Politics Is The Womb In Which War

The Only Situation A Commander Can Know Fully Is His Own: His Opponent's He Can Know Only From Unreliable Intelligence.

Everything In War Is Very Simple, But The Simplest Thing Is Difficult. The Difficulties Accumulate And End By Producing A Kind Of Friction That Is Inconceivable Unless One Has Experienced War. ... Countless Minor Incidents - The Kind You Can Never Really Foresee - Combine To Lower The General Level Of Performance, So That One Always Falls Short Of The Intended Goal.

If We Consider The Actual Basis Of This Information [i.e., Intelligence], How Unreliable And Transient It Is, We Soon Realize That War Is A Flimsy Structure That Can Easily Collapse And Bury Us In Its Ruins. ... Many Intelligence Reports In War Are Contradictory; Even More Are False, And Most Are Uncertain. This Is True Of All Intelligence But Even More So In The Heat Of Battle, Where Such Reports Tend To Contradict And Cancel Each Other Out. In Short, Most Intelligence Is False, And The Effect Of Fear Is To Multiply Lies And Inaccuracies.

Although Our Intellect Always Longs For Clarity And Certainty, Our Nature Often Finds Uncertainty Fascinating.

War Should Never Be Thought Of As Something Autonomous, But Always As An Instrument Of Policy.