Lessons from WW2 on the war today | Ukraine: The Latest | Podcast 

Mitchell was hardly the only one to predict the attack on Pearl Harbor. Many of the US fleet exercises in the 1930's included an attack on Pearl Harbor. Mitchell and Yamamoto used to discuss the idea of an air attack on Pearl Harbor at the Officers Club over poker games in Washington DC. The problem they had at Pearl before the real attack was that US Naval Intelligence just couldn't come up with any legitimately logical reasons for the Japanese to make that attack, and as history unfolded, they were entirely correct on that point. Yamamoto could really find all that many good reasons to make the attack either, but orders were orders so he tried to get something out of it.

Admiral King, several years earlier, executed a successful carrier mock raid on the Panama Canal, in Naval war games. Billy Mitchell had issues. His peers, wanted to examine post attack damage of the target battleship, but Billy continued to hit it, and sink it, not allowing them to do so.

@@michaelmoorrees3585 its nice that someone else mentions this, instead of everyone oversimplifying that the navy just hated aircraft

Thanks Ben. My late father was a B-17 pilot stationed in England in 1944. I find it very difficult to comment in these situations, since people don't really know the history, and repeat ideas in fashion, but lacking context. The history requires the context of Axis atrocities, Axis industry and military capacity, and Allied military options. My father survived a crash in France, lost *many* friends in the war (both USAAF and RAF), and witnessed many airmen die from shrapnel on his own air crews. Bombers were *not* safe places. "Daylight precision bombing" was dangerous. I do not know the RAF casualty rate, but US bomber crews suffered about 60% fatality rate in 1943, somewhat less by 1944. For US personnel that rate is tied with Marines dying on beaches in the Pacific, it was the worst job. In the popular imagination, unfortunately these men are seen as callous killers. It's not so. I believe they carried the horror of what was done to Germany until they died. I think that the horror of what Germany was doing to them, and to the world made it all more bearable, but not entirely so. It did contribute to the defeat of the 3rd Reich, despite many historians second guessing it now. Understanding the history led me to real sorrow about it all.

@@gregoryadair3223 stupid of me not to mention the greater collection of nationalities....my step grandfather's still missing today...joining from the Royal Indian Airforce...I believe the RAF had a 50% loss rate in bombers.

Numbers I read were 30 tsd west-allied bomber crew members being lost, 75% did not reach the 30 sorties, they were contracted for. Germany lost 30 tsd submariners, so it had been 1 : 1 losses if compared that way.

Surely your 'but' should be 'and'. No-one is criticising the bomber crews, who suffered the highest attrition rate of any service arm. Its Harris' policy under scrutiny, and was at the time including by Churchill.

Only slightly terrible! Lol

Cringe-worthy 🙄

While I agree, NATO has no removal clause. Same as the EU, also no removal clause (Hungary should be kicked out of the EU, but we can't).

Bacause if Turkey is out iof NATO, USA loses one of its most strategically located air bases; Incirlik near Syria, that hosts U.S. Air Force (USAF) complement of about five thousand men, US tactical nuclear weapons and supports US military operations in Syria+Iraq and logistics to US forces in all the middle east.

Turkey also controls the Straights limiting Russian access to the Mediterranean.

I hope they screw him!

Especially as it costs $40 a barrel to produce.

......wait,....I was under the impression that Russian leaders when selected after Stalin had to be castrated to avoid screwing up the country!?

@@roverboat2503 i'd heard Russia's production cost was $45.00. They are profiting almost zero

Now lets hope they squeeze real hard! 😁

Simple. It saves money for things like national healthcare and these countries broadly trust America not to do anything too crazy with their military hegemony. As for America, what they get from the deal is a bunch of friendly trading partners (far more money earned here than is spent on the military) and a large network of allies who, if push really came to shove, at least have a lot of military potential even if their standing militaries are mostly unimpressive.

