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What causes armies to lose the will to fight?
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https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/29/europe/russian-army-ukraine-blake-cec/index.html
What causes armies to lose the will to fight? Here’s what history tells
us – and what Putin may soon find out
By John Blake, CNN
Updated 8:25 PM EDT, Sun October 30, 2022
CNN
—
It was one of the strangest episodes in military history, an event so
unusual that it was first treated as a myth.
At 8:30 pm on Christmas Eve of 1914 in the dank and muddy battlefields
of northern Europe during World War I, a British soldier dispatched a
report to headquarters: German soldiers have illuminated their trenches
and are singing carols while wishing British soldiers a merry Christmas.
British officers ordered their men to be silent, but it was too late. A
British soldier responded with his own chorus of “The First Noel.” A
German soldier called out across No Man’s Land – the barbed wire-strewn,
deadly middle ground separating the armies – “Come out, English soldier;
come out there to us.”
The soldiers climbed out of their trenches and met in the middle. So did
others, gathering to exchange chocolate, wine and souvenirs. They even
organized a soccer game, which the Germans won 3-2.
Most of the soldiers who shook hands on that fog-shrouded Christmas Eve
would be dead before the war ended four years later. But letters from
survivors and grainy black-and-white photographs prove it was no myth.
An estimated 100,000 soldiers on both sides simply refused to fight
because they were too exhausted and jaded. The Christmas Truce even
lasted until New Year’s in some places.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a wreath-laying ceremony on
June 22, 2022 to mark the Soviet Union's war against Nazi Germany in
World War II. Putin's army in Ukraine, though, may face a different fate
because of larger problems in Russia, experts say.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a wreath-laying ceremony on
June 22, 2022 to mark the Soviet Union's war against Nazi Germany in
World War II. Putin's army in Ukraine, though, may face a different fate
because of larger problems in Russia, experts say.
Maxim Shipenkov/Pool/Reuters
“By December 1914, the men in the trenches were veterans, familiar
enough with the realities of combat to have lost much of the idealism
that they had carried into war in August, and most longed for an end to
bloodshed,” according to an account of the Christmas Truce in
Smithsonian Magazine.
More than a century later, there’s little chance that Russian and
Ukrainian soldiers will shower each other with gifts this winter. But
the Christmas Truce story is an example of a peculiar feature of war
that offers a warning to the beleaguered Russian army in Ukraine:
There are moments throughout history where entire armies suddenly stop
fighting, though they are evenly matched or even numerically superior to
their enemy.
What causes armies to lose the will to fight? And how might that play
out with the Russian army in Ukraine?
This is the question that CNN asked combat veterans and military
historians. While history is full of embattled armies like the Imperial
Japanese Army in World War II, which fought with ferocious intensity
even though they knew they would not win, it also records other armies
that “quiet quit” — stopped attacking the enemy or did the bare minimum
to stay alive.
Russia’s troops may be approaching that precipice, says Jeff McCausland,
a combat veteran of the Gulf War and a visiting professor of
international security studies at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania.
He says it’s become clear that the Russian army is poorly trained and
supplied, and that its soldiers in many cases have lost their will to fight.
“Fear and panic are more infectious than Covid” for an army, says
McCausland, co-author of “Battle Tested! Gettysburg Leadership Lessons
for 21st Century Leaders.”
The sources for both fear and panic are varied. But McCausland and other
historians say that throughout the history of warfare, there are at
least three reasons why armies lose the will to fight.
They lose faith in their cause
McCausland has seen a broken army lose the will to fight up close.
He says he commanded a battalion during the Gulf War in 1990-1991 and
saw so many Iraqi soldiers surrender that his unit had trouble
accommodating the prisoners. They ended up giving water to the captured
soldiers and pointing them toward the rear.
What happens when an army loses faith in its leaders and its cause? The
Iraqi Army in the first Gulf War offers an answer. Iraqi soldiers
surrendered in massive numbers, without a fight, to the US and coalition
forces.
