Reading the clarity you bring, Lucian, to this atrocious situation is refreshing insofar as there can be clarity in the ‘fog of war’. Yours are the only summaries I read. So much else that is written is war porn pandering to armchair warriors, and wannabe generals. That this needless slaughter has now gone on for almost 15-months is unbelievable. Putin certainly is the aggressor, but it has become a stalemate and a proxy war between the West and Russia with Ukraine by dint of geography the contained and sacrificial territory . Dare one hope when it is mercifully over that all the countries that were spared warfare will band together to rebuild Ukraine into a semblance of its former self. And also to welcome it into the Western alliance. Until then, Lucian, please keep writing us these sensible insights.
This battle reminds me somewhat of Falkenhayen’s decision to attack Verdun and bleed the French army dry defending a rather symbolic fortification that had little strategic value in the overall campaign of the Great War. But over time, the Germans expended resources of manpower and materiel that they themselves could ill afford to lose. In the end, while the fighting in Verdun was horrific, it didn’t succeed and little had changed except the casualties totals of both the German and French. Putin is the 21st century equivalent of Falkenhayen, bleeding his country’s manpower in a futile and ill-conceived military gesture of incompetence. Pity the poor Russian conscripts suffering and dying for one idiot’s mad conceit…
Mr. Knickerbocker is a widely known and widely read journalist. This book is not, however, the usual travelogue of a returning foreign correspondent. Instead, the author has chosen some 200 of the more insistently significant questions put to him during an extensive lecture tour and has tried to give concrete and realistic answers. The result is not as disjointed as one might expect, for the questions are arranged in a roughly logical sequence under the general headings of Germany, Russia, England, War Aims, France, the United States, and Fifth Columnists. In the latter category he places Lindbergh and other "isolationist" leaders, on whom he is very severe.
Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker (January 31, 1898 – July 12, 1949) was an American journalist and author. He was nicknamed "Red" from the color of his hair.[1]
Early life
Knickerbocker was born in Yoakum, Texas. Knickerbocker's father was Rev. Hubert Delancey Knickerbocker.
Education
Knickerbocker graduated from the Southwestern University in Texas and then studied psychiatry at Columbia University.[2] **** {He traveled to Europe to study in Vienna, fortunately he became a journalist instead} ****
Career
Knickerbocker was a journalist, noted for reporting on German politics before and during World War II. From 1923 to 1933 he reported from Berlin, but because of his opposition to Adolf Hitler he was deported when Hitler came to power. On December 1, 1930, Knickerbocker interviewed Soviet leader Stalin's mother, Keke Geladze in Tiflis for the New York Evening Post through a Georgian interpreter. The article was titled “Stalin Mystery Man Even to His Mother.”[3]
In 1932 he travelled across Europe for the book Does Europe Recover. He interviewed many state leaders, amongst them Mussolini, and the second most important person of Germany's NSDAP Party, Gregor Strasser. His report on Italian Fascism is full of praise for the "stability" of the regime.[4] He also praises Strasser's "left wing" of NSDAP party and the Papen government's semi-dictatorship.[5] There is no hint of a warning about Nazism in the book but rather a recommendation for its success in Italy. Back in America, after Hitler's reign of terror became the face of NSDAP, he began writing about the threat posed by Nazism. On April 15, 1933, he wrote in the New York Evening Post: "An indeterminate number of Jews have been killed. Hundreds of Jews have been beaten or tortured. Thousands of Jews have fled. Thousands of Jews have been, or will be, deprived of their livelihood." In 1931, as a correspondent for the New York Evening Post and the Philadelphia Public Ledger, he won the Pulitzer Prize for "a series of articles on the practical operation of the Five Year Plan in Russia".[6][7]
In 1936 he covered the Spanish Civil War for the Hearst Press group. Like other foreign reporters, his work was progressively hampered by the rebel authorities, who finally arrested Knickerbocker in April 1937 and deported him shortly after. Back to the United States, he wrote an article for the Washington Times, published on 10 May 1937, in which he exposed the brutal repression and the "antisemite, misogynist and antidemocratic" society that the Nationalists planned to develop, according to the statements made by Gonzalo de Aguilera, Francoist Foreign Press Liaison Officer at the time. The next day, Congressman Jerry J. O'Connell cited the article extensively in the House of Representatives due to the concern generated.[8]
After World War II, Knickerbocker went to work for radio station WOR, in Newark, New Jersey. He was on assignment with a team of journalists touring Southeast Asia when they were all killed in a plane crash near Bombay, India, on July 12, 1949.[9]
Personal life
Knickerbocker was married first to Laura Patrick in 1918, and they had one son, Conrad, who became a daily book reviewer for the New York Times. His second marriage was to Agnes Schjoldager, with whom he had three daughters, including Miranda, who married actor Sorrell Booke
Amid War, Ukraine Aims to Protect the Rights of a Brutal Foe
To save the laws of war from Russia’s assault, we should help Ukraine shield POWs.
