The point of no return: continued

Thus the superiority of forces that we have or that we achieve in war is only the means, not the end, and it must be used toward that end. Yet we must know how far that superiority will extend, so that we do not go beyond that point and reap disgrace rather than new advantages. There is no need to offer particular examples from experience to prove that strategic superiority is exhausted in the strategic attack. Rather, the great number of occurrences has compelled us to seek out the inherent causes of it. Only since the appearance of Bonaparte have we seen campaigns among civilized nations in which superiority of forces has led without interruption to the fall of the opponent. Before him, each campaign ended with the victorious army seeking to win a position in which it could merely maintain an equilibrium. The momentum of the victory would stop at that point, and a retreat might even become necessary. Hereafter, this culminating point of the victory will occur in all wars in which crushing the enemy cannot be the military objective, which will be the case for most wars. Thus the natural objective of every campaign plan is the turning point from the attack to the defensive.

However, overshooting this goal is not simply a pointless expenditure of effort leading to no further gains. Rather, it a destructive action that causes reactions, and broad experience has shown that these reactions have a disproportional impact. This is such a common occurrence, and seems so natural and readily understandable, that we can dispense with a detailed analysis of its root causes. In every case, the most important of these are a lack of organization in the newly taken country and the psychological impact caused by the profound incongruity between a significant loss and the new gains that were expected. Moral strength and encouragement often rising to the level of bravado, on the one hand, and despondency, on the other hand, here commonly play against each other in an exceptionally dynamic way. Thus losses during the retreat are increased, and those on the retreat usually thank heaven if they get away with giving back what they had taken without suffering losses of their own territory.

The equilibrium point of attack and defense

Just as no defensive campaign is composed solely of defensive elements, no campaign of attack is composed solely of offensive elements. This is because, aside from the brief interim period that occurs in every campaign in which the two armies hold a defensive stance, every attack that does not lead to peace must necessarily end with a defense.

In this way, it is the defense itself that contributes to the weakening of the attack. This is much more than hairsplitting; rather, we consider it the greatest disadvantage of the attack that, after it is over, we are placed in an entirely disadvantageous defensive position... Once the mind has a particular direction forward to the goal or back toward a refuge, it is easy for the reasons that compel one man to stop, and motivate another man to action, are not felt to their fullest extent. Since the action continues in the meantime, one crosses the limits of equilibrium in the course of that movement, moving beyond the culmination point without being aware of it.

It can even happen that the attacker, buoyed by the moral forces that lie particularly in the attack, will find it less tiresome to keep forging ahead, despite the exhaustion of his forces, than to stop, like a horse dragging a load uphill. We believe that this shows, without internal contradiction, how the attacker can move beyond the point that still offers him good results, were he to stop and take up the defense, that is the point of equilibrium. Therefore, in planning the campaign, it is important to take adequate account of this point, both for the attacker, so that he will not take actions beyond his abilities, and run up a debt, as it were, and for the defender, so that he will recognize and take advantage of this mistake when the attacker makes it.

--- This article is copyright protected. All rights reserved. This article is for personal use only. Other use, especially reproduction, storage in data bases, publication and transmission to third parties – also in parts or in edited form – without BCG´s prior written permission is not permitted. ---