Battles Decide Everything.

[the Cause Of Inaction In War] ... Is The Imperfection Of Human Perception And Judgment Which Is More Pronounced In War Than Anywhere Else. We Hardly Know Accurately Our Own Situation At Any Particular Moment While The Enemy's, Which Is Concealed From Us, Must Be Deduced From Very Little Evidence.

Beauty Cannot Be Defined By Abscissas And Ordinates; Neither Are Circles And Ellipses Created By Their Geometrical Formulas.

Many Intelligence Reports In War Are Contradictory; Even More Are False, And Most Are Uncertain.

War Is Not Merely A Political Act But A Real Political Instrument, A Continuation Of Political Intercourse, A Carrying Out Of The Same By Other Means.

To Discover How Much Of Our Resources Must Be Mobilized For War, We Must First Examine Our Political Aim And That Of The Enemy. We Must Gauge The Strength And Situation Of The Opposite State. We Must Gauge The Character And Abilities Of Its Government And People And Do The Same In Regard To Our Own. Finally, We Must Evaluate The Political Sympathies Of Other States And The Effect The War May Have On Them.