Thursday, April 27, 2023 / BY: James Rupert
PUBLICATION TYPE: Analysis and Commentary
Share ThisPrint the Page
"At a critical phase in Russia’s war on Ukraine, U.N. human rights reports and news accounts illuminate a deepening contrast between the two nations’ adherence to humanitarian conduct amid war, notably in their treatment of prisoners. As Russian forces publicize and celebrate their brutalization of prisoners, Ukraine is striving to apply global norms rooted in a wartime order, 160 years ago this week, by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Sustaining support for Ukraine’s adherence to international humanitarian law can help determine which patterns of conduct, brutal or humane, will shape the world in which our children will live."
One of innumerable reasons to help Ukraine defeat the genocidal invaders, in the largest war in Europe since World War Two.
I believe the battle for Bakhmut indicates that the Ukrainians are a lot smarter than the Americans, as well as the Russians. The US for months urged Ukraine to retreat from Bakhmut, but Zelenskyy et al persisted in fighting it out. I'm betting they concluded that taking Bakhmut had become a matter of personal pride for Putin and Prigozhin. By now, Russia has paid an awful price in men and equipment and still has not completed the job, while based on the ISW reports, it appears that Ukraine has slowly fallen back in the middle and at the same time pushed forward around both the north and the south sides of the town. With Wagner still fighting the Ukrainians in the middle of town, their position could become exposed on both flanks. Perhaps Putin would not be entirely dismayed it did.
Excellent summary and analysis to date, I wish this was just a fictional Netflix series and we're all waiting for the next episode withy bated breath., Unfortunately it is a prime example of human savagery at its worst and another unhinged world leader's lust for blood who had he been able to forsee the real future results of his decision to invade might have had second thoughts, but now is locked in and has to somehow prove himself as being right all along. He is not going to take losing well if that happens, that is the next thing to worry about.
I still don't understand why we and now the Brits don't want heir long range missiles attacking Russia proper. If England in WWII been asked by the US to not attack Germany They would have been been very confused as to why given that they were being attacked by Germany. Maybe Lucian can explain the logic behind this. I know escallr tion is a fear but my God, shouldn't Ukraine be doing everything they can to win. Imagine a boxer with one hand tied behind his back, same thing. We are supplying all kinds of assistance as it is, how much more can we be involved without boots on the ground? .
One measurement of forces morale is the percentage of troops who voluntarily surrender to the opposition (see., e.g., the German army between January and May, 1945). I can’t see large numbers of Russian draftees fighting to the death. I can see Ukrainian soldiers fighting to the death. Is there any information on voluntary surrendering on the part of Russian soldiers?
Only available at the anecdotal level, none that is credible and verifiable. Heck, there isn't any number of anything in that theatre that is.
Our (ret) FOGOs keep citing US dogma on % of captured, killed, wounded all w/o knowing the baseline number of troops or equipment on iithah side. Who and where did they learn one can draw solid inferences strictly from unknowns and variables? Surely not from a 7th-grade math teacher. Didn't a service academy or a war college teach them the last place/time to guess is where/when peoples lives are at stake?
Well done. The fog of war indeed. I saw Night and Fog many years ago, when I was in college, and never forgot it. Than the Fog of War about McNamara in the same place many years later. War is not enlightening, is it. The same mistakes, many years, nay centuries afterwards, and the mistakes are mental more than physical.l
You do indeed make this combat much clearer, but its still amazing that its happening in this day and age. It seems like such a primitive way to resolve a conflict, force instead of reason, guns instead of economic pressure. And behind it all either side could call in nuclear weapons to obliterate the other, but wisely refrain. There has to be a better way though than all the sacrifice of these young men's lives.
The problem is, in this day and age, we thought human nature had improved . Where exactly is reason prevailing? Sadly, it appears we have the same underlying attitudes and actions with different rationals and presentations.
