Don't Fuck With Russia (A Cautionary Tale)

I'm currently reading Barbarossa, a 1965 book by Alan Clark about the German invasion of Russia during World War II.  Some observations have come to mind during my reading:

• I generally think science is more fun than history, as a discipline.  However, history does have the tremendous advantage of being able to use phrases like this in a scholarly work: 
• "In the subterranean jungle of Nazi politics such a gesture had as little effect as a peacock spreading his tail feathers at a python."
• Unfortunate parallels to modern history:
• "No army which rests its quality on training, technology, and firepower-- as the German Army did-- should ever allow itself to be drawn into terrain where this quality is at a discount."
• The SS had a uniquely evil approach to naming its units.  The 3rd SS Division Totenkopf (Death's Head) is bad enough, but seriously, the 1st SS Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler?  Can you cram some more upsetting terms into a single name?  Why not just call it the "We Eat Kittens and Murder Happiness In Its Sleep Brigade"?
• Russian tactics early in the war can be summed up as "LEEEEEROOOOOY JENKINS!"
• "Here and there a few tanks accompanied trucks, crammed with soldiers, which simply drove flat out at the German positions until stopped by a direct hit."
• Just in case people forget why we now use "Nazi" as the basic reference point for evil, their plans for Leningrad after taking the city can be summed up in a few possibilities:
• "Level the town, make it uninhabitable and relieve us of the necessity of having to feed the population through the winter." -- Hitler
• Maybe evacuate women and children, seal off the place with electric fences and machine guns, let the rest starve.  If they try to escape, artillery.  -- the Wehrmacht
• Just kill everyone, so no epidemics can develop. -- a variety of people
• Maybe try not to brutally murder as many people as possible. -- absolutely nobody
• Classy folks, the Nazis.
• How a German commander's diary records the first encounters with the Soviet T-34 tank:
• "Interesting historical coincidence that Napoleon also took Vilna on 24th June. ... New enemy heavy tank!"
• To be fair, they didn't have the benefit of knowing exactly what that tank would end up doing.  If they did, I suspect it would have read more "OH FUCK SHIT SHIT FUCK SHIT."
• In terms of political infighting that impedes progress, the US Congress of today has nothing on the Nazi bureaucracy and Wehrmacht command.  That doesn't reflect well on either entity.
• The Nazis invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 (exactly 47 years before I was born!).  By the end of September, the Soviets had lost around 2.5 million men, 22,000 field guns, 18,000 tanks, and 14,000 aircraft.  Yet they still came back to kick Germany's ass.  What.
• That's like me amputating all of someone's limbs and pulling all their teeth, only to have them use their bleeding stumps to launch themselves at me and bite me to death with their bare gums the moment I turn my back.
• Don't fuck with Russia.