School of War - Ep. 22: Jeremy Black on Tank Warfare

Episode Date: March 23, 2022

Jeremy Black, Professor of History at the University of Exeter, joins the show to discuss tank warfare from its origins to the battlefields of Ukraine Times 01:13 - Introduction 02:02 - The creation of the tank 07:48 - Parallel technological development of tanks and aircraft 14:20 - Developing thoughts on employing tanks leading into World War II 18:24 - Blitzkrieg and the role of armored vehicles, speed, and communication during invasions 24:13 - The Soviet Union's invasion of Finland 28:07 - The development of armored technology during the Arab-Israeli wars after World War II 35:06 - Russia's strategy for invasion, the likelihood of Putin overtaking Ukraine, and the future of the tank

Things aren't going well for Russian tanks in Ukraine. Most people, when they think about tanks, associate them in their minds with the Nazi blitzkreeds in World War II, or the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, deep penetrations of enemy lines that move rapidly. Obviously, Russian progress in Ukraine is anything but then. Images of tanks getting stuck in the mud, being destroyed by much cheaper weapon systems that are often man-portable, proliferate across the Internet. Is this the end of the road for the tank? Well, let's talk about that. Let's talk about the history of armor.

Let's talk about what's going on in Ukraine. And let's talk about what the future is, if anything, for the tank. It is a prescription for war, this Iraqi invasion of the way. December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamous. The bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a statement. We continue to face a grave situation in Iran. who will not see buildings down. We shall fight on the beaches,

which will fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields, and in the streets. We shall never surrender. Hi, I'm Aaron McLean. Thanks for joining School of War. I'm thrilled to be joined today by Jeremy Black, who's a professor of history,

the University of Exeter, is the author of numerous books on military history, most recently rethinking military history, books on the history of tank warfare, aviation, and so forth. Jeremy, thanks so much for joining the show. A great pleasure. So today I thought that we could spend a little bit of time talking about tanks and armored warfare on which you are an authority and bring it around. We're recording this.

I'll say the date so that people can adjust accordingly for anything that happens in Europe between today and when we release this episode. So it's March the 15th around midday here in the east coast of the United States. But we'll talk about Ukraine a little bit where there are plenty of tanks being employed and not supremely effectively from my perspective, but I'm of course curious about your view of that. Before we get there, let's go back in time. Let's go back to the start of the 20th century. And I'll just ask you some maybe deceptively simple questions. What is a tank and why did anyone develop a sense that such a thing was needed? Okay, as you say, I've written a book on tank warfare, and in my book on tank warfare, I actually had a section to start off on chariots, and chariots combine mobility and firepower. The firepower essentially being provided either initially by people wielding spears or by people firing bows and arrows.

And there is a lot to say that a, what we call a tank, is just a form of the combination of firepower and mobility. And if I can take that a stage further, I think it's always interesting to listen to or talk with people who are actually writing something at the moment. I'm currently writing a history of cavalry at the moment. And from that juncture and perspective, I don't just stop with men on horses.

I actually look at the question as to how far tanks, helicopters and drones are all later iterations of cavalry. of course the United States, not that this proves the point, actually called its helicopter forces in Vietnam Air Cavalry. So as far as tanks are concerned, conventionally what we're talking about with a tank is the type of armored vehicle developed in World War I, which of course was an application of the internal combustion engine.

and an application of a particular form of motive power to the age-old question of linking mobility and firepower. In a way, it was different too, but another version of what you'd seen in the late 19th century, which was the attempt to take another earlier technology that had come through with the modern period, namely the locomotive steam engine, and actually produce armoured trains. So in other words, people were experimenting with new forms of motive power. The particular drive to do so in World War I, although ideas about tanks had actually circulated prior to that, but the particular drive in World War I was the immobility, or apparent immobility created by trench warfare, the extent to which trench warfare gave a major advantage

to defenders, and therefore the need to think of a new way to cross the killing ground in order to break into other side's defences without encouraging experiencing very high casualties. And from that perspective, you can think of the tank as another version of, for example, the wedge technique of shot cavalry attack as used, for instance, by the Macedonians in the 4th century BC. And how does it actually happen? Who are the innovators? The major innovators of the tradition of French, the Germans do develop some tanks,

but they are slower and produce fewer. And indeed, this is worth bearing in mind. I mean, we are so often used to the idea, which in my view is an erroneous idea, that the Germans in some way were the best army in the first half of the 20th century, but that they were overtaken or overcome by the force of resource enjoyed by the Allies. I've argued, as you know, I've written books on both World War I and World War II. I've argued that we exaggerate the skill and sophistication of the German army, particularly at the operational and strategic level.

