Attrition warfare
Attrition warfare is a military strategy "which seeks to gradually erode the combat power of the enemy's armed forces." [1]
Attrition warfare is a strategy that is often employed by the side with the greater resources.[2] Ulysses S. Grant continually pushed the Confederate Army, in spite of heavy losses and he correctly forcasted that the Union's superior supplies and manpower would eventually overwhelm the Confederate army even if the Union's casualty ratio was unfavorable.
A strategy of attrition makes its main goal to cause gradual attrition to the opponent. Such warfare eventually leads to an unacceptable amount of losses to an opponent or unsustainable levels of losses to an opponent. At the same, one limits one's own gradual losses to acceptable and sustainable levels.
Military strategists, such as Sun Tzu, indicate that attrition warfare is not the optimal way to win a war. Two famous quotes by Sun Tzu are: "For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill" and "What is essential in war is victory, not prolonged operations."
See also
Notes
- ↑ There Are Three (And Only Three) Types of Military Strategy by Robert Bateman
- ↑ Types of War, www.military-sf.com, undated (accessed 20 January 2007)
