Race/social memory is self-perpetuating and if the recollection of Stalingrad can be rekindled by the Russian leaders, the outcome of the conflict will never be certain. Both politicians and pundits often toss about the phrase "hearts and minds," like a magic spell that will give birth to victory. They fail to understand the people. Minds can come up with the plans but it's the hearts that carry satchel charges that will be stuck to tank's bases, hearts who are the water in the tsunami of the human wave and whose final shot is fired from the grave.
The technically advanced Western power makes an error if they forget the power of dead grandfathers who gave their lives and more to annihilate the Germans at Stalingrad. Russian conscripts may be untried and poorly equipped but they have a supply train of history that is fuelled by pride. The Russian soldiers do not fight for Putin, they struggle on for the the honour of dead family, of whom they have many millions, for the glory of a history without end that has now fallen 'pon hard times like many times before. Western tech is powerful and frightening but, is it strong enough to crush and eliminate this enemy's history, its pride and its will to live? Napoleon thought so and where is his Empire now? Germans, Swedish, Islamic armies and others, today enrich the black soil from which comes the blackest bread that feeds the subjects of German genocide alongside plagues and famines, all of the ways in which the Russian people never died.
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