What happens when an army loses faith in its leaders and its cause? The
Iraqi Army in the first Gulf War offers an answer. Iraqi soldiers
surrendered in massive numbers, without a fight, to the US and coalition
forces.
Patrick Durand/Sygma/Getty Images
The war started when the Iraqi Army under Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.
But many Iraqi soldiers simply didn’t think Kuwait or Iraq’s brutal
leader were worth dying for.
“There was one instance where Iraqi soldiers surrendered to a drone that
was circling over them,” McCausland says.
A more recent example of an army losing the will to fight came in
Afghanistan.
Amid the US military’s withdrawal from the country in 2021, the Afghan
National Army collapsed. They allowed the Taliban to quickly take
control, even though the US had invested years and billions of dollars
in training them. It was a low point for President Biden’s administration.
The reason for the Afghan army’s complex surrender could be distilled in
one question, McCausland says.
An army can outfight and outlast a larger and better equipped foe if
they have higher morale. This is one reason why the Afghan army quickly
collapsed after the 2021 departure of US military forces, which left
military installations empty -- like the sprawling Bagram Air Base north
of Kabul.
An army can outfight and outlast a larger and better equipped foe if
they have higher morale. This is one reason why the Afghan army quickly
collapsed after the 2021 departure of US military forces, which left
military installations empty -- like the sprawling Bagram Air Base north
of Kabul.
Rahmat Gul/AP
“If you asked a Taliban soldier, ‘What the hell are you fighting for?’
he would say I’m fighting to free my country from the crusaders, just
like my grandfather freed the country from the Soviets and my
great-great grandfather freed the country from the British. And I’m
fighting for my religion, my country and my home,” McCausland says.
And if the same question was asked of an Afghan army soldier?
“He would say I’m fighting for a paycheck—if the company commander
doesn’t steal it.”
The Taliban believed in their cause; the Afghan army didn’t, says
McCausland.
They lose faith in their leaders
Every war has its defining images. The Ukraine war has already yielded
some unforgettable ones showing the contrast in leadership styles of
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart,
Volodymyr Zelensky.
Recent photos of Putin typically show him attired in a suit, alone at
the head of an absurdly long conference table, in a large, sterile room,
with a general or bureaucrat cowering at the other end. The caption
could well read: “paranoid and isolated dictator in action.”
The best leaders often inspire their armies by visiting the front lines.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has drawn criticism for keeping
physical distance from his troops and even from his closest advisors, as
this image suggests.
The best leaders often inspire their armies by visiting the front lines.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has drawn criticism for keeping
physical distance from his troops and even from his closest advisors, as
this image suggests.
Aleksey Nikolskyi/Sputnik/Kremlin/Reuters
Contrast those images of Putin with those of Zelensky. One shows him
standing resolute with his circle of advisers at night in Kyiv after
vowing not to abandon the city even though he and his family were in
danger. Other photographs show him in fatigues, buffed and bearded,
swapping hugs with soldiers on the front lines.
McCausland, who is also a national security consultant for CBS radio and
television, says the images offer a lesson in leadership.
“Just look at both photos in terms of who would you like to work for,”
says McCausland, who offers leadership workshops to companies,
non-profits and government institutions through his company, Diamond6.
“I don’t care whether you’re in the military or you’re working for a
corporation. It’s pretty easy to decide.”
Armies lose the will to fight when they lose faith in their leaders,
McCausland and others say.
They say soldiers don’t expect generals or other leaders to hunker down
in frontline trenches with them. But they want to know if their leaders
care for them and respect their sacrifice.
If you want to know how a leader can inspire an army to superhuman
levels of endurance, consider this popular story from one of the
greatest commanders in history: Alexander the Great.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, center, visits the town of Bucha, where
civilian bodies were found in the street after the town was retaken from
Russia by the Ukrainian army. Zelensky has given a master class in
effective war leadership, military historians say.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, center, visits the town of Bucha, where
civilian bodies were found in the street after the town was retaken from
Russia by the Ukrainian army. Zelensky has given a master class in
effective war leadership, military historians say.
Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images
Alexander was leading his parched army through an unforgiving desert in
pursuit of an enemy when scouts returned to him with a scoop of precious
water in a helmet. They handed him the helmet in front of his army.
Alexander thanked the soldiers and then, in full view of his troops,
poured the water on the ground. He announced he would not take any water
unless all his men had the same. His troops cheered.
Alexander the Great never lost a battle.
“So extraordinary was the effect of this action that the water wasted by
Alexander was as good as a drink for every man in the army,” one
chronicler would write later.
They lose the backing of their country
We hear commentators warn about the dangers of hyper-polarization in
American politics, the corrupting power of unregulated and virtually
untraceable “dark money” and the breakdown of civic norms.
What many don’t say is that these trends can become a national security
issue in times of war. Put simply, an army can quit when their country
becomes too corrupt or divided to support them.
A classic example is the mass collapse of the South Vietnamese Army in
the spring of 1975. The US military had been South Vietnam’s big brother
and benefactor for a decade as both countries fought the Viet Cong and
the North Vietnamese army.
But the South Vietnamese government was riddled with corruption. Its
leaders and their cronies siphoned off military aid to enrich
themselves, and never built popular support among the populace they
purportedly served.
A corrupt and undivided government can drain an army of the will to
fight. This is partly why many South Vietnamese soldiers fled the
battlefield during the fall of their country in 1975. Many abandoned
their uniforms on the road as they fled.
A corrupt and undivided government can drain an army of the will to
fight. This is partly why many South Vietnamese soldiers fled the
battlefield during the fall of their country in 1975. Many abandoned
their uniforms on the road as they fled.
Jacques Pavlovsky/Sygma/Getty Images
After the US military withdrew combat troops in 1973, the North
Vietnamese army launched its final offensive on Saigon two years later.
The South Vietnamese army refused to fight. News photos from that period
show the army’s equipment littering roadways as soldiers abandoned their
units and attempted to hide among the civilian population, says Derek
Frisby, a historian at Middle Tennessee State University.
“Once it looked like North was going to take over the South, there was
nothing the South Vietnamese army could do about it,” Frisby says. “Once
the Americans left, it [the loss of South Vietnam) seemed inevitable.”
Wars aren’t just fought by soldiers. They are fought by a country, and
its people and its institutions. They are what historian Michael Butler
calls “social endeavors.”
The health of a country’s institutions - its government, military and
media outlets – matter just as much as a soldier’s will to fight, says
Butler, author of “Selling a ‘Just’ War: Framing Legitimacy and U.S.
Military Intervention.”
Butler pointed to “On War,” the pioneering work by the 19th century
Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz, who wrote that the
“forces of passion” are every bit as critical to a successful war effort
as the military and the government.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin reviews naval troops as he attends a
parade marking Russian Navy Day on July 31, 2022.
Russian President Vladimir Putin reviews naval troops as he attends a
parade marking Russian Navy Day on July 31, 2022.
Olga Maltseva/AFP/Getty Images
If a government is corrupt and does not have the trust of the people,
its armies can lose the will to fight, Butler says. He says that appears
to be taking place in Russia, where society has long been afflicted by a
“societal malaise.”
Its citizens have experienced the traumatic breakup of the Soviet Union,
rampant corruption, political apathy, and the crushing of independent
media and dissenting voices, he says. Political apathy has grown.
The malaise afflicting civic Russia may be spreading to its military, he
says, adding that the signs are already there in the thousands of men
fleeing Russia to escape conscription.
“That’s pretty compelling evidence that that the forces of passion are
not really effectively locked into this war,” says Butler, a political
science professor at Clark University in Massachusetts. “It’s not
surprising to see that playing out on the battlefield with troops who
are deserting or disengaging.”
The forces of passion now, though, seem to favor Ukraine. Its army’s men
and women (women soldiers serve in combat units in the Ukrainian
military) know what they’re fighting for.