And I think it's fair to say that they did not show much quality in tank development in World War I. So it's particularly the British and the French. The Americans do have some interest. I discuss that at my book on tank warfare, but essentially for the Americans on the Western Front, they take a lot of their equipment, with permission, of the British and the French.

So it's the British and the French, and they're both advantages and disadvantages with tanks. I mean, they don't fulfill the great expectation and the memorialization offered after the war, particularly by JFC Fuller in his account of the tank. And I would argue that in practical terms in 1918, what causes the crucial feat of the Germans on the Western Front is, number one, the losses and over-extension of the Germans in the spring offensives, which had been very poorly conceived and executed. and number two, the successful tactical integration by the Allies, particularly by the British, of what's known as the three-dimensional battlefields. In other words, artillery firing at targets,

it cannot see, using essentially aerial reconnaissance, in order to suppress the other side's fire and open up a break-in scenario. And I would argue that was more significant than the tank. The tank didn't hurt. And in some contexts, Combrae in 1917, Amiens, and in 1918, tanks were useful, but I would actually argue that artillery was much more important, as indeed in World War I as a whole. I mean, the artillery killed more people than any other form. So a parallel you draw explicitly in your writing on this subject is between tanks and their development on the one hand and aviation, and the development or application of aviation technology for warfare on the other. And in both cases, you have this situation where there are these

recurring dreams of a dominance that will come from technological innovation. Describe how that dream played out, I suppose. How does that come about? Who thought that? What argument did they make that, you know, this, the tank, the aircraft, changes everything? And then you're a critic of this. How are they wrong? Yes. Well, I am a critic, as you say, although I would argue that aircraft were capable of having strategic capability, as was shown both in the combined bomber offensive against Germany and World War II, and was also shown in the use of the atomic bombs against Japan and to force its surrender in the same war. Now, nobody would suggest that, I don't believe anybody would suggest that tanks are equal to that kind of strategic capability. Why do you get

magic bullet ideas? Well, magic bullet ideas tend to, to focus on technology. There's no inherent reason why they should focus on technology. They could focus, for example, on new tactical innovations, but they tend in industrialized societies to focus on technology. And the idea is that by the implementation of this new weapon system, you will be able to achieve a paradigm shift which redefines existing methods of warfare. But there are several problems with that intellectually. I mean, the obvious ones, of course, is that if you can produce some innovation, somebody else can produce the same innovation and or they can produce also an effective anti-weapon. And anti-weapons tend to be cheaper and often easier to use. Anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft guns are

cheaper and easier to use than the tanks or aircraft. And, you know, you've mentioned, we'll be talking about Ukraine at the end. I mean, in the, in Ukraine, you can, see anti-weapons having a great significance. And I argued in my book on tanks, as you will know, that the vulnerability of modern tanks to anti-tank rockets, and in particular the ability to penetrate armour was one that was forcing such an expense on tank manufacturers to protect tanks in terms of jamming systems, in terms of particular types of armour, which would allow an explosion on the outer surface without damaging this tank internally, that in a way you were starting to move towards the danger of obsolescence. The same thing with modern aircraft.

The modern aircraft individually are far more effective than the aircraft that we used in World War II, but the aircraft used in World War II could be produced in very large quantities, could be maintained, relatively easily and could be flown relatively easily in comparison to each of those today. And as a result of which you could argue, and if you add in the cost factor, you could argue that air power to an extent has become obsolescent today. I mean, to say it's completely obsolescent would be going far too far, but to an extent it's become obsolescent. Now, the end of World War I, there was clearly a powerful sense that we shouldn't have to have a war of that type of its devastating consequences in terms of manpower loss, economic damage, again.

