The Foundations of Strategy, Vol. 1 (Classic Reprint)

Foundations are broad and solid, but do not exhibit much detail. The art of Strategy, fully described, would be the work of a lifetime, and from its very bulk would be the despair of a publisher. But the foundations can be drawn on a reasonable expanse of paper. The object of this preface is to justify the creation of the new technical phrase, Full Strength, which is the corner-stone of this book. It is recognised everywhere that there is a master principle for success in war. Various efforts have been made to express this principle. Surprise and the initiative are the secret of success in war is one of these efforts. But this is not the real foundation, for you may gain all the advantage of surprise and still fail to produce as great a relative strength as was possible. Economy of force on secondary objects is another effort. This is good as far as it goes, but it does not cover the ground. You may operate in so correct a manner with regard to detachments that you have everything available for the decisive collision, while omitting to take measures that would prevent the enemy having a similar totality of available strength. Preponderance of force at a chosen place at the right time is another effort. This goes too far.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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