Yahoo Finance Hitler’s failures on the battlefield show why Brigadier Putin is doomed to fail
When it comes to military operations, political leaders should be looking outwards: explaining the action to maintain support from domestic society and international allies.
But on Monday we were told that Vladimir Putin is personally intervening in the tactical direction of the Kremlin's stuttering war in Ukraine.
"We think Putin and Gerasimov are involved in tactical decision-making at a level we would normally expect to be taken by a colonel or a brigadier," a military source told The Telegraph.
General Valery Gerasimov is the head of the Russian armed forces, but he too should be primarily focused on the politicians: garnering resources and top cover in case things go wrong.
And things have gone badly wrong in Ukraine.
Few leaders are able to run a country and a military campaign at the same time. It requires deep trust in the men and women throughout the chain of command for a politician to cede the running of a war to those in uniform.
The actions of both Putin and his senior officers since this war started have shown that a marked absence of trust runs through the body of the Russian military.
General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, The head of the British Army, says the most important task of military commanders at the start of any new action is to put in place an appropriate system of command and control (C2 in military parlance); who is in charge of what, where and when.
Get that wrong and the whole thing falls apart, as we saw in the first few weeks of the war in Ukraine.
Back then Russia tried to fight four separate wars each entirely disconnected from the other, with nobody in overall command. Hence the disastrous consequences.
Separate Russian army commanders fought in the north, the Donbas and the south. Meanwhile, the air force attempted to do all things everywhere, achieving little of operational significance.
After Moscow’s retreat from the north, the Russians appear to have addressed these C2 issues with the appointment of General Aleksandr Dvornikov as overall commander for the war and the adoption of the Donbas as their main objective.
Small tactical gains have followed, but Moscow’s forces are advancing slowly and paying a very heavy price for every mile.
Failing to trust subordinate commanders to act on initiative and instead insisting that all decisions be made at very senior levels, or even by the president himself, cedes drive, imagination, and often opportunities to Ukraine.
It also undermines Russian commanders in Ukraine, who have the best awareness of the problem facing them and the clearest idea of the state of their equipment and morale.
Gen Dvornikov should be concentrating on the whole theatre of Ukraine, not having to second guess what his boss in Moscow might be directing beneath him.
Instead Putin, convinced of his own tactical brilliance and not willing to respect the military commanders below him, prefers to lean in from Moscow and tinker directly with the engine of the war.
The British military had a pejorative term for it: the long-handled screwdriver. Troops cannot stand it when senior officers - or worse, politicians - start wielding such a device.
Napoleon was another fanatical micromanager, unable to temper his controlling tendencies yet desperate to show his military genius. He was hypersensitive to criticism and was known to sack his military subordinates if they delivered bad news.
Hitler, too, loved to think he was a gifted military leader, often setting up field headquarters near the fighting. He prized loyalty over ability and promoted many undeserving officers to senior positions as they were incapable of challenging him for power.
Digital technology means it is possible today for commanders to know the exact location of individual soldiers and vehicles. The temptation for those well away from the action to get involved and use that information to direct battles is strong.
However, that way leads to disaster with orders sent too often and before troops on the ground can make sense of what they are being told. A sensible, mature and professional military and political leadership knows this.
Which is probably the reason why we are seeing Putin do it in Ukraine.
