Strategy of War: Past and Present

By Robert “Smitty” Smith
Faculty Member, Military Studies at American Military University

Military history is replete with dazzling victories and inglorious defeats. The ones that interest us the most are those where nations or generals have their backs to the wall. What do you do when events force you down to one last desperate throw of the dice? We think of George Washington at Trenton in 1776 as an example of brilliant generalship producing victory to save the American Revolution that was on its death bed.

Conversely, there was Lee at Gettysburg, where the die roll was mishandled by poor Confederate generalship unequal to the bravery of the Army of Northern Virginia. But, when we think of gamblers, serious military historians come back to Hitler, who time and time again took extraordinary gambles. In the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler staked his hoarded Panzers to destroy the Western Allies in order to deal with the relentless Soviet onslaught in the east. Yet few know of Operation Typhoon, the Third Reich’s last effort to change the strategic balance and win the war in 1941.

Germany’s goal was to defeat the Soviets by the end of July 1941 and then mop-up any remaining opposition. Its vision was to smash the Soviet army in battles on the frontier (it did), smash any remnants of the Soviet army before the Dnieper River (it did), and then drive to secure the economic resources of the Ukraine and topple the Bolshevik Empire. However, the German General Staff vision violently collided with the realities of the Russian Front. Destroying the Soviet prewar army was not a great challenge. But German military intelligence was so flawed that it did not prepare for the Soviets’ ability to rapidly mobilize new armies. Many of these new units were merely speed bumps of a sort, but they slowed the German timetable.

By the end of July, the Third Reich had destroyed the prewar Soviet army. It had amassed a series of great operational victories, but stood at a crossroads like a punch-drunk boxer. It faced the worst possible strategic dilemma, so now what? Their planning assumptions did not pan out. The vastness of the Soviet Union, its primitive transportation infrastructure, and the Soviet regime’s willingness to launch suicide attacks were all unforeseen. Many of these senior leaders had fought on the Eastern Front in World War One and knew of these conditions. Hitting the reset button or trying to muddle through to produce victory is often what results next.

However, the Germans were granted the actual opportunity to achieve victory by Stalin’s insistence in September to defend Kiev. The loss of more than 660,000 men and equipment for the Soviets meant the German army could now attack Moscow without concerns for its southern flank. Typhoon was to be the final mobilization of the Wehrmacht to win the war before winter set in, for the German commanders were all obsessed with the knowledge of how the Russian winter had destroyed Napoleon’s army in 1812. The inverse of this was never really asked, it seemed: what does it mean that we are committed now to a two-front war, if we don’t win here and now?

The Wehrmacht, with its concentrated Panzers and resupplied with dry weather, again ripped the front open, inflicting appalling casualties on the Soviets. Within a week, it seemed like the war from the German perspective would be over—Moscow was mentally in sight. The Soviets evacuated Lenin’s body from his tomb in Red Square, while thousands of citizens were rounded up and marched to the front to take anti-tank and defensive positions. German newspaper headlines screamed, “CAMPAIGN IN EAST DECIDED! THE GREAT HOUR HAS STRUCK.”

It would have been hard for the German public not to have been jubilant. No nation-state could surely endure the scope of defeat inflicted upon the Soviets: two million prisoners alone, with huge unknown battlefield casualties, 22,000 artillery pieces captured or seized, 18,000 tanks destroyed, 14,500 planes shot down, and the Soviet breadbasket seized, ensuring food for the German Reich.

Then…the weather changed. The dreaded Rasputin, the Russian mud season hit, and German mobility was mired in the mud. The German shoestring logistic effort collapsed. Once this good weather disappeared, so did the best chance for victory. When the cold weather came again and the mud froze, German mobility was restored, but the best opportunity was gone. Phase II of Typhoon was launched, and the Germans won more hard-fought tactical victories with their tactical and doctrinal superiority.

Germany had a shell of mobility when it invaded in 1941, but it was still an army with which Alexander the Great might have felt comfortable, for the three million men were moved primarily by 600,000 horses. The Soviet railroad system was of little use. German and Soviet rail gauges were of a different size, so rail lines needed to be re-laid. The Soviets destroyed nearly all their rail infrastructure in a scorched-earth campaign that included rolling stock and locomotives. The intact capture of this system was a key planning assumption. It is almost worthwhile to ask what planning assumptions made by the German High Command were found valid?

Today, we find ourselves in similar quagmires in Iraq with the emergence of ISIS and in Afghanistan. The United States military is perhaps unparalleled in history for inflicting battlefield pain and winning quick operational victories. What we can’t do is translate those, like the German Wehrmacht in its heady days of Operations Barbarossa and Typhoon, into a lasting political solution and victory. Reality as a planning factor seemed not to have entered into the end state for Typhoon, much like our lack of a Phase IV in 2003 in Iraq. Our ability to win tactically and operationally is alluring and seductive. Yet like the Wehrmacht, do we always reach the same end state of a political and strategic cul-de-sac? Perhaps some future chief of staff or President may read this, ponder the lessons here, and ensure the disconnect between operational art, strategic vision, and national goals align. If not, we will continue to win battles, but lose campaigns.

About the Author

LTC Robert G. Smith has served in the capacity of an armor officer, logistician, military intelligence, and engineer officer. He is a graduate of the Armor Basic Course, the Armor Advanced Course, Command and General Staff College, and Army Combined Arms Staff College and the Advanced Joint Professional Military Course in Joint Warfare.

Among his awards are the Bronze Star, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Medal, and Combat Action Badge. He is currently a faculty member at American Military University, teaching courses in intelligence, national security, and military science studies. He recently received the university’s 2014 Faculty Excellence in Teaching and Learning Award.