So people were looking for ways to overcome that problem. And part of that was, of course, the idea of a peace settlement that would hopefully settle issues, the VersaIP settlement. Part of it was the idea of a permanent arbitrating organization, the League of Nations and its subcommittees. And part of it is the idea of new forms of war in order to avoid the need for the recurrence of what had happened. So the tank and the aircraft are held up by their protagonists in that light. I think it's fair to say that certainly in the 1920s, these were on the whole minority views. They were, in a way, very excitedly pushed, for example, air power in America by Mitchell and in Britain by Trenchard.

They were excitedly pushed precisely because much of the military establishment remained committed to existing weapon systems, which, after all, had seemed to deliver much of what had been intended, albeit not as quickly as maybe had been anticipated. And before everybody says, well, World War I lasted a long time. That's true, but so did other major wars. So in other words, you would see a commitment on the part of Britain, Japan, in the United States, the leading naval powers, still were all committed to heavy ships of the lives.

They hadn't decided they were in favor of having aircraft carriers as well, but the battleship remains the key weapons platform at sea in the 1920s. On land, the key platform, the clean means on land remains infantry supported by artillery. Nobody is against having tanks if somebody wishes to pay for them, but there is a degree of uncertainty about what they could achieve. There is a degree of suspicion about some of their protagonists, and there are reasons why tanks with their limited firepower, their high rate of mechanical failure, the extent to which anti-tank tactics and weaponry had already developed, whether you're thinking in terms of other tanks, but also artillery mines, and also the extent to which a lot of military activity, and notably so in the

1920s was not on a compact, relatively flat terrain, but was often in difficult landscapes where tanks would not apparently offer very much. And how does doctrinal thinking, how does thinking about the use of tanks evolve amongst these major players in the interwar period? You've already made reference to, you know, the sort of natural interplay that happens between the introduction of a new technology, the realization that this new technology is vulnerable in ways that perhaps you hadn't originally anticipated. You have to figure out new ways to use it and, you know, on and on the dance goes. How does this develop amongst the major players in the lead up to World War II? Well, again, as you know, I've discussed that in my book on the tongue.

I've also discussed that on my book on interwar military history. I think it's fair to say that the traditional view, which is that in the 1930s, people sniffed the coffee and realized that maneuver warfare using tanks was the future and that you get that development in particular in Germany with the D'Darion and also in the Soviet Union with Tukhyshinsky, that Britain having innovated the tank failed to move at the same pace and that you have profits who are ignored in their own lifetime, people like Basil Little Heart in Britain or Charles de Gaulle in France. That's the traditional view.

I think it is a view that is over-egged, if not flawed. I think you will find that there remained concerns about the effectiveness of armour, there remained concerns about the environments that one might fight in. I mean, armour, for example, for the British, was not much use if you were engaged, as the British were in the late 30s, against the Fakhir of Hippi on the northwest frontier of British India. And in armies such as those of Germany and the Soviet Union, the overwhelming bulk of those armies remained, of course, infantry. And indeed, motorisation was relatively limited in both those states.

So I would be skeptical of the idea. and then, of course, we lead into World War II. And rather than seeing the triumph of a doctrine and a military system, though it obviously helped having things, there was no one that'd be foolish to ignore that. There are the alternative explanations of why Poland was conquered in 39 and the Germans did well in Western Europe in 40 and the Balkans in 41. issues such as the location of reserves by the forces attacked, the strategy they were followed,

the fact that in the case of Poland and Yugoslavia, it was possible to mount attacks from a variety of directions, etc, etc. So what one's got is the age-old factor. This is not new in military history. The age-old factory is this one taking a technology, which is primarily a, at best, an operational advantage, and is giving it a strategic paradigm shifting consequence. And I think that is a problem, and it is one that one needs to think about when one's discussing air power or tanks. And, of course, one's then got the even bigger picture for World War II, which is that the great problem with war, as you know, I've written about this, is not so much occupying territory

killing people. That's relatively easy if you could do it. The real problem is forcing people to observe your will and to surrender or accept your ideas. And that, of course, was neither achieved nor not achieved by the use of tanks. I mean, you know, in a sense, having the tank didn't help Germany fulfill its war games, war goals, war games, one could say, war goals against the Soviet Union. The major problem was they'd launched a war which they didn't really have an exit from other than the total destruction of their opponent, which is always a rather problematic war goal to have. Let's talk a bit about Blitzkrieg and what happens in Poland and France apparently rather successfully. And then what fails rather spectacularly in Russia,

