Our boys in Washington - Always planning.

Billmon at the Whiskey Bar

Col. Pat Lang is worried that Shrub's stubborn refusal to consider any alternative to "total victory" in Iraq is preventing the Pentagon from planning for less favorable outcomes -- including some potentially catastrophic ones:

From talking to people involved, I perceive that "planning guidance" from our national leadership to the military focuses altogether on excluding any thought that there is a possible outcome other than a complete victory in Iraq, "victory" being defined as complete achievement of President Bush's goals in that country and in the region.

[...]

There is an extremely Godwin-unfriendly precedent for this sort of behavior. In the autumn of 1942, the German general staff looked uneasily at the fronts north and south of Stalingrad, which were held by a thin crust of Axis satellite troops (mostly Hungarian and Romanian) stiffened with a sprinkling of German panzer units. The generals pleaded with Hitler either to call off his offensive towards the Caspian oil fields and pull the attacking force (Army Group A) back to the vulnerable areas, or to shorten the front by pulling Sixth Army back to the Don River -- in effect, conceding defeat at Stalingrad.

Hitler categorically refused to do either. "I will not leave the Volga!" he ranted. Nor would he give up his hopes of capturing the USSR's primary oil supply. Both offensives, he decreed, must continue, even though the Wehrmacht simply didn't have the strength to achieve both objectives. All his generals could do was watch and worry -- until the Russians smashed into the weak fronts north and south of Stalingrad and bagged the entire Sixth Army. They probably would have destroyed Army Group A, too, if not for some brilliant improvisations by Field Marshal von Manstein, at times acting in defiance of Hitler's orders.

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