“I know there's a school of thought that does not believe in tactical withdrawal, and states that any retreat is a failure, however, I firmly believe this is retarded.“
As anybody who has practiced a combat sport could say, it is indeed retarded, like saying a boxer should never take a step back in the ring. But the reason this belief arose is a little more complicated. An army is not a boxer, not a single man. The psychology of the ape is still important in warfare to this day. Retreating without routing is very hard. Retreating “feels” like losing in the mind of the man on the ground. The feigned rout, or even a tactical retreat to a superior position, can become a real rout very easily. It’s not that such a tactic was unheard of before Hannibal, that everyone before Hannibal famously utilized it was an idiot, but that it is dangerous and very hard to coordinate. Men need rock solid discipline and iron faith in their leader in order to pull such a thing off. If those conditions are met, defensive tactical genius becomes possible, and you get men like Julius Caesar and Lord Wellington, the latter of which never lost a single battle. Otherwise, the general tendency to avoid tactical retreats is correct; it’s very bad for morale if your forces aren’t elite and more importantly faithful. That Ukraine defends its positions to the last man and Russia is able to pull off a tactical retreat suggests that Ukraine cannot retreat without routing, and Russia can- the morale disparity is clearly biased in favor of the RF
“I know there's a school of thought that does not believe in tactical withdrawal, and states that any retreat is a failure, however, I firmly believe this is retarded.“
As anybody who has practiced a combat sport could say, it is indeed retarded, like saying a boxer should never take a step back in the ring. But the reason this belief arose is a little more complicated. An army is not a boxer, not a single man. The psychology of the ape is still important in warfare to this day. Retreating without routing is very hard. Retreating “feels” like losing in the mind of the man on the ground. The feigned rout, or even a tactical retreat to a superior position, can become a real rout very easily. It’s not that such a tactic was unheard of before Hannibal, that everyone before Hannibal famously utilized it was an idiot, but that it is dangerous and very hard to coordinate. Men need rock solid discipline and iron faith in their leader in order to pull such a thing off. If those conditions are met, defensive tactical genius becomes possible, and you get men like Julius Caesar and Lord Wellington, the latter of which never lost a single battle. Otherwise, the general tendency to avoid tactical retreats is correct; it’s very bad for morale if your forces aren’t elite and more importantly faithful. That Ukraine defends its positions to the last man and Russia is able to pull off a tactical retreat suggests that Ukraine cannot retreat without routing, and Russia can- the morale disparity is clearly biased in favor of the RF