I take your point that you have to understand the proper role and not inflate the role of armor in those invasions. But it plays some role. And maybe I'll throw it out there as a hypothesis, which you can rip a part if you like, that really what we should be thinking about more is motorization and speed and the communication that comes. I think getting inside of your opponent's decision loop is very important. There's no two ways about that. In terms of the Western Front, I think the crucial issue is not so much that the Germans use tanks. It's that they advanced through the Ardennes and crossed the middle Murs and put themselves in a position thwart their opponents front at the same time that the French had moved most of their reserves

to their extreme left and rushed them through Belgium in order to link up with southern Netherlands, southern Holland, southern Holland. And that, I think, is a very flawed strategy on the part of the Western powers. It's an understandable strategy. Prior to the war, Belgium and the Netherlands had not been willing to have French or British forces located in them. The British and the French did not want to surrender that battle space to the Germans, and they therefore move their forces forward. But what it means is that once the Germans had broken through, there wasn't really an adequate Allied Plan B. And I think that provides the Germans with their great opportunity. I think in a sense, I mean, I'm obviously interested in the strategy,

as you know. I've written several books, a book on strategy in World War II, a book on strategy as a whole, a book on strategy in the 18th century. Now, I would argue that much military assessment by commentators tends to underplay strategy and to overplay the actual means with which forces are equipped. Why do you think that is? Oh, I think there's the Boys and Toys scenario, P. The fascination, the fascination with machinery. There is subject that American scholars have written on, the American fascinate, specifically for World War II, the American fascination with the Wehrmacht. You know, there are a whole host of reasons why this is the case both for specific wars and for warfare in general. And strategy is a subject which appears to be one that in the eyes of, shall we say, some people, is a subject

for the anorax. It requires an understanding of political context. I mean, the key element in strategy is prioritisation between commitments. That's not the sort of thing that somebody wants to hear about if they want to explain to you that what had really determined World War II was the powered landing craft, you know? Right, right, right. So in a sense, there's often a complete mismatch in interpretation. So it's interesting to consider the power of landing craft means you don't need to land on, it's just capture ports. You can use, you know, coastlines and that that actually provides you with lots of opportunities. But that is an operational factor rather than, in my view, a strategic question. The point you're making reminds me a bit of, for reasons that are probably

obvious, I've been reading Andrew Lambert's book about the Crimean War in the last couple of weeks. And the book opens with this, you know, passionate complaint that no one seems to actually understand the Crimean War, that we're focused on this, you know, difficult, often disastrous operation on the Crimean Peninsula without understanding in any way what its strategic role was, relatively speaking to operations that are occurring at sea and operations that don't actually ever occur in the Baltic, but turn out to be actually, the threat of them turns out to be the most significant aspect of the war in Lambert's view. I differing you. I don't know that's accurate. I think Lambert produces a good case there.

And another instance of that slightly different is Brian Bond's complaint that much of the public understanding of World War I ends on the first day of the song. And in other words, the extent to which there is a strategic, operational and tactical learning curve, and that each of those ends up, although with success, although there is not, not a movement at the same pace is, I think, again, important.

