The D-Day landings that began on 6th June 1944 were the most material-intensive and technologically complex form of war ever attempted up to that point. An armada of 6000 ships, covered by an air fleet of more than a thousand aircraft landed over 130,000 men and equipment in the space of only 24 hours. Over 20,000 were dropped from the air. And the build-up continued, day after day, week after week, month after month.
The US completely avoided the devastation of WW II & Great Britain mostly did so. As a result, the citizens of both countries remain completely innocent of what modern war is like. Britain's power has declined to irrelevance, and the US has since Korea made an effort to limit the sort of destruction seen in WW II (and Korea). That said, it's important to remember that the US retains the right to first use of nukes & trained to use them in Europe before the fall of the USSR, which has foresworn first use.
Khrushchev made some noise, too. The utility of nukes, as I understand it, isn't clear, and the whole idea of using them seems fraught. Fifty years ago & more when I was in the army in Europe I asked an officer much smarter than I as he explained how we'd use tactical nukes to stop any Russian invasion why he didn't think the Russians would use them, too, to shut down Bremerhaven, etc.; he gave me a pitying look & explained they didn't have any tactical nukes. I wondered why a strategic one wouldn't work as well but decided to keep my big fat mouth shut.
Yeah, seeing how they haven’t been used since ‘45 one has to wonder at their utility on the battlefield. Against armored columns of the Warsaw Pact driving west, maybe a good deterrent. Should Russia use them against Ukraine, what would they target? The fallout literal and figurative would probably draw NATO into the war.
I would also note that the Gearmans staff got its wish for mobile warfare after the St Lo breakout, and the result was that they were demolished in the Falaise pocket. Mobile warfare was crushed by massive firepower, both artillery and air.
" War-fighting does not progress by stages from infantry and horse, to artillery, to tanks, to airpower, atomic bombs and “Space Force” etc."
You should check the war in Ukraine, Mr Tooze, to see what total awarenes does to a war, and what good AD does with excessive air power dominance, and what good EW does with GPS guided bombs and missiles...
The technical genie is out of the bottle and the Hothies, the Hezbollah, the Iranians, the North Koreans, the Russians, and the Chinese are going toe to toe and more against the Anglo-American hegemony, and then some more (who knew that financialization can ruin the material economy, which (financialization) is the product not of democracy but of financial plutocracy).
And it is obvious that not only "democracies" seek to take care and try to avoid loosing men. It is clear that the main objective of the Russian Army is to loose as few people as possible. The myth of the "human waves" spread by the defeated German generals to the eager ears of their American masters to justify their loosing against the Soviets is just that, a myth. And there was a day during WWI when England lost about 60K soldiers, one day. This is what happens when matched forces fight against eachother. The issue of democracy vs authoritarianism flyes out the window and "values" are just the figleaf the Anglo-American plutocratic haegemon tries to use to motivate its cannon fodder to go and fight overseas. Roman armies incurred the greatest losses during their civil wars, because they were fighting against peer forces.
"The war in Ukraine has resulted in heavy losses for both sides, although Russia has reportedly taken a big hit to its number of personnel and equipment. Kyiv and Western intelligence estimate that Russian President Vladimir Putin's troops have suffered from 300,000 to 400,000 casualties since the war broke out in February 2022. Moscow's months-long offensive for the town of Avdiivka, which fell to Russia earlier this month, reportedly costed Putin 17,000 soldiers alone."
Check Mediazona, which confirms the lower losses of Russians compared with Ukrainians. According to Mediazona (British), so far, Russians have lost about 55K people from the beginning of the war... Some more from Donbas and Lugansk, puting the number at around 85K.
One reference to contextualize the American military's adoption of Wehrmacht mobile tactics is "The Myth of the Eastern Front: the Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture", by Ronald S,melser and Edward Davies. They point out how much was derived from the self-serving accounts of German generals and others, quick to blame Hitler for any mistakes and distance themselves from any massacre. Franz Halder, chief of the Army Generakl Staff from 1938-1942, was put in charge of the American post-war histories of the conflict. A multi-level media campaign glorified the abilities of the Wehrmacht. It was only in 1989-1990 that the Soviet archives became accessible to tell the other side of the story.
How do you see the long-term rivalry or conflict of the Anglo-American "liberal militarist" powers with Russia and China linking into this interpretation? Is that another related layer that overlaps with the great acceleration and the thanocene? After all, one might say that the Anglo-Americans in WW2 conducted their industrial war-making largely on the backs of the lives (27+M and 10+M) of those two countries, and have sought control of their resources and industry ever since.
