8 Comments

Thank you for a such a thorough overview.

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A good case in point I can think of is Germany during the lead up to Stalingrad in 1942.

Also as someone else you could give a read is Rolo Slavskiy on substack. He's been documenting the politicing that has influenced the decisions made in the Ukraine War

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Thinking specifically of industrial policy vs. wartime needs?

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More so a product of both industrial and wartime needs, a synthesis of the two, so what I was considering was the timing, initially the need to get more fuel was the planning out of Operation Fall Blue.

To push into the Caucasuses, and to keep the flank secure with good rail network was via Stalingrad. This however developed over the months to the need to take Stalingrad over securing the south and the said fuel that the Germans needed and initially planned to take.

This all being more for political machinations than the military need when the operation has stalled out in and around Stalingrad.

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It's an interesting case because Hitler (along with Stalin) was one of the very few rulers in history who actually had the power to reconcile grand strategic priorities with military necessity. Of course, as it turned out, the objectives were probably too divergent to ever succeed.

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Very true, though you could see that as too many cooks spoiling the broth, the NASDAP were not as uniform as people like to think they were, but to be fair no system or society really is.

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If your question is towards the writer I have mentioned, he has been documenting the connections of members in the Kremlin and outside, their histories, political machinations and how this has led to the war itself and decisions made. He has a primer with links to other articles he has written a t the top of his substack that will provide the key info, everything else other than that is extra stuff.

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I'd agree on him documenting the politicing, albeit through an "Russian ultra-patriot" lens.

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