Now, I'm not saying that troops should be equipped with poor arms. I'm simply making the point that having better arms in terms of the lethality, fire speed, if you're talking about an aircraft, acceleration, height, bomb capacity, firepower, whatever you want to concern yourself with. Obviously, you want those to be better than those that one's opponents have, but that does not necessarily deliver you the result that you require, either at the tactical level, where other factors such as morale, tactical, unique cohesion, tactical adroitness, leadership may all be more important or at the operational level or at the strategic level. That's really interesting. sticking with the Second World War for a moment, or at least the period of the Second World War, let's talk about the Winter War, the Soviet invasion of Finland, where tanks play a role

that reminds me a bit, and maybe I'm overthinking this, but it reminds me a bit of what we're seeing today in Ukraine, that is to say there is an armored element to the invasion, but it does not go really as hope from the Soviet perspective. What happens there? Yes. I mean, the initial Soviet attempt to just remind listeners, the Soviets, had already successfully invaded eastern Poland. In September 1939, they try and bully and intimidate Finland, which is a country that had detached itself from Tsarist Imperial Russia. The Finns won't be bullied. The Soviets attack. Their initial attacks are a dismal failure with heavy casualties, and that tends to be what people focus on.

What they often tend to forget is that the Soviets then regrouped, they attacked and they're second, if you like, offensive, the main Finnish defences, the so-called Mannerheim line of defences in Karelia, and essentially using artillery, the Soviets smashed through them, and the Finns then surrendered. Didn't do the Soviets much good in the medium term, because the Finns, not surprisingly, then cooperated with Germany in 1941 in Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union. But the point you're making, which is a sensible one, is there can be

eventualities and terrains that are very well suited for tanks. One thinks in particular of desert terrain, whether the Western Desert of Western Egypt and Libya in 1940, 41, 42, or you might be thinking of the Desert of Kuwait in 1991, or indeed the arid, not desert, not desert, but the arid epigraphy of southern Iraq in 2003. All of those are convenient for tanks, but tanks clearly, like other military systems, on ground are less successful in certain environments. There is a dominance of geography, geography in all sorts of respects, and one of the respects is the nature of ground cover, of terrain,

and in particular of the built or human impact on the environment. So that tanks classically face more difficulties if you have an environment which humans are cultivated a lot with ditches, canals or hedges. You can think of the Baccage in Normandy in 1944. And then again, if you're using tanks in urban areas, one can think, for example, of Iraq from 2003 onwards. And in all of those, the specific advantage of the tank is lessened. Mobility is compromised.

Firepower advantages are compromised by the conditions. concealment of targets, and you are more open to attack by anti-tank weaponry of some type or other. So all of those are particular problems. And then there are a whole host similarly of other environmental contexts which affect other weapon systems. So, you know, until you move to non-visual contact during the age of visual air power, clearly, you were affected by problems to do with visibility at dark and even more in cloud conditions. Yeah.

You raise the desert. So why don't we go there in the conventional account of the development of armored warfare, typically after the end of the Second World War, much of the focus shifts to the Middle East and to Arab-Israeli wars. We don't need to sort of narrate the history of all those conflicts, perhaps another time that would be interesting. But what happens in terms of the development of armored technology and employment in those wars? Are there significant advances compared to the kind of ferment of the first half of the 20th century

or has the sort of intellectual dimension of all this sort of settled into a groove? Well, I think the intellectual dimension, to a considerable extent, has settled into a groove. The difference is that of opportunity. In the first Arab-Israeli war, the conflict was overwhelmingly in inhabited areas. In the 1956 war, in contrast, the Sinai Desert is much more the field of operations for Israel when it is fighting Egypt, and that again is the case in the Six-Day War and in the Yonquipur War. So in each of those cases, and then, of course, in the terms of the Israelis and the Syrians, although the Golan Heights are a different topography, they are similar in that they are relatively likely populated. So in each of those cases, you have a different environment to, if you're thinking of confrontation or conflict in built up areas. So for the Israelis, there's much more of a problem

when in recent years they've considered or used armour in terms of opposition in Tafada's in the occupied West Bank and also operating into Gaza. And as you will know, the Israelis also encountered difficulties when they invaded Lebanon in 2006, with Hezbollah using quite successfully rockets against Israeli tanks. So I would say that Israel was a droid. Israel is an adroit military power. It is fighting for its survival. Israelis are under no illusion that many, not saying all, but many of their opponents are genocidal in their intentions, and at the very least in brutal ethnic cleansing, which would be what the Arabs would visit on the Israelis.