“Ukrainians are motivated by perhaps the strongest force a soldier can
have – defense of their country, families and homes,” McCausland says.
The big question for Russian troops this winter
The US military faced a crisis of morale half a century ago in Vietnam.
American troops never surrendered during the Vietnam War. They never
lost a major battle during the war. The 1968 Tet Offensive, a failed
campaign by North Vietnam’s army and the Viet Cong, was a military
victory for the US.
Many US troops lost the will to fight in Vietnam in part because of a
massive anti-war movement in their native country. In this photo,
demonstrators march down Fifth Avenue in New York City in 1968 to
protest against US involvement in the war.
Many US troops lost the will to fight in Vietnam in part because of a
massive anti-war movement in their native country. In this photo,
demonstrators march down Fifth Avenue in New York City in 1968 to
protest against US involvement in the war.
AP
And yet it was also a devastating political loss. The American public
turned against the war. Antiwar protests rocked the country. The
American public grew enraged when they learned their country’s political
and military leaders had lied to them about the purpose and success of
the war.
Many American combat soldiers simply lost the will to fight. The US’
abrupt withdrawal from Vietnam was one of the most humiliating chapters
in our history.
The political context of the US’s war in Vietnam was different than the
current war in Ukraine. In Russia, war protests have been crushed and
the media has largely been uncritical of Putin’s conduct.
But on the battlefield, many Russian soldiers are discovering what some
American soldiers realized in Vietnam — that they are fighting for a lie.
As John Kerry, a Vietnam combat veteran and future Senator who turned
against the war, put it during a 1971 congressional hearing:
“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?’
This is the question that may haunt Russian soldiers in Ukraine this
winter. If Putin doesn’t give them an answer that makes their hardships
worthwhile, the mass migration of men fleeing Russia after conscription
may spread to the battlefield.
And one frigid winter night, when the only sounds may not be of
Christmas carols but of men dying on the battlefield, Russian soldiers
may ask one another:
How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/29/europe/russian-army-ukraine-blake-cec/index.html
What causes armies to lose the will to fight? Here’s what history tells
us – and what Putin may soon find out
By John Blake, CNN
Updated 8:25 PM EDT, Sun October 30, 2022
CNN
—
It was one of the strangest episodes in military history, an event so
unusual that it was first treated as a myth.
At 8:30 pm on Christmas Eve of 1914 in the dank and muddy battlefields
of northern Europe during World War I, a British soldier dispatched a
report to headquarters: German soldiers have illuminated their trenches
and are singing carols while wishing British soldiers a merry Christmas.
British officers ordered their men to be silent, but it was too late. A
British soldier responded with his own chorus of “The First Noel.” A
German soldier called out across No Man’s Land – the barbed wire-strewn,
deadly middle ground separating the armies – “Come out, English soldier;
come out there to us.”
The soldiers climbed out of their trenches and met in the middle. So did
others, gathering to exchange chocolate, wine and souvenirs. They even
organized a soccer game, which the Germans won 3-2.
Most of the soldiers who shook hands on that fog-shrouded Christmas Eve
would be dead before the war ended four years later. But letters from
survivors and grainy black-and-white photographs prove it was no myth.
An estimated 100,000 soldiers on both sides simply refused to fight
because they were too exhausted and jaded. The Christmas Truce even
lasted until New Year’s in some places.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a wreath-laying ceremony on
June 22, 2022 to mark the Soviet Union's war against Nazi Germany in
World War II. Putin's army in Ukraine, though, may face a different fate
because of larger problems in Russia, experts say.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a wreath-laying ceremony on
June 22, 2022 to mark the Soviet Union's war against Nazi Germany in
World War II. Putin's army in Ukraine, though, may face a different fate
because of larger problems in Russia, experts say.
Maxim Shipenkov/Pool/Reuters
“By December 1914, the men in the trenches were veterans, familiar
enough with the realities of combat to have lost much of the idealism
that they had carried into war in August, and most longed for an end to
bloodshed,” according to an account of the Christmas Truce in
Smithsonian Magazine.
