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Excellent analysis, thank you. I just saw a report that the Russians shot down a US drone in the Black Sea that Ukraine was using to target Crimea, and Putin hauled the US ambassador in over it. As far as I know that's not confirmed, but it lends additional weight to your call to the Russians to stay focused on winning, and ending, the damned war.

One reason Eisenhower approved Operation Market Garden was because Churchill was throwing fits over the primitive rockets the Nazis were launching at London from Holland. The result was a wrecked British airborne division and a stalled front for another several months.

Ike was inclined to let Bradley and Patton lead the main assault on Germany in the autumn of 1944, but one might say he got distracted by German terrorist attacks. Hopefully, someone high up in Moscow will remember that.

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Churchill and Montgomery were both massively overrated figures. Saved by Germany's turn to the east, otherwise North Africa and the Middle East would have quickly been taken and Turkey entered on the German side. It was Auchinleck who planned El Alamein, and the Brits had a 3:1 superiority as Hitler directed his forces elsewhere.

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Yes agreed.... and the sad part is that it could have been avoided... going backwards.. very recently by accepting a new border based on ground given... a few years back a promise not to NATO up that border with Russia .. in the 2000's Make the G7 the G8 an invite Russia back in to keep an potential enemy closer. and the big one... keep the USSR intact back in the late 80s..

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Thanks Roger, I look forward to your essays. I think you are right about the trajectory, the imponderable being what the US does about it. Pull their head in is my hope but they never seem to take the sensible choice or the path to peace

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great analysis roger.. i also agree with your conclusions.. thanks..

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I was surprised what the Englishman said about Russian aircraft not appearing in Kiev Ukrainian airspace. Still?

Tanks and massed infantry assaults, even massing troops/materiel all very problematic in this modern warfare. Ships almost useless. Is it that aircraft are going the same way? i.e. near the battlefield at least?

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Russia has to mobilize more men and material

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