So there's a high level of commitment, a high level of morale, but the Israeli army is better suited to some environments and some opponents than others, and that's exactly what you'd expect. That's a norm. I mean, if you think of, you know, you're an American, Obviously, the American military was better configured. The army was better configured in the 1950s and 60s, and indeed 70s and 80s, for confronting the Soviet Union in Europe, where the Americans had gained it and developed a force structure and doctrine that was appropriate. And that was not so readily convertible to the war that had transpired in Vietnam.

Vietnam. Tanks did play a role there. The North Vietnamese used a large number of tanks in the 1972 Spring Offensive. Unsuccessfully so, the Americans proved very good at using aircraft in tank-duster roles. But I think it's fair to say that the Vietnam War would not by most people be characterized and they would be right in this as a tank conflict. Yeah, though famously the last Marines departing the roof of the U.S. Embassy in 1975, the last thing they see is they're getting on the helicopters. Yeah, the first tank, the first NVA tank coming down the road. Yeah, well, as you say, you correctly put your finger on it there. It's an NVA tank, so for benefit of listeners, North Vietnamese Army.

The point is that in 72 and 75, the major offensives are by the North Vietnamese Army, whereas in 68 and early, earlier, the main fighting had been done by the Viet Cong. And that is a differently armed force and with a different structure. And it's rather interesting, the North Vietnamese army, rather like the Iraqi army in 1991, is using not just Soviet Cold War armaments, but also Soviet Cold War doctrine. And that, I think, is quite interesting. You know, we opened this series of podcasts with an interview of HR McMaster. Oh, yes, great man, great man. So he is.

And, you know, we actually, what I did was I interrogated him not about his, you know, service as national security advisor and all the important work he's done in the last decade or two, but about his service as a young captain in the Gulf War. He wrote this, you know, well, well-known account of a tank battle on the, I believe it's the 73 Easting, where he and his troop or company of tanks, you know, essentially demolishes. a significantly larger Iraqi force, using prepared and organized according to Soviet doctrine, as you point out,

but in the event, not just outgunned, but quite clearly outled. Yes, I think that's right. And it's very interesting. There's a very good article in the Journal of Military History about the Syrian versus Israeli tank battles on the Golod Heights in 73. And there are differences between the tanks, obviously,

but it very much does come down to the leadership and use of the equipment. And as I said, I mean, at the present moment, I'm wrestling with how best to write this history of cavalry. I mean, I've written 70,000, well, that's already. And there are real practical difficulties in analyzing the usage, because for most battles, we don't really, indeed campaigns as a whole, and obviously the non-battle use of cavalry for things like raiding and screens and all the rest of reconnaissance are absolutely crucial. But we don't really have, for most battles in the past, the necessary evaluative material to help us on that. So we're pushed back onto an emphasis on the weapons they use, which isn't necessarily the reason for relative

effectiveness. Now, in the case of the tank, we're in a much more fortunate position, because the tank has been going for 106 years. And during that period, we have photographic evidence, we have evidence from people that use them, we have pretty good evidence from military records, doesn't mean there are many serious issues arising in terms of the analysis of the evidence. But it does mean we're in a different position

to, if I want to discuss with you, how effective Sasanian cavalry is, against Roman cavalry. At the risk of being overwhelmed by events before this is released, we did promise listeners we would chat about Ukraine. So before we get to armor specifically, I just want to ask your general view of progress on the battlefield as of March the 15th. We've had guests on the show in the last couple weeks who have, I would say they sort of separate into two camps. There are those who, and in fairness to them, they've come on at different points in time. So it's reasonable that people's views might shift. There are those who have

joined and essentially suggested that the obvious early failures of the Russians more or less guarantee some some kind of defeat, something that seemed unimaginable before the launch of hostilities. We've had others join who are much more skeptical of that, who think that indeed there may well be an insurgency and a failure to achieve ultimate political objectives, but that militarily, conventionally speaking, they're almost certain to be successful. Do you occupy a spot on that spectrum somewhere? How do you think things are going for the Russians militarily? Well, let me just actually, as you know, I'm primarily a strategist. So let me just start off by saying we're talking on the 15th of March two things. First of all, the war itself reveals the failure of deterrence and therefore raises big questions about how for the West to reintroduce deterrence as an operative principle. That I think is the most important perspective from the West. Number two, the biggest changes in the last four days remind us that, for the leading military power, which is still, and obviously for the West, very much the case,