More than a century later, there’s little chance that Russian and
Ukrainian soldiers will shower each other with gifts this winter. But
the Christmas Truce story is an example of a peculiar feature of war
that offers a warning to the beleaguered Russian army in Ukraine:
There are moments throughout history where entire armies suddenly stop
fighting, though they are evenly matched or even numerically superior to
their enemy.
What causes armies to lose the will to fight? And how might that play
out with the Russian army in Ukraine?
This is the question that CNN asked combat veterans and military
historians. While history is full of embattled armies like the Imperial
Japanese Army in World War II, which fought with ferocious intensity
even though they knew they would not win, it also records other armies
that “quiet quit” — stopped attacking the enemy or did the bare minimum
to stay alive.
Russia’s troops may be approaching that precipice, says Jeff McCausland,
a combat veteran of the Gulf War and a visiting professor of
international security studies at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania.
He says it’s become clear that the Russian army is poorly trained and
supplied, and that its soldiers in many cases have lost their will to fight.
“Fear and panic are more infectious than Covid” for an army, says
McCausland, co-author of “Battle Tested! Gettysburg Leadership Lessons
for 21st Century Leaders.”
The sources for both fear and panic are varied. But McCausland and other
historians say that throughout the history of warfare, there are at
least three reasons why armies lose the will to fight.
They lose faith in their cause
McCausland has seen a broken army lose the will to fight up close.
He says he commanded a battalion during the Gulf War in 1990-1991 and
saw so many Iraqi soldiers surrender that his unit had trouble
accommodating the prisoners. They ended up giving water to the captured
soldiers and pointing them toward the rear.
What happens when an army loses faith in its leaders and its cause? The
Iraqi Army in the first Gulf War offers an answer. Iraqi soldiers
surrendered in massive numbers, without a fight, to the US and coalition
forces.
What happens when an army loses faith in its leaders and its cause? The
Iraqi Army in the first Gulf War offers an answer. Iraqi soldiers
surrendered in massive numbers, without a fight, to the US and coalition
forces.
Patrick Durand/Sygma/Getty Images
The war started when the Iraqi Army under Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.
But many Iraqi soldiers simply didn’t think Kuwait or Iraq’s brutal
leader were worth dying for.
“There was one instance where Iraqi soldiers surrendered to a drone that
was circling over them,” McCausland says.
A more recent example of an army losing the will to fight came in
Afghanistan.
Amid the US military’s withdrawal from the country in 2021, the Afghan
National Army collapsed. They allowed the Taliban to quickly take
control, even though the US had invested years and billions of dollars
in training them. It was a low point for President Biden’s administration.
The reason for the Afghan army’s complex surrender could be distilled in
one question, McCausland says.
An army can outfight and outlast a larger and better equipped foe if
they have higher morale. This is one reason why the Afghan army quickly
collapsed after the 2021 departure of US military forces, which left
military installations empty -- like the sprawling Bagram Air Base north
of Kabul.
An army can outfight and outlast a larger and better equipped foe if
they have higher morale. This is one reason why the Afghan army quickly
collapsed after the 2021 departure of US military forces, which left
military installations empty -- like the sprawling Bagram Air Base north
of Kabul.
Rahmat Gul/AP
“If you asked a Taliban soldier, ‘What the hell are you fighting for?’
he would say I’m fighting to free my country from the crusaders, just
like my grandfather freed the country from the Soviets and my
great-great grandfather freed the country from the British. And I’m
fighting for my religion, my country and my home,” McCausland says.
And if the same question was asked of an Afghan army soldier?
“He would say I’m fighting for a paycheck—if the company commander
doesn’t steal it.”
The Taliban believed in their cause; the Afghan army didn’t, says
McCausland.
They lose faith in their leaders
Every war has its defining images. The Ukraine war has already yielded
some unforgettable ones showing the contrast in leadership styles of
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart,
Volodymyr Zelensky.
