Yes, Kai I agree with you that Ivan's wae is a great book but im not sure that Uhler is dicrediting her information,it sounded to me like he was agreeing with the big picture but just mentioned that some aspects that she didnt like desertion and cowardness and a few others which every military in the world suffers during a conflict. And the reason i believe that he brought up the cold war was because even today ( and I know this because I went to school in America ), teachers would only talk about how the U.S. won the war and by the way they talked, you wouldnt even know that Russia was involved.
I find this a little offensive as would any other Russian or European. And the cold war comparison would come with today's teachings in which not much has changed and as a result a very large majority of Americans believe that America won the war and Russia helped a little bit. In reality it was the other way around. Even with England doing more.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler