Under these circumstances, morale was to the physical as three is to one. In fact, the physical was largely the "physical" of the individual soldier and it was almost impossible to separate the intangibles like morale, friction, and fog from the physical. Today the situation is significantly different; the individual fighter has become a director of large things like tanks, aircraft, artillery pieces, and ships. Fighters are dependent on these things, these physical things, to carry out the mission. Deprived of them, the ability to affect the enemy drops to near zero. Whether the equation has changed to make the physical to be to the morale as three is to one is not clear. That the two are at least coequal, however, seems likely. The advent of airpower and accurate weapons has made it possible to destroy the physical side of the enemy. This is not to say that morale, friction, and fog have all disappeared. It is to say, however, that we can now put them in a distinct category, separate from the physical. As a consequence, we can think broadly about war in the form of an equation:
(Physical) x (Morale) = Outcome
In today's world, strategic entities, be they an industrial state or a guerrilla organization, are heavily dependent on physical means. If the physical side of the equation can be driven close to zero, the best morale in the world is not going to produce a high number on the outcome side of the equation.
Looking at this equation, we are struck by the fact that the physical side of the enemy is, in theory, perfectly knowable and predictable. Conversely, the morale side the human side is beyond the realm of the predictable in a particular situation because humans are so different from each other. Our war efforts, therefore, should be directed primarily at the physical side.
Muddling Through Sequentially
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