The UK didnt. England always stands with the US

@@dearmas9068 I'm a real Anglophile, but I wish Blair had not supported the U.S. during GW2

i am not sure i agree with the claim. West Coast shipyards were building ships at a mad pace and putting them in the water. I'm not sure what we mean by "ordered". Designed? I would like a second opinion actually

8 ukrainian soldiers are dying for each 1 russian but they are not telling us that

Propaganda

propoganda

Read about the battle of Okinawa to understand Hiroshima and Nagasaki - About 100,000 poorly supplied and armed Japanese light infantry and some civilian volunteers did a whole lot of damage to US forces. At the time we believed Japan was "husbanding " their best equipment and troops for the final battle on the home Islands - 5 million troops and 20 million civilian militia - After Okinawa the invasion of Japan proper seemed to be impossibly difficult casualty wise

@@grisall Truman wrote, and I am pretty sure this is in his autobiography, that the reason he ok'd the atom bomb was that he felt that anything he could do that might prevent him from having to write more letters to mothers who had lost their sons in the war would be just fine with him.

@@grisall Well, yes, but it wouldn't have been difficult to just isolate Japan until it caved in. But the real problem with that was the Russians and the West most assuredly did not want to give up Japan to the Russians.

@@thomasjamison2050 Timing was the Key to both bomb drops. Just enough time between them to get the Russians attention not enough time for them to land troops.

@@wacojones8062 Russians continued operations against Japan until they got the Kuril Islands. This was many days after the bombing.

Politicians like to declare a "peace dividend". "Peace" means they can redirect defence money to pork barrel projects in their constituencies. They call it a "win". So ammunition factories are closed or repurposed to civilian good. America does not have the capacity to build new tanks. Really. They closed the casting plant. All they do is "refurbish" old Abrams into "new" ones ... sad but true.

If NATO ever went to war, its airpower and combined strategy would have made this, or any war, very much shorter. This war resembles WWI in that there is no airpower, and thus depends on artillery

Regarding NATO preparations, NATO countries have been under-investing. Also, they have been focused on developing light expeditionary forces, not artillery and tanks.

Keep drinking the russian potato juice.

To me it makes me drunk.whatever they take before the podcast ..God only knows...

Because should Bahkmut fall it would cause a collapse in their defense line.

@@maryginger4877 interesting, in my perspective, there are not enough forces. Russia would need hundreds of thousands of supplied soldiers to do anything strategically significant if a breakthrough is achieved. Remember, Ardennes 1944-1945.

Major cross roads and railway point for Ukraine to supply their Donbass front line.

@@Chironex_Fleckeri True. So this war will grind on for years, like the Vietnam war.

I am sure that they are gearing/geared up !

Spot on,

Way off mark.

Couldnt have said it better myself. Yes, Ukraine is defending their democracy *BUT* they are also defending the worlds democracy at the expense of their blood, sweat, tears and infrastructure. So the least the world democracies can do is support them at all costs. Basically Putler has declared war on the world by means of weaponizing food and oil/gas causing world inflation. They were a part of starting WWI, WWII and now potential WWIII along with many wars they dont declare so they dont get attacked at home in retaliation. I will never forget Christmas Eve 1999 in Grozny and am sure Ukraine has something like that to look forward to. A lot of top Ruzzians have been coming and going from Belarus lately and a lot of equipment has been witnessed pouring in and it is all hush hush. Since Putler continues to use the same play book for all his illegal wars/invasions, I think he intends on bombing Kiev then come in with ground troops to take the capital and President Zelensky. The opposition in Belarus has claimed Belaruzzians wont be sent to fight because Lenchenko stated they will either defect or fight against Ruzzia. He is also worried if he lost many troops or they defect, that Poland might pay them a visit. He could just be claiming this because he isnt fully supporting this war and doesnt want Belaruzzians involved more than they have been. We all know how Putler likes to destroy important dates for his invaded countries, so when the country celebrates, they think of him. Because of his bombing the buildings in Ruzzia to seek approval from the Ruzzian citizens, since to them the war was hitting home, look at what is going on now in Ruzzia. I personally havent heard from Ukrainians that it was them who are doing the drone attacks, but this is *EXACTLY* how he set up his Christmas 1999 attack in Grozny and its looking like using same playbook again ... Slava Ukraini and Slava Heroaim! 🗺❤💪🇺🇦