the United States, Ukraine, and your listeners may not wish to hear this, is just one among a number of tasks. In the last four days, we have had North Korea fire an intercontinental ballistic missile, which is quite capable of reaching American territory, certainly Hawaii, probably the West Coast. We have also had Iran fire missiles, not through, surrogate Iraqi militia, but directly Iranian missiles at the American consulate, which in effect is a military base in Iraqi Kurdistan. So for the West, there is, as it were, a need to believe in the effectiveness of Ukrainian resistance, whether or not it is effective at the level the listeners wish to conceive of, there is a crucial need to believe in its effectiveness.

Now, let's then look more specifically at the crisis in Ukraine. But I think these wider strategic parameters have to be born in mind. Okay? Let's just look at it more specifically. It's difficult to imagine that President Putin thought that he was going to be working on the time scale that is now being worked on. So whether or not he succeeds, whatever we mean by success, and we can come to that in the second, there is certainly been the creation of a perception of failure. That itself is politically significant if you loop back to what I was talking about earlier, about the deterrent issue coming out of this. So that I think is a very important point. The perception is that the Russians are able to deliver a large amount of lethality. They're able to

attack on a number of fronts. They're able to make advances on a number of fronts. They have obviously more advantage in terms of attacking Ukraine than they would have if they were attacking, say, Lithuania, in the sense that Ukraine has Russian forces prior to the crisis on a number of its fronts, whether you're thinking of Belarus, Crimea, the Dombas, or the area north of Kiev. So in that respect, geopolitically, it's more similar to Poland in 1939 than, say, France in 1940. The Russian army is not large enough to hold all of Ukraine if there was to be a significant public insurrection that lasted for a long time. you will know that one of the important aspects of the, as it were, after history of World War II, is the major effort the Soviet Union made in suppressing opposition to the extension of its power in the Baltic republics, in Ukraine, in Poland, by anti-communists and nationalists.

Surprisingly so, I mean, the Soviets were a brutal and unpleasant regime, and the Soviets deployed, for example, Minister of the Interior, troops, NKVD troops, et cetera, et cetera. Now, I suspect that they will be deploying those, the equivalent forces in greater numbers. But my guess is, my guess is that Putin went into this exercise, assuming that the Ukrainian government would somehow collapse and that it would be possible then to put in a friendly client government, rather like the current government of Belarus, and that that would, as it were, do Russia's bidding. And after all, that was the principal means by which the Soviet Union extended its power into Eastern Europe in the late 40s successfully, and into Afghanistan,

initially successfully, at the end of the 70s, though obviously less successfully in the long term. So from that point of view, Russia has failed. And it is failed because any government it now creates is not going to be seen as having legitimacy either on the part of most Ukrainians or on the part of most of the international order. Okay. Which therefore means there is going to be a long and complex aftermath to this assuming Russia. succeeds. In other words, the success will not be the question of getting troops into Kiev or getting Levov to fall or whatever. It's going to be much more complex than that. So from that perspective, I would say Russia has failed. If what you're talking about is what seems to fascinate most people,

which is drones can be successful against tanks, yes, well, we knew that already. I mean, we'd already seen that in the recent conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. I mean, a lot of the commentary that one is getting at the moment is ignorant, immature and silly. I mean, let's just be, and that's equally true in my country, Britain, as in your country. I assume your accent means you're not going to be offended if I say, I think you're an American, which seems to be the standard way to offend a Canadian. Americans may be amused to hear that. I'm American as a good. I'm American as a Yes. Right. Well, much of the commentary from the perspective of somebody who is a long-term military historian, by long-term, I mean looking at things on the long-term, much of the

commentary is absolutely appalling in its standards, and much of it is strategically naive. And if you then want to go on and ask the question which you did mention before we started, which is, do I see a future for the tank, which, as you know, I do discuss at the end of my book on tank warfare. I mean, in that book, I looked in two different directions. I talked about the weakness of a military system, which is so vulnerable to anti-tank developments, and with anti-tank developments being so sophisticated now. But I also drew attention to the wish that people had to protect troops. and that armour provides a form of protection of troops, in other words, a armour personnel carrier with a gun.

