Ryan Holiday

No.

What Eisenhower is realizing is that there's an opportunity inside this enormous obstacle that's being thrown at them.

Yes, there is a huge rush of German troops coming at them, but

He realizes that if they can absorb this, if the psychological part of the blow doesn't work, that if the Allied lines absorb this blow, that actually it can be their chance to sort of sew this thing up.

Patton grasps this quite clearly, too.

He says, oh, I get it.

You know, the Nazis have stuck their head in a meat grinder.

I think this is actually quite similar to what Marx really talks about in meditations where he says, you know, the impediment to action advances action.

What stands in the way becomes the way.

If you're only seeing what they're doing to you and not what you can do in response to them, if you don't see how you can work with this, you're going to miss what's in front of you.

And Eisenhower doesn't.

So by allowing this sort of German wedge to come at them,

And then attacking from the sides, the Allies basically encircle the Germans and win the war.

And look, I don't mean to be glib about this.

This was an extremely difficult thing to do, and it cost thousands and thousands of lives, and it was waged over many, many weeks.

But if you've heard of the Battle of the Bulge,

The word bulge there is illustrative.

Basically, by absorbing the energy of this giant thrust of German men and material, eventually they encircle and ensnare something like 50,000 German troops.

And actually, my grandfather landed at Normandy, I believe, two days after D-Day.

He fights in the Battle of the Bulge.