Recent photos of Putin typically show him attired in a suit, alone at
the head of an absurdly long conference table, in a large, sterile room,
with a general or bureaucrat cowering at the other end. The caption
could well read: “paranoid and isolated dictator in action.”
The best leaders often inspire their armies by visiting the front lines.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has drawn criticism for keeping
physical distance from his troops and even from his closest advisors, as
this image suggests.
The best leaders often inspire their armies by visiting the front lines.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has drawn criticism for keeping
physical distance from his troops and even from his closest advisors, as
this image suggests.
Aleksey Nikolskyi/Sputnik/Kremlin/Reuters
Contrast those images of Putin with those of Zelensky. One shows him
standing resolute with his circle of advisers at night in Kyiv after
vowing not to abandon the city even though he and his family were in
danger. Other photographs show him in fatigues, buffed and bearded,
swapping hugs with soldiers on the front lines.
McCausland, who is also a national security consultant for CBS radio and
television, says the images offer a lesson in leadership.
“Just look at both photos in terms of who would you like to work for,”
says McCausland, who offers leadership workshops to companies,
non-profits and government institutions through his company, Diamond6.
“I don’t care whether you’re in the military or you’re working for a
corporation. It’s pretty easy to decide.”
Armies lose the will to fight when they lose faith in their leaders,
McCausland and others say.
They say soldiers don’t expect generals or other leaders to hunker down
in frontline trenches with them. But they want to know if their leaders
care for them and respect their sacrifice.
If you want to know how a leader can inspire an army to superhuman
levels of endurance, consider this popular story from one of the
greatest commanders in history: Alexander the Great.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, center, visits the town of Bucha, where
civilian bodies were found in the street after the town was retaken from
Russia by the Ukrainian army. Zelensky has given a master class in
effective war leadership, military historians say.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, center, visits the town of Bucha, where
civilian bodies were found in the street after the town was retaken from
Russia by the Ukrainian army. Zelensky has given a master class in
effective war leadership, military historians say.
Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images
Alexander was leading his parched army through an unforgiving desert in
pursuit of an enemy when scouts returned to him with a scoop of precious
water in a helmet. They handed him the helmet in front of his army.
Alexander thanked the soldiers and then, in full view of his troops,
poured the water on the ground. He announced he would not take any water
unless all his men had the same. His troops cheered.
Alexander the Great never lost a battle.
“So extraordinary was the effect of this action that the water wasted by
Alexander was as good as a drink for every man in the army,” one
chronicler would write later.
They lose the backing of their country
We hear commentators warn about the dangers of hyper-polarization in
American politics, the corrupting power of unregulated and virtually
untraceable “dark money” and the breakdown of civic norms.
What many don’t say is that these trends can become a national security
issue in times of war. Put simply, an army can quit when their country
becomes too corrupt or divided to support them.
A classic example is the mass collapse of the South Vietnamese Army in
the spring of 1975. The US military had been South Vietnam’s big brother
and benefactor for a decade as both countries fought the Viet Cong and
the North Vietnamese army.
But the South Vietnamese government was riddled with corruption. Its
leaders and their cronies siphoned off military aid to enrich
themselves, and never built popular support among the populace they
purportedly served.
A corrupt and undivided government can drain an army of the will to
fight. This is partly why many South Vietnamese soldiers fled the
battlefield during the fall of their country in 1975. Many abandoned
their uniforms on the road as they fled.
A corrupt and undivided government can drain an army of the will to
fight. This is partly why many South Vietnamese soldiers fled the
battlefield during the fall of their country in 1975. Many abandoned
their uniforms on the road as they fled.
Jacques Pavlovsky/Sygma/Getty Images
After the US military withdrew combat troops in 1973, the North
Vietnamese army launched its final offensive on Saigon two years later.
The South Vietnamese army refused to fight. News photos from that period
show the army’s equipment littering roadways as soldiers abandoned their
units and attempted to hide among the civilian population, says Derek
Frisby, a historian at Middle Tennessee State University.