And I also drew attention to the fact in my book repeatedly that one has to be very cautious in how one actually defines a tank, vis-a-vis a self-propelled gun, vis-a-vis an armoured personnel carrier, vis-a-vis an armoured car and so on. So on the one hand, you could say what this crisis is showing is that the Russian, are using a legacy military system. And interestingly enough, a number of other powers, whether you're thinking of Iran, China, Sweden, a number of other powers have been investing in new generation tanks. So that's one way of looking at it. The other way of looking at it, which I would, which doesn't clash with that, is to say that where we are at the present moment is with a complete uncertainty as to what consists of modern war. The last 20 years, we have had,

you might want to bring me on to discuss this in another context, we've had a number of very different definitions of modern war, therefore of modernisation, and therefore of the four structures and doctrines that are appropriate for warfare. Ukraine may or may not set a paradigm here. What it certainly appears to be doing is suggesting that the actual occupation of territory in the face of a determined populace is of limited military value because your occupation force is a wasting asset. If, on the other hand, what you wanted to do is let's say, I'm not saying this is going to happen, If your idea of modern warfare might be the People's Liberation Army firing missiles which sink American carriers in the waters to the east of Taiwan, then you're operating in a very different

understanding of what might be effectiveness. So we have to move away from the suggestion, and just to bear in mind, this isn't to lessen the significance of Ukraine, but the pictures are different. There is at the present moment and has been in recent weeks a high level of conflict in Ethiopia, in which incidentally, thanks have not been playing a significant role, though drones have been. How far you are to regard Ethiopia, or for that matter, Myanmar, Burma, where the army is brutalising minority tribal populations. How far you're to regard that as more typical of warfare than Ukraine, partly. is linked to the question of what do you understand modern war to be, and therefore what you

understand pertinent doctrine to be. And I'll end on this point. You shouldn't assume a unitary standard around the world. The approach to military history, which takes the view that there is power number A, which is the paradigm power, inventing some kind of military revolution or whatever, and that warfare is a question of the diffusion of its methods and doctrine is rubbish, because war is fundamentally set by the tasking of individual conflicts in specific environments linked to particular political strategies. That is the context you need to consider. You know, I'm an infantryman by training.

It's really the only thing that anyone's ever actually taught me to do. And as a young officer, I was heavily propagandized by the Marines out in the deserts of California about the value of the Marine Corps's small arsenal of tanks. We did live fire. They're not going to do it. Exactly. Of course, it's why I raise it. You know, I still remember the battalion commander for the tank unit that we train with

gathering all of us, young lieutenants together in the desert at the end of the exercise and saying, remember, boys, infantrymen largely run this operation. So one day, when some of you have some authority around here, remember, when you need a tank, you need a tank. And that was circa 2007 or eight or so. And, of course, today, off they go, as the Marines' preparations. prepare to fight China. No more tanks for us. Yes. I mean, if you fight China, which I hope you don't do, but if you fight China, I think that it will be at a greater range of activity than the

close contact fighting of infantry. Let me tell you a brief account. I was once on an airplane from Dallas to Denver, giving lectures in the States. The gentleman sitting next to me was the colonel of the tank regiment, which had just been conducting maneuvers at Fort Hood. And I asked him, there was one of the periodic crises, this was some years ago, one of the periodic crises about Taiwan. And I asked him whether his unit might be conceivably sent there. Quite properly, he didn't answer that on that term,

which I think was very proper of him. But he did say to me, you know, Taiwan is too small for my unit to operate it. And I thought that captured nicely, nicely, one of the problems with military analysis. Jeremy Black, professor of history at the University of Exeter. It's been a fascinating conversation. We'd love to have you back. Thank you so much for joining. Thank you very much. And best wishes to all my many friends in the United States. This is a nebulous media production. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.