Welcome To Stalingrad

Syrian Civil War: Moral superiority is an actual military concept. It means one side in a war is willing to take much higher casualties than the other to achieve victory. In this context the phrase does not have any philosophical meaning. The FSA rebels have moral superiority over Assad's army. The bad guys might have kill ratios of 100-1 over the good guys. And yet the good guys are (so far) winning. This is the most horrible and gruesome way to win a war.

The Battle of Aleppo has begun. Both sides are fighting over the Salaheddine district, which is now key. Assad's army said they had captured Salaheddine one day ago after a withering barrage of rockets, mortars, helicopter gunship fire, and fire from the cannons of tanks. Assad's army moved in infantry to hold the ground they thought they'd captured but rebel fighters crawled out of the ruins and repelled the bad guy foot soldiers. Moral superiority.

The German army captured 90% of Stalingrad before losing the battle. The Germans thought the scorecard for victory was how much of the city they had captured and how many Russian soldiers they had killed. The actual scorecard was the condition of the German supply lines. Every German bullet had to be transported over 1000 miles to Stalingrad. If these supply lines were not robust, Germany would and did lose.

Before the Battle of Aleppo the rebels fought hard and secured all the ground necessary for them to maintain supply lines. The rebel supply lines are impregnable. The CIA has publicly admitted that it is running these supply lines.

We don't know the condition of Assad's supply lines. But as the battle unfolds we will find out.

It is very rare for a vastly outgunned army to defeat a technologically advanced army with moral superiority. The last time this happened was about 140 years ago. It can only happen if the outgunned army has a much better and more sophisticated strategy and tactics. The military minds behind the primitive army must be way better than their opponents. Better chess players.

In Stalingrad the Russians had equal technology compared to the Germans. So this is an imperfect analogy.