Ukraine is Borrowing a Strategy from Robert E. Lee. Can it Avoid Pickett’s Charge?
Foreign Policy #162 | By: Rudolph Lurz | October 08, 2024
Featured Photo: forbes.com
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In 1863, the Confederate States of America was in an untenable situation. The Union blockade had suffocated the CSA’s economy. Vicksburg was under siege. Its fall would cut the Confederacy in two along the Mississippi River. The Confederacy was in desperate need of aid and recognition from foreign governments, specifically England and France.
The Confederacy’s lone bright spot was the battlefield success of the Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by Robert E. Lee. Their victories over the Union were a source of pride for the South and gave Lee an aura of invincibility. The ignominious defeats of the Army of the Potomac were highly embarrassing for the Union and President Lincoln. Time and time again, the Union Army would march south into Virginia and be turned aside by Lee.
Despite Lee’s battlefield success in the East, the Confederacy was losing the war. In the summer of 1863, Lee made a bold choice. He would take his army deep into Union territory and threaten a major city like Harrisburg or Philadelphia. This would force the Union to fight on the ground of Lee’s choosing. Such a battle would not be like the Union’s prior losses in Virginia. The Union Army would be unable to retreat and regroup if Lee crushed it in Pennsylvania. If the Confederate Army marched through the streets of Philadelphia, foreign recognition and potential aid would likely follow. No matter how badly the Confederacy was doing elsewhere, a primetime victory on Northern soil would change the entire course of the Civil War.
Every elementary school student in the United States learns about what happened after Lee’s gambit. The Army of Northern Virginia engaged with its Union counterpart in the vicinity of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The Union was able to secure the high ground on Little Round Top on the flank and Cemetery Ridge in the Union center. Confederate efforts to turn the Union flank on Day 2 of the Battle of Gettysburg were heroically repulsed by the 20th Maine Regiment, led by Colonel Joshua Chamberlain. After testing the flanks on Days 1-2, General Lee launched a massive attack on the Union Center on Day 3, following an artillery barrage which could be heard as far east as Philadelphia. Pickett’s Charge, as the Confederate attack came to be called, was convincingly annihilated by General Hancock and the Union Army holding Cemetery Ridge. General Lee’s shattered army retreated back to Virginia. They would never again threaten a major Union city.
This summer, shades of 1863 emerged with Ukraine’s sudden surprise attack in the Kursk region of Russia. Ukraine’s armed forces maintained absolute secrecy about the incursion into Kursk. Even the United States, Ukraine’s most important supplier of arms and munitions, was not informed of Ukraine’s attack. Two months after its initial attack, Ukraine still holds more Russian territory than any foreign power since World War 2. Will Ukraine be successful in defeating Russia’s army on Russian soil in a major military engagement? Or will they face their own version of Pickett’s Charge in a redux of the Confederate high tide of 1863?
Analysis
Many other scholars and journalists with more knowledge than I possess have written extensively about Ukraine’s incursion into Russian territory. A few of them have written very good articles right here at U.S. Resist News. I make no claims of holding a candle to their work with this brief.
My immediate research background is in policy formation and political rhetoric, from my days earning my doctorate at the University of Pittsburgh. This brief has its roots much further back-from my days reading my father’s history texts and watching the Ken Burns mini-series, “The Civil War” on PBS. My love for battlefields of the past eventually earned me a B.A. in history from the University of Florida. I keep a memento of a rock from each battlefield I visit. Two from Little Round Top and one from The Angle at Cemetery Ridge sit a foot away from my laptop on my desk. When I hold these stones, I feel inspired by the weight of history in my hands. When I read for leisure, I choose historical texts.
Ukraine’s crossing into Kursk created a flood of analyses. Some of these are speculative, others are solid day-by-day summaries of the political and military realities on the ground. My mind went directly to 1863. Much like Lee, Ukraine’s army has produced incredible results while standing outnumbered against a much stronger foe on paper. Unlike Lee and the Confederacy, most of the civilized world is firmly supporting the cause of Ukraine and its leader, Volodymyr Zelensky. The Confederacy dreamed of having such recognition and support. Ukraine has the world behind it in its battle against Russia.
Ukraine has received billions of dollars in aid from NATO members and from around the globe, led by a coalition held together by U.S. President Joe Biden. Its fight has been painted, perhaps rightfully so, as freedom fighting against the tyranny of a neighboring dictatorship. Russia’s “special military operation” has brutally destroyed the infrastructure and population of a smaller neighbor in an attempt to force its political and economic will in the region. Despite Russia’s advantage on paper, Ukraine, with the help of its allies in the West, has forced a stalemate on the ground. Battlefield conditions have been compared to the muddy trenches of World War 1.
Despite embarrassing defeats, Russia is advancing in its war of attrition. Villages like Bakhmut and Avdiivka have become household names as symbols of both Ukraine’s resolve and Russia’s brutality. These strongholds were taken by Russia after months of grinding battles. The Russian flag flies over nothing but ruins in each of them. Even still, Russia continues to advance in Ukraine’s eastern regions. Ukraine has a manpower problem after years of war. It does not have the reserves to replace the soldiers it loses. Russian soldiers are dying at a much faster rate than their Ukrainian opponents, and it is using tanks from the 1950s and 1960s because Ukraine has destroyed much of its modern equipment.
That does not matter in the end.
Putin knows he does not need to have dramatic victories to achieve his war aims. If Russia continues to lean on Ukraine and force it to lose men and material, he will continue to gain territory. It is meaningless to Putin whether this territory looks like Bakhmut when the Russian flag is raised over it. It has the reserves to continue fighting.
This is why Ukraine’s foray into Kursk is so interesting. It conquered more territory at a much faster rate than what either Russia or Ukraine has been able to accomplish in the East. It has held this territory for two months. Ukraine hoped to divert Russian manpower from its advances in the East. It also hoped to use Kursk as a potential negotiating chip for a diplomatic peace.
If Putin is embarrassed by Ukraine’s presence on his territory, he certainly is not showing it. Russia is patiently counter attacking without being drawn into a huge engagement. Russia seems willing to let its own towns become ruins like Bakhmut or Avdiivka instead of risking a major battle against Ukraine and its superior equipment.
Ukraine’s best chance of a victory against Russia would be a 2024 Battle of Gettysburg on Russian soil. That would also be Russia’s best chance for a quick end to the war. Putin is unwilling to take the risk. Ukraine will not likely experience its own Pickett’s Charge in Kursk.
It will not likely get the opportunity for a war-ending victory there, either.
Engagement Resources
- BBC’s Timeline of the Russia-Ukraine War: Ukraine in maps: Tracking the war with Russia (bbc.com)
- Ken Burns’s “The Civil War”: Watch The Civil War | Ken Burns | PBS
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