The idea of the Anglo-thanatocene or that of liberal militarism should stop and think for a moment about the reasons why a majority of expert geologists rejected the idea of the Anthropocene.
I don't see oil exploitation and war technology development as the only prerogative of US-Anglo forces. The most fascinating thing of the WW2 period is to see how research from both sides (Allies and Nazi) converged. Also, it's important to reflect on how many of those developments were carried after the war. See, for instance, the jet engine for civil aviation.
I suspect Mr. Tooze has overdone his thesis about the Thanatocene. If he believes it was a uniquely bloody and brute-force method of fighting, he should become acquainted with conditions on the Eastern Front. 12 million Read Army dead is what happens when a leader isn't overly fussy about the lives of his citizen-soldiers.
Much has been made of the operational art of Soviet commanders like Zhukov and others at Kursk, in Operation Bagration, and so on. But there a lot of ways a commander can be bold if he knows his soldiers are utterly expendable. Zhukov allegedly remarked to Eisenhower at war's end that he did not bother with mine clearance before an assault because it would compromise tactical surprise, and soldiers would die whether they stepped on a mine or assaulted an alerted German defense. Western commanders never had that dubious luxury.
I know that some people object to the terminology used in this piece because of the recent rejection of Anthropocene by geologists. That term long ago outgrew geology. Thanatocene is an excellent term to describe the modern mind set, economy, and culture. I think it was an earlier Chartbook that led me to read by Christophe Bonneuil and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz's book, as well as The Great Acceleration:
An Environmental History of the Anthropocene since 1945 by J. R. McNeill and Peter Engelke. The concepts those authors advance are not comfortable. They force us, as Adam Tooze does so effectively, to reexamine both the past and present in uncomfortable and necessary ways.
The US completely avoided the devastation of WW II & Great Britain mostly did so. As a result, the citizens of both countries remain completely innocent of what modern war is like. Britain's power has declined to irrelevance, and the US has since Korea made an effort to limit the sort of destruction seen in WW II (and Korea). That said, it's important to remember that the US retains the right to first use of nukes & trained to use them in Europe before the fall of the USSR, which has foresworn first use.
Maybe the USSR forswore first use of nukes but Putin sure hasn’t. That said, his atomic saber ratting is pure bluff.
Khrushchev made some noise, too. The utility of nukes, as I understand it, isn't clear, and the whole idea of using them seems fraught. Fifty years ago & more when I was in the army in Europe I asked an officer much smarter than I as he explained how we'd use tactical nukes to stop any Russian invasion why he didn't think the Russians would use them, too, to shut down Bremerhaven, etc.; he gave me a pitying look & explained they didn't have any tactical nukes. I wondered why a strategic one wouldn't work as well but decided to keep my big fat mouth shut.
David,
Yeah, seeing how they haven’t been used since ‘45 one has to wonder at their utility on the battlefield. Against armored columns of the Warsaw Pact driving west, maybe a good deterrent. Should Russia use them against Ukraine, what would they target? The fallout literal and figurative would probably draw NATO into the war.
Rob, I thought they'd use them when they stalled on the road to Kiev, regardless of their utility, but they didn't. Too late now, I think/hope.
I would also note that the Gearmans staff got its wish for mobile warfare after the St Lo breakout, and the result was that they were demolished in the Falaise pocket. Mobile warfare was crushed by massive firepower, both artillery and air.
" War-fighting does not progress by stages from infantry and horse, to artillery, to tanks, to airpower, atomic bombs and “Space Force” etc."
You should check the war in Ukraine, Mr Tooze, to see what total awarenes does to a war, and what good AD does with excessive air power dominance, and what good EW does with GPS guided bombs and missiles...
The technical genie is out of the bottle and the Hothies, the Hezbollah, the Iranians, the North Koreans, the Russians, and the Chinese are going toe to toe and more against the Anglo-American hegemony, and then some more (who knew that financialization can ruin the material economy, which (financialization) is the product not of democracy but of financial plutocracy).
And it is obvious that not only "democracies" seek to take care and try to avoid loosing men. It is clear that the main objective of the Russian Army is to loose as few people as possible. The myth of the "human waves" spread by the defeated German generals to the eager ears of their American masters to justify their loosing against the Soviets is just that, a myth. And there was a day during WWI when England lost about 60K soldiers, one day. This is what happens when matched forces fight against eachother. The issue of democracy vs authoritarianism flyes out the window and "values" are just the figleaf the Anglo-American plutocratic haegemon tries to use to motivate its cannon fodder to go and fight overseas. Roman armies incurred the greatest losses during their civil wars, because they were fighting against peer forces.