“Once it looked like North was going to take over the South, there was
nothing the South Vietnamese army could do about it,” Frisby says. “Once
the Americans left, it [the loss of South Vietnam) seemed inevitable.”
Wars aren’t just fought by soldiers. They are fought by a country, and
its people and its institutions. They are what historian Michael Butler
calls “social endeavors.”
The health of a country’s institutions - its government, military and
media outlets – matter just as much as a soldier’s will to fight, says
Butler, author of “Selling a ‘Just’ War: Framing Legitimacy and U.S.
Military Intervention.”
Butler pointed to “On War,” the pioneering work by the 19th century
Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz, who wrote that the
“forces of passion” are every bit as critical to a successful war effort
as the military and the government.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin reviews naval troops as he attends a
parade marking Russian Navy Day on July 31, 2022.
Russian President Vladimir Putin reviews naval troops as he attends a
parade marking Russian Navy Day on July 31, 2022.
Olga Maltseva/AFP/Getty Images
If a government is corrupt and does not have the trust of the people,
its armies can lose the will to fight, Butler says. He says that appears
to be taking place in Russia, where society has long been afflicted by a
“societal malaise.”
Its citizens have experienced the traumatic breakup of the Soviet Union,
rampant corruption, political apathy, and the crushing of independent
media and dissenting voices, he says. Political apathy has grown.
The malaise afflicting civic Russia may be spreading to its military, he
says, adding that the signs are already there in the thousands of men
fleeing Russia to escape conscription.
“That’s pretty compelling evidence that that the forces of passion are
not really effectively locked into this war,” says Butler, a political
science professor at Clark University in Massachusetts. “It’s not
surprising to see that playing out on the battlefield with troops who
are deserting or disengaging.”
The forces of passion now, though, seem to favor Ukraine. Its army’s men
and women (women soldiers serve in combat units in the Ukrainian
military) know what they’re fighting for.
“Ukrainians are motivated by perhaps the strongest force a soldier can
have – defense of their country, families and homes,” McCausland says.
The big question for Russian troops this winter
The US military faced a crisis of morale half a century ago in Vietnam.
American troops never surrendered during the Vietnam War. They never
lost a major battle during the war. The 1968 Tet Offensive, a failed
campaign by North Vietnam’s army and the Viet Cong, was a military
victory for the US.
Many US troops lost the will to fight in Vietnam in part because of a
massive anti-war movement in their native country. In this photo,
demonstrators march down Fifth Avenue in New York City in 1968 to
protest against US involvement in the war.
Many US troops lost the will to fight in Vietnam in part because of a
massive anti-war movement in their native country. In this photo,
demonstrators march down Fifth Avenue in New York City in 1968 to
protest against US involvement in the war.
AP
And yet it was also a devastating political loss. The American public
turned against the war. Antiwar protests rocked the country. The
American public grew enraged when they learned their country’s political
and military leaders had lied to them about the purpose and success of
the war.
Many American combat soldiers simply lost the will to fight. The US’
abrupt withdrawal from Vietnam was one of the most humiliating chapters
in our history.
The political context of the US’s war in Vietnam was different than the
current war in Ukraine. In Russia, war protests have been crushed and
the media has largely been uncritical of Putin’s conduct.
But on the battlefield, many Russian soldiers are discovering what some
American soldiers realized in Vietnam — that they are fighting for a lie.
As John Kerry, a Vietnam combat veteran and future Senator who turned
against the war, put it during a 1971 congressional hearing:
“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?’
This is the question that may haunt Russian soldiers in Ukraine this
winter. If Putin doesn’t give them an answer that makes their hardships
worthwhile, the mass migration of men fleeing Russia after conscription
may spread to the battlefield.