They went to schools where tankie historians told them lies about how the USSR behaved during WWII. Read some of the debates on the eastern front. It turns out that the original reports of many things were true. Things that historians said couldn't possibly be true and spent lots of time "dispelling". Well, now that Russia is repeating some of those atrocities in a smaller war, a lot of those debates have popped back up with academics having to back-peddle and make excuses. Turns out that scene at the beginning of Enemy at the Gates with every other soldier getting a rifle and the Soviets killing their own soldiers for retreating is a bit more accurate than we thought (although the overall story is an invention even though the main character was a real sniper). There has been a strong anti-western bias in western academia for years. It creates a false impression of the east and how wars there are fought. This war has destroyed a lot of those myths. But don't expect that to change anything in academia. However their books are not selling these days (since their credibility is shot with the part of the public who buys history books) so perhaps that will change things. IDK

@@hunterpayne6167 Shock and Awe" dispelled that myth in 2003.

Japan dilly dallied after the first and failed to surrender. FAFO.

Richard Rhodes covers that issue in his book "The Making of the Atomic Bomb."

@@RichardTaylor1630 yeah I read that. I would add that we should always consider the audience and what version of the truth they are willing to accept, if us “truth tellers” want to make any money. As I like to remind my relatives, “No one is perfect.” lol

It doesn't really matter, does it? All the countries involved have decided not to make an issue of it. In the same way some missiles have landed in Belarus, and been ignored.

Poland does. The US does. Russia does. Even NATO does. 🙄

Maybe. Maybe not. Putin is an unstable psychopath, Ukrain is winning, and NATO is run by smart, thoughtful, wise, and measured people. That's all that matters here.

@@robertsteele474 NATO does NOT want this to be a Russian missile because it would be obliged to respond with possible escalation.

What’s the difference between strategy and tactics? Always seemed a pointless distinction to me.

Agreed, Ukrainians are being used as cannon fodder in a hopeless war.. doing the bidding of the USA

What about the Rape of Nanking?

The orcs.

Which country is now selling europe LNG and making an absolute killing...

Sweden and Germany Govs admit to knowing, but say it is too sensitive to disclose.

@@nian60 yes, the orcs straight out of Morder. There will be new sequel to Lord of the Rings about it.

All Western media quiet on this.

I.R.A.?

the propoganda is disgusting here too

Europe can afford American LPG. Doesn't matter that it costs more than Muscovite gas.

It costs more, but it helps defund Putin's war machine. Priceless.

Yes, they are wonderful journalists. Maybe they didnt state the price of US LPG because it doesnt matter? Its the sanctions that matter at this point.

Troll

Nah. This is more truthful than anything coming out of Russia. That's for sure

Mmmm what about the prisoners sent then ? ??? Also professional troops do not kill and rape civilians as in Bucha etc

That isn't true, even the Russians are saying it. People with no military experience are being called up. Also the idea of ' military service ' is a joke. In Russia, the people who do not sign a contract are forced to do 1 year of service, but they aren't trained on anything. They guard military installations and do general labor, but they aren't trained on heavy equipment. The ones who sign a contract sign for 2 years and get paid, and they are the ones who get real training.

Really? Mmm….

All called up troops were supposed to be reservists. The reality of course is that they were no more all reservists with usable military training than they were issued with a set of new and effective equipment, or that the Moskva sank due to a storm, or that retreating from Kyiv was a goodwill gesture.... the list of things that weren't what they were supposed or alleged to be by Russia in the last 9 months is endless.

Russian reservist or conscripts, they all seem to be dying just fine as ordered.