It's a funny way the Russians "avoid losing men."
"The war in Ukraine has resulted in heavy losses for both sides, although Russia has reportedly taken a big hit to its number of personnel and equipment. Kyiv and Western intelligence estimate that Russian President Vladimir Putin's troops have suffered from 300,000 to 400,000 casualties since the war broke out in February 2022. Moscow's months-long offensive for the town of Avdiivka, which fell to Russia earlier this month, reportedly costed Putin 17,000 soldiers alone."
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-implementing-human-wave-assaults-without-armored-vehicles-kyiv-1874501
Check Mediazona, which confirms the lower losses of Russians compared with Ukrainians. According to Mediazona (British), so far, Russians have lost about 55K people from the beginning of the war... Some more from Donbas and Lugansk, puting the number at around 85K.
One reference to contextualize the American military's adoption of Wehrmacht mobile tactics is "The Myth of the Eastern Front: the Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture", by Ronald S,melser and Edward Davies. They point out how much was derived from the self-serving accounts of German generals and others, quick to blame Hitler for any mistakes and distance themselves from any massacre. Franz Halder, chief of the Army Generakl Staff from 1938-1942, was put in charge of the American post-war histories of the conflict. A multi-level media campaign glorified the abilities of the Wehrmacht. It was only in 1989-1990 that the Soviet archives became accessible to tell the other side of the story.
How do you see the long-term rivalry or conflict of the Anglo-American "liberal militarist" powers with Russia and China linking into this interpretation? Is that another related layer that overlaps with the great acceleration and the thanocene? After all, one might say that the Anglo-Americans in WW2 conducted their industrial war-making largely on the backs of the lives (27+M and 10+M) of those two countries, and have sought control of their resources and industry ever since.
Question - as a subscriber, can I access an archive of past letters and if so how?
John McLees - johnmclees@outlook.com
https://adamtooze.substack.com/archive?sort=new
Thanks Adam very interesting observations: Two -not directly D-Day related- questions came up.
What about Western democraties in no/low carbon age? Is the Trump/GOP travesty part of this?
The other one: How can the western democratic values be universal in non carbon societies, or are they not?
1. Coal is often classed as a hydrocarbon and I think it is more effective for purposes of this article to do so.
2. It is pretty clear now that World War 2 was won at least four times. Was it four wars?
Missing word at the end of this sentence, (assuming it's fossil fuels or energy):
"was only possible because of overwhelmingly superior access to?"
The idea of the Anglo-thanatocene or that of liberal militarism should stop and think for a moment about the reasons why a majority of expert geologists rejected the idea of the Anthropocene.
Are those airships in pic?
I'm reminded of Edgerton's quip that Nazi Germany used more horses in WWII than Britain did in WWI—agglomerations all the way down.
I don't see oil exploitation and war technology development as the only prerogative of US-Anglo forces. The most fascinating thing of the WW2 period is to see how research from both sides (Allies and Nazi) converged. Also, it's important to reflect on how many of those developments were carried after the war. See, for instance, the jet engine for civil aviation.
I suspect Mr. Tooze has overdone his thesis about the Thanatocene. If he believes it was a uniquely bloody and brute-force method of fighting, he should become acquainted with conditions on the Eastern Front. 12 million Read Army dead is what happens when a leader isn't overly fussy about the lives of his citizen-soldiers.
Much has been made of the operational art of Soviet commanders like Zhukov and others at Kursk, in Operation Bagration, and so on. But there a lot of ways a commander can be bold if he knows his soldiers are utterly expendable. Zhukov allegedly remarked to Eisenhower at war's end that he did not bother with mine clearance before an assault because it would compromise tactical surprise, and soldiers would die whether they stepped on a mine or assaulted an alerted German defense. Western commanders never had that dubious luxury.
I know that some people object to the terminology used in this piece because of the recent rejection of Anthropocene by geologists. That term long ago outgrew geology. Thanatocene is an excellent term to describe the modern mind set, economy, and culture. I think it was an earlier Chartbook that led me to read by Christophe Bonneuil and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz's book, as well as The Great Acceleration:
An Environmental History of the Anthropocene since 1945 by J. R. McNeill and Peter Engelke. The concepts those authors advance are not comfortable. They force us, as Adam Tooze does so effectively, to reexamine both the past and present in uncomfortable and necessary ways.
This is a very whiny series.