The Fleet at Flood Tide provides not only a good yarn but an unflinching history rich with lessons to be learned about truly existential war, the vast expanse of the Pacific, and the lengths to which the country was forced to go to definitively defeat a societal death cult.
President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
