patrick.net

#ukrainedroneattacks The war in Ukraine has entered a very ugly phase. The FT of London pointed out this morning that Russian military planners had decided that using Iranian drones to destroy Ukrainian infrastructure was better than using nuclear weapons. The strategy is to destroy things like electricity generating capacity, heating facilities and the like to put Ukraine through an awful and frigid winter to break their will to resist.
History has taught us that such brazen and brutal air attacks do not break the will of those being attacked to resist. They have the opposite effect. They make people more determined to resist.
In World War II, Nazi Germany was subject to day and night air attacks by US and British aircraft. Most German cities were reduced to heaps of rubble. Civilian casualties were massive. When Germany surrendered, Hitler's armaments minister Albert Speer was captured. US Army Air Corps and Royal Air Force generals interviewed Speer. They asked him how effective their strategic bombing had been. Speer shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. He said to the generals: "It did no good at all."
Likewise, Japan was subject to a merciless air bombardment by US and British aircraft. Two atomic bombs were used on Japan. It did not break the will of the Japanese people to resist. They only surrendered to avoid being occupied by Russians.
In the Korean war, the US dropped more tons of bombs on North Korea than had been dropped on Germany in World War II. It did not break the spirit of the North Korean people. They never surrendered.
North Vietnam was subject to constant bombardment by US bombers and fighters. The worst air attack came in December of 1972. Massive formations of US B-52s attacked Hanoi and the port of Haiphong. The tonnage of conventional bombs used was equal to the explosive power of the two atomic bombs used in Japan in 1945. It did not break the will of the North Vietnamese people to resist. They went on to conquer South Vietnam.