The second way is to
select for the object of our enterprises those points at which we can do the enemy most harm.
Nothing is easier to conceive than two different directions in which our force may be employed, the first of which is to be preferred if our object is to defeat the enemy's army, while the other is more advantageous if the defeat of the enemy is out of the question. According to the usual mode of speaking
we should say that the first is more military, the other more political. But if we take our view from the highest point, both are equally military, and neither the one nor the other can be eligible unless it suits the circumstances of the case.[snip]
These are the circumstances in general connected with the aim which we have to pursue in war;
let us now turn to the means.
There is only one single means, it is the Fight. However diversified this may be in form, however widely it may differ from a rough vent of hatred and animosity in a hand-to-hand encounter,
whatever number of things may introduce themselves which are not actual fighting, still it is always implied in the conception of war,
that all the effects manifested have their roots in the combat. [snip]
Thus,
the destruction of the enemy's armed force appears, therefore, always as the superior and more effectual means, to which all others must give way.
But certainly it is only when there is a supposed equality in all other conditions that we can ascribe to the destruction of the enemy's armed force a greater efficacy. It would, therefore, be
a great mistake to draw from it the conclusion that a blind dash must always gain the victory over skill and caution. An unskilful attack would lead to the destruction of our own and not of the enemy's force, and therefore is not what is here meant.
The superior efficacy belongs not to the means but to the end, and
we are only comparing the effect of one realised aim with the other
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