America will have to give up...if a global strike escalates into a midterm war

Washington politicians and generals constantly talk about the war as an important and necessary argument for political pressure. They promise to wipe out any enemy that gets in the way of their national interest. The overseas media are not inferior to them, which publish articles about an instant global impact, as if it were secular news. If we summarize everything that has been said and written about the military, then we can come to one single conclusion: the American army is confident that science-intensive superiority in any conflict will provide it with an easy and, most importantly, quick victory.

Meanwhile, the analytical portal The Modern War Institute draws a cautious conclusion that the United States army is likely to find itself in a trap that it created itself. In a war with a serious enemy, high-tech superiority, with a high degree of probability, will negatively affect the soldier's spirit and the responsibility of the generals. It corrupts the military, making them hostages of multibillion-dollar deadly equipment. This is exactly what  US Armored Major Bill Nance , a doctor of history at the University of North Texas and a teacher at the Military Academy, writes about, based on military history and the psychological mood of American military personnel.

On the one hand, the past is replete with examples when organizational and technological advantage decided the fate of entire peoples and empires. For example, the ancient Romans split the "Greek phalanx" into small detachments - maniples, and then into cohorts, which were built in a checkerboard pattern. This order, coupled with a number of technical innovations, for a long time guaranteed the legionnaires superiority in the war against any enemy.

On the other hand, in the last two centuries, any military advantage had a short “shelf life”, that is, it was of a situational and fleeting nature. The defeated party quickly unraveled the secret of the winner's success: after all, it is a matter of life and death. And often the answer was asymmetric.

So, at the turn of the nineteenth century, the “little corporal”  Napoleon  , due to the maneuvering strategy of conducting battles with the help of a system of corps and artillery, easily crushed his rivals.

But in the end, Paris was overthrown. Interestingly, Bill Nance, citing the American view of the Napoleonic Wars, assigns our country a secondary role. Say, the fate of the French army was decided in the war of the Fifth Coalition, better known as the Austro-French War. It turns out that the “little corporal” was drained of blood in the Aspern-Essling battle and in the Wagram battle, well, and then the Russians outwitted the weakened emperor, luring him to winter in burned Moscow. As if there was no battle of Borodino, dashing attacks of the Cossacks  of Ataman Platov and the battle on the Berezina.

And in 1840, the  Dreyse needle breech-loading rifle  determined the significant technical advantage of the Prussian infantry over any potential opponents. Through innovative technology and well-thought-out tactics, the Germans raised the power of their medium platoon to the level of an enemy company. As a result, in 1866 the world witnessed the brilliant victory of German weapons in the Battle of Sadov (Battle of Königgrätz - ed.), which decided the outcome of the Austro-Prussian War. However, after 5 years this technological superiority was lost. And the French, having created their breech-loading rifles, imposed heavy defensive battles on the Prussians.

Bill Nance connects the next military episode already with 1944. He admits that the United States and its allies, although they had an obvious advantage in aviation in Western Europe, nevertheless, the Germans, due to organizational decisions, were able to nullify the firepower of the Anglo-American troops. And here not a word is said about the Soviet Union, as if the defeat of the Third Reich happened by itself, and  Hitler shot himself from remorse.

In this regard, it is appropriate to recall how the Germans themselves assessed their organizational and technological advantage. In particular, one of the most authoritative experts on the “Russian company of the Wehrmacht” of 1941-1945,  Eike Middeldorf,  a regular fascist officer, cited evidence that innovations in optical instrumentation used in the German army caused heavy losses for the Red Army at the initial stage of the war. In particular, Soviet commander's dugouts, machine-gun nests, communication centers, artillery pieces, pillboxes, etc. - all this was quickly and effectively destroyed by German artillery on a tip from visual observation posts that were unique at that time, allowing you to adjust fire at a distance of 7-10 km.

Thus, optics and precision artillery - and not tanks and aircraft - were the most dangerous weapons of the Wehrmacht in 1941, argued Eike Middeldorf. It seemed that nothing could be opposed to the deadly fascist shells, despite the courage of the soldiers of the Red Army. However, there was a Soviet commander who broke the picture of the war that was understandable and convenient for the Germans. He ordered to dig trenches on the reverse slope of the hills out of sight of the Nazi observation posts.

On the one hand, the Wehrmacht soldiers were able to overcome the rise without losses, but on the other hand, they had to enter the battle without the support of guns. Soon the tactics of reverse slopes became widespread in the Red Army. “If in the summer and autumn of 1941 the Germans, during the pursuit, managed to surround and destroy Russian troops who had no combat experience and were tactically poorly trained, then the battles in the early winter of 1941 showed that the Russians had already mastered the methods of defense,” stated Eike Middeldorf.

In the second half of the war, the Wehrmacht was already learning from the Red Army how to properly organize defense in order to reduce damage from firepower. “Despite our strength (Anglo-American artillery and aviation - ed.), the Germans effectively used the terrain, forcing the Allies to launch bloody offensives from October 1944 to March 1945 with a significant delay,” concludes Bill Nance. Just five years after the end of World War II, he says, the Chinese used these methods during the Korean War, minimizing the advantages of American command in the air and in firepower, turning well-planned battles into massive infantry fights.

Thus, military history shows that no one knows what scenario the war will develop if, God forbid, it happens. Meanwhile, the American concept of an instant global strike is not designed even for a medium-term conflict. And what will happen if the enemy does not lose his potential, or recover quickly enough, asks Bill Nance. Then the US Army will not have enough equipment, and the soldiers will not have the courage to defend themselves. Like, if the Russians do not raise the white flag on the first day, then on the second, the Americans will have to do this.

However, the Pentagon considers the opinion of Bill Nance curious, but erroneous, and even harmful.

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