In the face of obvious errors, the reply “Mistakes were made, such is war,” can be used to justify literally anything, and as such is meaningless.

:citations-needed:

So the families of deserters should be subject to arrest, in a case of the desperate situation such that the Soviet Union found itself in? I would like you to be very clear on this. Was it likely an effective policy, or even a defensible policy, to arrest the family of deserters?

To be subject to arrest and investigation at the time that order 270 was given? Yes. Effective? Lets examine the full orders. and the status of the warfront at the time.

Order 270:

• That commanders and political officers who, during combat tear off their insignia and desert to the rear or surrender to the enemy, be considered malicious deserters whose families are subject to arrest as a family, for violation of an oath and betrayal of their homeland.

• All higher commanders and commissars are required to shoot on the spot any such deserters from among command personnel.

• Encircled units and formations to selflessly fight to the last, to protect materiel like the apple of their eye, to break through from the rear of enemy troops, defeating the fascist dogs.

• That every soldier is obliged, regardless of his or her position, to demand that their superiors, if part of their unit is surrounded, to fight to the end, to break through, and if a superior or a unit of the Red Army – instead of organizing resistance to the enemy – prefers to become a prisoner they should be destroyed by all means possible on land and air, and their families deprived of public benefits and assistance.

• Division commanders and commissars are obliged to immediately shift from their posts commanders of battalions and regiments, who hide in crevices during battle and those who fear directing a fight on the battlefield; to reduce their positions, as impostors, to be demoted to the ranks, and when necessary to shoot them on the spot, bringing to their place bold and courageous people, from among junior command personnel or those among the ranks of the Red Army who have excelled.

In August of 1941 when this order was given, most of Belarus and the western half of Ukraine was occupied and the fascist army groups were continuing to push along the flat farmlands of southern Ukraine towards Crimea, and in the north through Estonia towards Leningrad. Through the rest of that year, the fascist armies's gains were slowed in comparison to the earlier months that the only major gains they would make occurred in the more flat lands of the central and southern sections of the USSR before being forced by the winter to settle down. Those final months of retreat bought the needed time for the establishment of the war industry east of the Urals, the tense stabilization of the central to northern lines, and giving time of the British and French militaries more breathing room while fighting in their overseas colonies while making deals with roosevelt to help out in the war effort on the down-low.