Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
Well aware... but this is where I am coming from
This one line says a great deal: "Success in battle is based on breaking the enemies will to resist."

I would just add from my perspective as a guy who spends a lot of time and energy working on and thinking about populace based conflicts that while your line is right on in state on state conflicts, I would offer a slight but important modification for populace based conflicts:

"Success in battle is based on breaking the enemies desire to resist." If I simply crush the people's will, they will be back with a vengence. If I defeat the violence and also take away the cause for trending to violence in the first place, I achieve an enduring peace.

States can come back at you too of course, but we have better mechanisms for detering state conflict than we do popular conflict.