I just watched footage of groups of Russian troops sprinting, like Pigs from a Gun, across a field to avoid combat with the Ukraine troops. One Russian trooper was I interviewed and said " It was either combat or prison".
With some luck and more ammo they can destroy more Russian equipment and other targets like hotels where Rusky officers are hiding. Putin is the 21st century Hitler who is having a bad day.
Remember, it will take decades for Russia to recover once again to a GNP that matches that of Spain. The more Ruskies who are wounded and equipment destroyed will bring about a much weaker Russia - as NATO tests its weapons on Ivan. Putin has to be removed by the greedy Russian Oligarchs ...
GREAT précis of the situation in Bakhmut. I recently read a report by Pekka Kaliomieni, who was the one to unmask the "Donbas Devushka" (the American former military officer who posted classified information on Discord) about Shoigu. Apparently Shoigu was never in the military at all! Can you imagine putting a Putin-bootlicking bureaucrat in charge of your entire armed forces?
Thank you for updating us on the war in Ukraine. Main stream media seems to have forgotten about the Russian invasion and the war crimes being committed by Putin. MSM media seems to be obsessed with the bloviated, lying, dangerously ignorant former potus.
Prigozhin Had best stay away from balconies, open windows and steep staircases. Oh, and maybe he should assign one of those convicts he owns to taste his food for him. Alternatively, he could move to Switzerland and live with his money, which is already n residence there.
Reading the clarity you bring, Lucian, to this atrocious situation is refreshing insofar as there can be clarity in the ‘fog of war’. Yours are the only summaries I read. So much else that is written is war porn pandering to armchair warriors, and wannabe generals. That this needless slaughter has now gone on for almost 15-months is unbelievable. Putin certainly is the aggressor, but it has become a stalemate and a proxy war between the West and Russia with Ukraine by dint of geography the contained and sacrificial territory . Dare one hope when it is mercifully over that all the countries that were spared warfare will band together to rebuild Ukraine into a semblance of its former self. And also to welcome it into the Western alliance. Until then, Lucian, please keep writing us these sensible insights.
Well stated. Thank you.
This battle reminds me somewhat of Falkenhayen’s decision to attack Verdun and bleed the French army dry defending a rather symbolic fortification that had little strategic value in the overall campaign of the Great War. But over time, the Germans expended resources of manpower and materiel that they themselves could ill afford to lose. In the end, while the fighting in Verdun was horrific, it didn’t succeed and little had changed except the casualties totals of both the German and French. Putin is the 21st century equivalent of Falkenhayen, bleeding his country’s manpower in a futile and ill-conceived military gesture of incompetence. Pity the poor Russian conscripts suffering and dying for one idiot’s mad conceit…
I believe you might really enjoy this book --- the introduction, written by John Gunther,
will probably answer that to some extent.
gutenberg.org/ebooks/66251
Is Tomorrow Hitler’s?
By H. R. Knickerbocker
Reynal, 1941, 382 pp.
Reviewed by Robert Gale Woolbert
April 1942
Published on April 1, 1942
Mr. Knickerbocker is a widely known and widely read journalist. This book is not, however, the usual travelogue of a returning foreign correspondent. Instead, the author has chosen some 200 of the more insistently significant questions put to him during an extensive lecture tour and has tried to give concrete and realistic answers. The result is not as disjointed as one might expect, for the questions are arranged in a roughly logical sequence under the general headings of Germany, Russia, England, War Aims, France, the United States, and Fifth Columnists. In the latter category he places Lindbergh and other "isolationist" leaders, on whom he is very severe.
www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/1942-04-01/tomorrow-hitlers
**** About the author:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bundesarchiv Bild 102-11663, Hubert Knickerbocker.jpg
Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker (January 31, 1898 – July 12, 1949) was an American journalist and author. He was nicknamed "Red" from the color of his hair.[1]
Early life
Knickerbocker was born in Yoakum, Texas. Knickerbocker's father was Rev. Hubert Delancey Knickerbocker.
