obrien which begins with this memorable sentence there were no decisive battles in world war ii obrien shows that even the bloodiest most stupendous battles like the battle of kursk in 1943 destroyed at most a few weeks worth of the losing sides war production what decided the war was allied success in dominating first the seas then the air success that depended crucially on intellectuals like rabi who didnt look like anyones idea of a warrior or alan turing who led the codebreaking efforts at bletchley park but whose gayness would have made him an outcast in the rightwing vision of what america should beobrien was as it happens one of the few prominent military analysts who disagreed with the consensus that russia would quickly and easily conquer ukraine and has been a frequent and insightful commentator on the course of the ongoing war he believes that ukraines counteroffensive will eventually succeed im not qualified to judge whether hes right but i do understand his reasoningheres how id put it the ukrainians discovered early on that they couldnt pull off a blitzkrieg using armored vehicles to punch a hole in russias defense lines and then racing for the coast when they tried that they ran into dense minefields and withering artillery fire so they reverted to tactics that seem on the surface almost like those of world war i smallscale and incredibly brave infantry attacks that gain at most a few hundred yards at a timeunder the surface however pun not really intended whats going on is something like the battle of the atlantic those infantry assaults force the russians to respond exposing their artillery systems in particular to attacks from ukrainians using superior western technology supplemented by local ingenuityif this strategy is working again a question im not competent to answer ukraines slow gains on the ground arent a good indication of whats really happening if the optimists are right the real story is the gradual degradation of the stuff behind russias lines counterbattery radar artillery pieces command centers and so onone notable thing about the battle of the atlantic is that the denouement was quite sudden we now know that the allies were gradually gaining the upper hand for many months before a sudden surge in uboat losses forced the germans to abandon their attackswill there be a similar tipping point in ukraine i dont know but what we do know is that this war like most modern wars will be determined more by brains and openmindedness than by toughguy posturing