V ladimir Putin is well-known for his interest in history. It is one of the few things he apparently reads, and he peppers his speeches with references to past Russian heroes, triumphs and challenges. Indeed, he has paralleled himself variously to such past figures as Tsar Peter the Great, the 18thcentury monarch who battled Sweden, then the great Nordic military power of the age, and Petr Stolypin, the early 20th-century prime minister who combined a commitment to reforming his country with the ruthless suppression of the 1905 Revolution.
That said, Putin is also a strikingly poor historian. He has produced lengthy essays on Russia's relationship with Ukraine, meant to justify his war, that are as stylistically wooden as they are historically dubious, cherry-picking evidence that seems to fit his argument, and stripping them of context and nuance. He has also encouraged a national narrative of struggle and victory focused on war, with World War II - the Great Patriotic War in Russian parlance - as the centrepiece of a heroic tale of military glory. Parade uniforms blend tsarist and Stalin-era aesthetics, school playgrounds feature (deactivated) anti-tank guns of the time, and television channels like the Ministry of Defence's Zvezda (Star) serve up an almost unbroken diet of war films.
In this context, it is all the more striking just how far Putin has also managed to misunderstand or ignore so many of the lessons of Russia's military history, and particularly those learned or understood by five of his predecessors, from the 14th to the 20th century, in his drive to build a great 21stcentury military power.
1 PRINCE DMITRY DONSKOI DON'T BELIEVE YOUR OWN MYTHS
Denne historien er fra Issue 114-utgaven av History of War.
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Denne historien er fra Issue 114-utgaven av History of War.
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NAUMACHIA TRUTH BEHIND ROME'S GLADIATOR SEA BATTLES
In their quest for evermore novel and bloody entertainment, the Romans staged enormous naval fights on artificial lakes
OPERATION MANNA
In late April 1945, millions of Dutch civilians were starving as Nazi retribution for the failed Operation Market Garden cut off supplies. eet as In response, Allied bombers launched a risky mission to air-drop food
GASSING HITLER
Just a month before the end of WWI, the future Fuhrer was blinded by a British shell and invalided away from the frontline. Over a century later, has the artillery brigade that launched the fateful attack finally been identified?
SALAMANCA
After years of largely defensive campaigning, Lieutenant General Arthur Wellesley went on the offensive against a French invasion of Andalusia
HUMBERT 'ROCKY'VERSACE
Early in the Vietnam War, a dedicated US Special Forces officer defied his merciless Viet Cong captors and inspired his fellow POWs to survive
LEYTE 1944 SINKING THE RISING SUN
One of the more difficult island campaigns in WWII's Pacific Theatre saw a brutal months-long fight that exhausted Japan’s military strength
MAD DAWN
How technology transformed strategic thinking and military doctrine from the Cold War to the current day
BRUSHES WITH ARMAGEDDON
Humanity came close to self-annihilation with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Broken Arrows’ and other nuclear near misses
THE DEADLY RACE
How the road to peace led to an arms contest between the USA and USSR, with prototypes, proliferation and the world’s biggest bomb
THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
Einstein, Oppenheimer and the race to beat Hitler to the bomb. How a science project in the desert helped win a war
