ABSTRACT
Strategy has for its purpose the reduction of fighting to the slenderest possible proportions.
This statement may be disputed by those who conceive the destruction of the enemy’s armed force as the only sound aim in war, who hold that the only goal of strategy is battle, and who are obsessed with the Clausewitzian saying that ‘blood is the price of victory’. Yet if one should concede this point and meet its advocates on their own ground, the statement would remain unshaken. For even if a decisive battle be the goal, the aim of strategy must be to bring about this battle under the most advantageous circumstances. And the more advantageous the circumstances, the less, proportionately, will be the fighting.
