Marching on Moscow? “Never Do That”
British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery had three laws of war:
One, never march on Moscow;
Two, never get in a land war in Asia;
Three, never march on Moscow.
So why are the United States, the European Union (EU), and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) all on the road to the Russian capital? And exactly what are they hoping to achieve?
Divided Command
As in all battlefields on the Eastern Front, complexities abound.
For beginners, the multiple armies marching eastward are not exactly on the same page. This sort of “divided command” (to use the military term) generally ends in debacle. Add to that the fact that many of the weapons are of such dubious quality that they might end up backfiring. And to top it all off, as in all great crises there’s a cost—in this case the sticker price may give even fire breathers pause.
That’s not to say that these aggressors are amateurs—to the contrary, professional armies are involved. NATO has deployed troops, aircraft, and naval forces in the region, and the Russians have parked 40,000 troops on Ukraine’s eastern border.
So far, bloodshed has been minimal. With the exception of the horrendous deaths of over 40 demonstrators in Odessa and dozens of separatist fighters killed in clashes over Donetsk’s airport, the crisis has been a remarkably calm affair. The Russians took over Crimea virtually without a shot, and while a worrisome increase of violent incidents has occurred in the south and east, they hardly measure up to the French and German invasions in 1812 and 1941, respectively.
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