And one frigid winter night, when the only sounds may not be of
Christmas carols but of men dying on the battlefield, Russian soldiers
may ask one another:
How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”
Jim Wilkins
Nov 3, 2022, 8:16:48 AM11/3/22
to
"a425couple" wrote in message news:xEC8L.1463$I1C9...@fx42.iad...
from
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/29/europe/russian-army-ukraine-blake-cec/index.html
What causes armies to lose the will to fight? Here’s what history tells
us – and what Putin may soon find out
By John Blake, CNN
Updated 8:25 PM EDT, Sun October 30, 2022
CNN
—
It was one of the strangest episodes in military history, an event so
unusual that it was first treated as a myth.
At 8:30 pm on Christmas Eve of 1914 in the dank and muddy battlefields
of northern Europe during World War I, a British soldier dispatched a
report to headquarters: German soldiers have illuminated their trenches
and are singing carols while wishing British soldiers a merry Christmas.
--------------
The Germans brought out a piano.
During the US Civil War's bitter Vicksburg campaign a truce was arranged
after a particularly vicious attack to recover the dead and wounded. When
both sides came out and mingled they acted as though there wasn't a war on,
trading with each other. Then they returned to the deadly business of
shelling and shooting each other.
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/long-gruesome-fight-capture-vicksburg
"The truce that evening spawned one of the most amazing moments of the war
as combatants on both sides emerged to talk and jaw, and trade stories and
rations. Two brothers, one from each side, were said to have met halfway
between lines. One Union officer said he saw four soldiers playing cards —
two Yankees and two Rebels. [General] Sherman met with a Confederate officer
to give him a handful of letters from his Northern friends addressed to
Southern officers and men."
I've read of a captured WW1 German pilot being "retained for interrogation"
by the capturing unit, so he could participate in the drinking parties.
from
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/29/europe/russian-army-ukraine-blake-cec/index.html
What causes armies to lose the will to fight? Here’s what history tells
us – and what Putin may soon find out
By John Blake, CNN
Updated 8:25 PM EDT, Sun October 30, 2022
CNN
—
It was one of the strangest episodes in military history, an event so
unusual that it was first treated as a myth.
At 8:30 pm on Christmas Eve of 1914 in the dank and muddy battlefields
of northern Europe during World War I, a British soldier dispatched a
report to headquarters: German soldiers have illuminated their trenches
and are singing carols while wishing British soldiers a merry Christmas.
The Germans brought out a piano.
During the US Civil War's bitter Vicksburg campaign a truce was arranged
after a particularly vicious attack to recover the dead and wounded. When
both sides came out and mingled they acted as though there wasn't a war on,
trading with each other. Then they returned to the deadly business of
shelling and shooting each other.
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/long-gruesome-fight-capture-vicksburg
"The truce that evening spawned one of the most amazing moments of the war
as combatants on both sides emerged to talk and jaw, and trade stories and
rations. Two brothers, one from each side, were said to have met halfway
between lines. One Union officer said he saw four soldiers playing cards —
two Yankees and two Rebels. [General] Sherman met with a Confederate officer
to give him a handful of letters from his Northern friends addressed to
Southern officers and men."
I've read of a captured WW1 German pilot being "retained for interrogation"
by the capturing unit, so he could participate in the drinking parties.
Keith Willshaw
Nov 14, 2022, 1:10:54 PM11/14/22
to
On 02/11/2022 23:00, a425couple wrote:
> from
> https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/29/europe/russian-army-ukraine-blake-cec/index.html
>
> What causes armies to lose the will to fight? Here’s what history tells
> us – and what Putin may soon find out
> By John Blake, CNN
> Updated 8:25 PM EDT, Sun October 30, 2022
>
>
For the Ukrainians this is personal, their country has been invaded,
> from
> https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/29/europe/russian-army-ukraine-blake-cec/index.html
>
> What causes armies to lose the will to fight? Here’s what history tells
> us – and what Putin may soon find out
> By John Blake, CNN
> Updated 8:25 PM EDT, Sun October 30, 2022
>
>
their civilians murdered and land seized, worse for the Russians they
are better equipped and led. There is a historical precedent here for
Russia - see 1917 Revolution
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