The Backbone Of Surprise Is Fusing Speed

Action In War Is Like Movement In A Resistant Element. Just As The Simplest And Most Natural Of Movements, Walking, Cannot Easily Be Performed In Water, So In War, It Is Difficult For Normal Efforts To Achieve Even Moderate Results.

Just As Some Plants Bear Fruit Only If They Don't Shoot Up Too High, So In Practical Arts The Leaves And Flowers Of Theory Must Be Pruned And The Plant Kept Close To Its Proper Soil- Experience.

Where Absolute Superiority Is Not Attainable, You Must Produce A Relative One At The Decisive Point By Making Skillful Use Ofwhat You Have.

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.

War Is Not An Exercise Of The Will Directed At An Inanimate Matter.