Education
Knickerbocker graduated from the Southwestern University in Texas and then studied psychiatry at Columbia University.[2] **** {He traveled to Europe to study in Vienna, fortunately he became a journalist instead} ****
Career
Knickerbocker was a journalist, noted for reporting on German politics before and during World War II. From 1923 to 1933 he reported from Berlin, but because of his opposition to Adolf Hitler he was deported when Hitler came to power. On December 1, 1930, Knickerbocker interviewed Soviet leader Stalin's mother, Keke Geladze in Tiflis for the New York Evening Post through a Georgian interpreter. The article was titled “Stalin Mystery Man Even to His Mother.”[3]
In 1932 he travelled across Europe for the book Does Europe Recover. He interviewed many state leaders, amongst them Mussolini, and the second most important person of Germany's NSDAP Party, Gregor Strasser. His report on Italian Fascism is full of praise for the "stability" of the regime.[4] He also praises Strasser's "left wing" of NSDAP party and the Papen government's semi-dictatorship.[5] There is no hint of a warning about Nazism in the book but rather a recommendation for its success in Italy. Back in America, after Hitler's reign of terror became the face of NSDAP, he began writing about the threat posed by Nazism. On April 15, 1933, he wrote in the New York Evening Post: "An indeterminate number of Jews have been killed. Hundreds of Jews have been beaten or tortured. Thousands of Jews have fled. Thousands of Jews have been, or will be, deprived of their livelihood." In 1931, as a correspondent for the New York Evening Post and the Philadelphia Public Ledger, he won the Pulitzer Prize for "a series of articles on the practical operation of the Five Year Plan in Russia".[6][7]
In 1936 he covered the Spanish Civil War for the Hearst Press group. Like other foreign reporters, his work was progressively hampered by the rebel authorities, who finally arrested Knickerbocker in April 1937 and deported him shortly after. Back to the United States, he wrote an article for the Washington Times, published on 10 May 1937, in which he exposed the brutal repression and the "antisemite, misogynist and antidemocratic" society that the Nationalists planned to develop, according to the statements made by Gonzalo de Aguilera, Francoist Foreign Press Liaison Officer at the time. The next day, Congressman Jerry J. O'Connell cited the article extensively in the House of Representatives due to the concern generated.[8]
After World War II, Knickerbocker went to work for radio station WOR, in Newark, New Jersey. He was on assignment with a team of journalists touring Southeast Asia when they were all killed in a plane crash near Bombay, India, on July 12, 1949.[9]
Personal life
Knickerbocker was married first to Laura Patrick in 1918, and they had one son, Conrad, who became a daily book reviewer for the New York Times. His second marriage was to Agnes Schjoldager, with whom he had three daughters, including Miranda, who married actor Sorrell Booke
This kind of column is the reason we subscribe. Keep up the good work!
www.usip.org/publications/2023/04/amid-war-ukraine-aims-protect-rights-brutal-foe
Amid War, Ukraine Aims to Protect the Rights of a Brutal Foe
To save the laws of war from Russia’s assault, we should help Ukraine shield POWs.
Thursday, April 27, 2023 / BY: James Rupert
PUBLICATION TYPE: Analysis and Commentary
Share ThisPrint the Page
"At a critical phase in Russia’s war on Ukraine, U.N. human rights reports and news accounts illuminate a deepening contrast between the two nations’ adherence to humanitarian conduct amid war, notably in their treatment of prisoners. As Russian forces publicize and celebrate their brutalization of prisoners, Ukraine is striving to apply global norms rooted in a wartime order, 160 years ago this week, by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Sustaining support for Ukraine’s adherence to international humanitarian law can help determine which patterns of conduct, brutal or humane, will shape the world in which our children will live."
One of innumerable reasons to help Ukraine defeat the genocidal invaders, in the largest war in Europe since World War Two.
I believe the battle for Bakhmut indicates that the Ukrainians are a lot smarter than the Americans, as well as the Russians. The US for months urged Ukraine to retreat from Bakhmut, but Zelenskyy et al persisted in fighting it out. I'm betting they concluded that taking Bakhmut had become a matter of personal pride for Putin and Prigozhin. By now, Russia has paid an awful price in men and equipment and still has not completed the job, while based on the ISW reports, it appears that Ukraine has slowly fallen back in the middle and at the same time pushed forward around both the north and the south sides of the town. With Wagner still fighting the Ukrainians in the middle of town, their position could become exposed on both flanks. Perhaps Putin would not be entirely dismayed it did.
There you go again, making sense of the senseless—or at least as much as can be made in such dense fog. Bravo, Lucian.
I learned from some of the best, both in the military and in journalism.
