TRUMP, CLINTON, AND LENINGRAD – THE FALLACY OF THE LESSER EVIL IN WARFARE
As is so often the case, I draw counsel on current events from examples in military history. Today’s subject is the deep distaste many anti-Democrats feel for Trump, and the principle that, “The lesser of two evils is still evil.” Trump doesn’t drive me into apoplexy, but I’m certainly not that fond of him, and I sure don’t trust him. I also recognize the validity of the proverb about evil.
So what do we do, given that other people are largely in control of our choices? If I may build a scenario…
Building a third party, whether on the bones of the Libertarian Party, which I don’t like, or the Constitution Party, which is very small right now, will take 4 to 16 years. If we focus on that third party now, Hillary will win in ’16, and we will never have another chance. The gravestone of our republic can read, “HERE LIES PRINCIPLE. WE STOOD ON IT, AND IT IS BURIED WITH US. NOW OUR ENEMIES STAND ON IT.”
I do not propose meekly voting for evil of any magnitude, but perhaps I can present a principled way of looking at this matter.
In 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The stunning ferocity of the initial German attack literally destroyed Russian command, communications, and all organization above the platoon level. German troops raced across Russia like sprinters. At first, Stalin ordered massive counterattacks which were slaughtered. The Russian army lacked the training, material, weapons, and manpower to even blunt the Blitzkrieg. Fortunately for Russia and the world, Marshall Zhukov understood the nature of his enemy, but more important, he understood the nature of the weapons with which he would fight him.
He retreated. He waged a fighting withdrawal across the charred landscape of his native land. (In fact, Zhukov’s orders to burn everything that might be of any use or comfort to the Germans was the origin of the phrase, “Scorched earth.”) The Germans stretched further and the Russian lines became more compressed, but all the while, the Russian industrial monster (aided in no small part by the US and Britain) was building a head of steam. It could be said that Zhukov was embracing “the lesser of two evils,” in allowing the Germans to occupy so much of Russia, but his alternative would have been fatal.
If withdrawal was the lesser of two evils, what was the greater? Had he thrown all his troops and tanks into a counter attack, they would have been destroyed out of hand. Russia would have fallen by late ’42, at the latest, and all those millions of German troops would have been redirected to North Africa, Italy, and France. All of those fighters and bombers could have been directed against Britain and the bomber offensive. All of those natural resources in the Soviet Union could have been turned against the Allies. I submit that the temporary loss of territory was an evil of utter inconsequence compared to what might have happened otherwise. (And before a student of Barbarossa calls me on this, I most certainly do NOT mean to make light of the suffering of the Russian people, nor of their sacrifice.)
By contrast, consider the battle of Stalingrad, in that same campaign. The German 6th Army had pushed the Russians almost all the way through the city, but in November of 1942 – while El Alamein was raging in a far warmer clime – a Russian counterattack rolled up the 6th Army’s flanks. Hitler forbad a retreat, and, trapped against the city, the vaunted, veteran 6th Army was captured almost en masse. Of the 91,000 Germans taken prisoner, only about 5,000 survived the war. Hitler had chosen the greater of two evils, and better men than he paid the price.
Hitler was very good at embracing the greater evil. I give you the German Afrika Korps at El Alamein, in the fall of 1942. Irwin Rommel had whipped everything the Allies had thrown at him, but Hitler’s meddling had contributed to the Korps being pressed back into a defensive posture at El Alamein. Rommel could have withdrawn and saved the bulk of his army, which would have allowed him to keep fighting. However, Hitler forbad it, Rommel was stuck, and the Afrika Korps defeated. There were other campaigns, such as the Allied invasion of North Africa, but the defeat of Rommel’s army was the key to victory.
Let us now examine an analogy from US history. In the summer of 1864, the US Army of the Potomac (one of several US armies in the field against the Confederacy) pushed into northern Virginia, “aaaa-gin,” to quote Forest Gump. Ulysses Grant commanded the Army of the Potomac. Robert E. Lee commanded the Army of Northern Virginia, facing Grant. Lee had made a number of horrendous tactical errors earlier in the war – Malvern Hill and the first and second days at Gettysburg, to name two – but his greatest feat of genius was the fighting withdrawal he directed before Grant’s advance that summer. Lee’s 45,000 ragged veterans inflicted more than 60,000 casualties on the Army of the Potomac in 30 days. (Can you imagine what the American press and the American people would do if faced with 2,000 casualties a day for a month?)
Unlike Zhukov, Lee was denied the ultimate victory, partly because Grant understood the nature of his enemy, and the nature of the weapon he was given to fight him. However, had Lee attempted to stand rigidly before Grant’s massive sledgehammer, the ANV would have been destroyed by August. If withdrawal was the lesser evil facing Lee, what was the greater? Remember to look at this from the perspective of Lee and the Confederate nation. The Wilderness campaign gave them another 10 months to try to find an ally – to find an unbeatable weapon – to pray for Lincoln’s defeat in November.
Okay. Now, in 2016, the American people find themselves in the positions of Zhukov, Lee, and Rommel. If Trump is the lesser of two evils, what is the greater? I submit that another eight years of Democrat rule will finish this nation for good. Woluld Trump destroy the nation in that time? I don’t think so. He will get some things wrong, but he will get some things right, too, whereas, Hillary will get nothing right. So, what, exactly is the greater of two evils, and by what factor is it the greater?
Can we not view electing Trump as analogous to Zhukov’s fighting withdrawal? If such a withdrawal allows us time to build an effective alternative party and come roaring back in ’20 or ’24 with a truly principled candidate, is Trump really that evil in the end? Unlike Zhukov, we don’t have the landmass to trade for time. We have Trump, and four or eight years. Unlike Lee, we don’t have emissaries in France and England, pleading for recognition and support. Like Rommel, though, our backs are to the sea. Can we not see that electing Trump is voting for a relatively small evil, for a relatively short time?
The Samurai had a saying, “To shed his blood, you must be cut. To take his life, you must be cut to the bone.” I don’t believe Trump would, “cut us to the bone,” but even if he did, could that possibly be an evil on the scale of the rows of headsmen a Clinton presidency would bring to be?
Let us look at the election, then, not as an end of the war, but as a holding action – a Leningrad that buys us time to bleed the enemy and prepare a counterstroke. Don’t think of it as voting for Trump, but as voting for time and space to build an army.
rebsarge 