John Mearsheimer

And there were all sorts of reasons to think that they were no match for the Wehrmacht.

And if you look at what happened in the initial stages of the conflict, that proved to be the case.

The Germans won a lot of significant tactical victories early on.

That's possible.

Fortunately, we're not going to run the experiment again.

But one could argue that had they concentrated, as the generals wanted to do, in going straight for Moscow, that they would have won.

I mean, what Hitler wanted to do is he wanted to go into the Ukraine.

I mean, Hitler thought that the main axis...

There were three axes.

The northern axis went towards Leningrad.

The central axis, of course, went to Moscow.

And then the southern axis, Army Group South, headed towards Ukraine and deep into the Caucasus.

And Hitler believed that that should have been the main axis.

And in fact, in 1942, the Germans go back on the offensive in 1942.

42.

This is Operation Blue.

And the main axis in 42 is deep into the Ukraine and into the Caucasus.

And that fails.

But one could argue that had they done that in 41, had they not gone to Moscow, had they concentrated on going deep into Ukraine and into the Caucasus, they could have knocked the Soviets out that way.

I'm not sure...