilian targets is not only wasted but demonstrates to the world how barbaric and militarily ineffective Russia is.

              Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) conducted a wide range of covert actions against the Germans during WWII that were imaginative and highly effective.  The Germans were unable to match the SOE’s form of innovative and asynchronous warfare at scale – with all due respect to Otto Skorzeny’s limited activities.  The war in Ukraine has demonstrated multiple instances of Ukrainians deploying similar British-like sophisticated, clever, and highly effective operations deep inside Russia and occupied Ukraine against valid military targets. These Ukrainian operations include the use of on-the-ground human assets and drones.  The Russians, like the Germans, appear hapless to prevent these Ukrainians special operations in their country or to execute similar operations in Ukraine.

One lesson Russia learned well from WWII, and is applying callously in its Ukraine operations, is a high tolerance for its own casualties. Estimated Soviet military casualties in WWII (killed and wounded) are at least 20 million.  It’s hard to know the exact casualty figures Russia has suffered in Ukraine but most estimates have the figure at 1 million so far.  That’s a staggering level of casualties for what was supposed to be a short blitzkrieg type operation. Daily Russia is sustaining somewhere between 750 to 1,000 casualties.

Given Russia’s poor track record in Ukraine, there is real credence to the joke that goes something like this: Prior to the invasion of Ukraine the Russian military was considered the second-best military in the world (behind the USA).  Now the Russian military is only the second-best military in Ukraine! 

It appears Winston Churchill had it right when he described Russia as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”