You and me both on the journalism part. The military, all yours of course. You provide context for tonight's startling wapo news https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/14/prigozhin-wagner-ukraine-leaked-documents/ on Prigozhin's offer to Ukrainian leaders.
More to come of hours. on that in a couple
? Presumably, less poetically =
More to come on that in a couple of hours.
Excellent summary and analysis to date, I wish this was just a fictional Netflix series and we're all waiting for the next episode withy bated breath., Unfortunately it is a prime example of human savagery at its worst and another unhinged world leader's lust for blood who had he been able to forsee the real future results of his decision to invade might have had second thoughts, but now is locked in and has to somehow prove himself as being right all along. He is not going to take losing well if that happens, that is the next thing to worry about.
I still don't understand why we and now the Brits don't want heir long range missiles attacking Russia proper. If England in WWII been asked by the US to not attack Germany They would have been been very confused as to why given that they were being attacked by Germany. Maybe Lucian can explain the logic behind this. I know escallr tion is a fear but my God, shouldn't Ukraine be doing everything they can to win. Imagine a boxer with one hand tied behind his back, same thing. We are supplying all kinds of assistance as it is, how much more can we be involved without boots on the ground? .
One measurement of forces morale is the percentage of troops who voluntarily surrender to the opposition (see., e.g., the German army between January and May, 1945). I can’t see large numbers of Russian draftees fighting to the death. I can see Ukrainian soldiers fighting to the death. Is there any information on voluntary surrendering on the part of Russian soldiers?
Only available at the anecdotal level, none that is credible and verifiable. Heck, there isn't any number of anything in that theatre that is.
Our (ret) FOGOs keep citing US dogma on % of captured, killed, wounded all w/o knowing the baseline number of troops or equipment on iithah side. Who and where did they learn one can draw solid inferences strictly from unknowns and variables? Surely not from a 7th-grade math teacher. Didn't a service academy or a war college teach them the last place/time to guess is where/when peoples lives are at stake?
Well done. The fog of war indeed. I saw Night and Fog many years ago, when I was in college, and never forgot it. Than the Fog of War about McNamara in the same place many years later. War is not enlightening, is it. The same mistakes, many years, nay centuries afterwards, and the mistakes are mental more than physical.l
Thanks old pal.
Who woulda thunk it, ideas have consequences!
You do indeed make this combat much clearer, but its still amazing that its happening in this day and age. It seems like such a primitive way to resolve a conflict, force instead of reason, guns instead of economic pressure. And behind it all either side could call in nuclear weapons to obliterate the other, but wisely refrain. There has to be a better way though than all the sacrifice of these young men's lives.
The problem is, in this day and age, we thought human nature had improved . Where exactly is reason prevailing? Sadly, it appears we have the same underlying attitudes and actions with different rationals and presentations.
I just watched footage of groups of Russian troops sprinting, like Pigs from a Gun, across a field to avoid combat with the Ukraine troops. One Russian trooper was I interviewed and said " It was either combat or prison".
With some luck and more ammo they can destroy more Russian equipment and other targets like hotels where Rusky officers are hiding. Putin is the 21st century Hitler who is having a bad day.
Remember, it will take decades for Russia to recover once again to a GNP that matches that of Spain. The more Ruskies who are wounded and equipment destroyed will bring about a much weaker Russia - as NATO tests its weapons on Ivan. Putin has to be removed by the greedy Russian Oligarchs ...
Timothy Snyder wrote an Op-ed piece in yesterday's New York Times about Putin essentially making empty threats to use nuclear weapons. Good read.
GREAT précis of the situation in Bakhmut. I recently read a report by Pekka Kaliomieni, who was the one to unmask the "Donbas Devushka" (the American former military officer who posted classified information on Discord) about Shoigu. Apparently Shoigu was never in the military at all! Can you imagine putting a Putin-bootlicking bureaucrat in charge of your entire armed forces?
Thank you for updating us on the war in Ukraine. Main stream media seems to have forgotten about the Russian invasion and the war crimes being committed by Putin. MSM media seems to be obsessed with the bloviated, lying, dangerously ignorant former potus.
Excellent commentary. Whatever happens Russia is revealed to be a weak force and stunningly inept for a superpower.
Prigozhin Had best stay away from balconies, open windows and steep staircases. Oh, and maybe he should assign one of those convicts he owns to taste his food for him. Alternatively, he could move to Switzerland and live with his money, which is already n residence there.