11. The political purpose of the war
Earlier we mentioned the political purpose of war, and now we need to study it further. The above-mentioned rule of extremes has made the opponent lose the ability to resist, with the goal of completely defeating the opponent, and has always concealed the political purpose of the war. Now, when the law of extremes gradually weakens, the political purpose of war is revealed. Since what we are thinking about here is how to make probabilistic estimates based on specific people and specific conditions, the political purpose that was the initial motive of the war will inevitably become a very important factor in the estimation. First, the smaller the sacrifice required of the enemy, the weaker the enemy's resistance may be encountered. The weaker the enemy's resistance, the smaller the force that needs to be used. Secondly, the smaller the political purpose, the less attention to it, and the easier it is to give up on it. Therefore, the less effort is required to invest.
In this way, the political goal that was the initial motive of the war has become a standard for measuring the behavior of war to achieve a certain goal, and at the same time it has become a yardstick for measuring how much force should be invested. However, political goals do not exist in isolation. They must be linked to the national conditions of the warring parties before they can become the measure of political goals. Therefore, what we study is objective reality, not pure concepts. The same political purpose will have completely different effects in different ethnic groups, and even in different periods of the same ethnic group. Therefore, we can only use it as a measure when we believe that political goals can have an effect on the people affected. This is why we need to consider the mass situation. The results of the same political purpose may be completely different. It depends on whether the masses support or oppose the war. This is not difficult to understand. There may be a very tense situation between two nations or two countries, and the accumulation of strong hostility, so that the political motive of war itself is very small, but it has far exceeded its original role. This caused the outbreak of war.
The above-mentioned point is not only in terms of how much power can be obtained by political goals in both countries, but also in terms of what kind of goals the political goals should specify for war acts. Sometimes the political goal itself is the goal of the act of war, such as occupying a certain area; on the contrary, sometimes the political goal itself is not suitable for directly serving as the goal of the act of war. At this time, it is necessary to find another goal as the equivalent of the political goal, and The era of peace replaces political goals. Even in this case, always consider the characteristics of the relevant country first. Sometimes, when a political goal needs to be achieved through an equivalent, the equivalent is much larger than the political goal. The colder the mood of the masses, the calmer the domestic atmosphere and the relationship between the two countries, and the more obvious the role of political goals as a yardstick, sometimes even playing a decisive role. In some cases, issues are almost determined solely on the basis of political goals.
If the target of the act of war is the equivalent of the political purpose, then the act of war tends to be relaxed, and at the same time, the role of the political purpose as a yardstick becomes more significant. This is the case. This proves why there are various wars of varying degrees of intensity, from annihilation wars to pure armed surveillance, and there is no contradiction in them. However, another problem has arisen, which requires us to explain and explain.
12. Why is there a pause in military operations
No matter how low the political requirements of the warring parties are, no matter how few methods are used, and no matter how small the targets set by the political requirements for the conduct of war, will there be a momentary pause in military action? This is a question about the nature of war, and it is also a question that needs to be explored in depth.
It takes a certain amount of time to complete any thing. We call this time the duration of the action. The length of this period of time depends on how fast the person moves.
We don't want to discuss the speed of movement here. Everyone acts in his own way. People who do things slowly do not intend to extend their time, but because of their character, they need more time. If they act fast, they will do things worse. Therefore, this period of multi-use is determined by internal reasons, and is originally part of the duration of the action.
If we think that every action in a war has its duration, then we have to admit that any time used outside of the duration, that is, a momentary pause in a military action, seems unimaginable. Now we are not talking about the progress of one or the other of the warring parties, but the progress of the entire military operation.
13. There is only one reason to stop military operations, and it can only be in the hands of one side. Now that the two sides are ready for war, there must be a factor urging them to take such actions. As long as the two sides have not given up their force, it means that there is no peace yet, and the hostile factor still exists; only when the two warring parties hope to have a favorable opportunity for peace, the role of the hostile factor can be suspended. At first glance, it seems that only one party is waiting for a favorable opportunity to appear, while the other is just the opposite. If waiting is good for one party, then what is good for the other is action.
Even if the strength of the two sides is exactly the same, there will be no intermission, because at this time the attacker with a positive goal will definitely continue to attack.
If we imagine a situation where one party has a positive purpose, that is, a stronger motivation, but has less strength; while the other party has a stronger strength but a weaker purpose, that is to say, the product of the strength and motivation of both parties is Therefore, it must be pointed out that if the envisaged balance of power does not change, the two parties will definitely reconcile; if there is a change expected, this change will only benefit one party and will inevitably prompt the other party to take action. It can be seen that the concept of balance of power cannot explain the reason for the intermittent. In the final analysis, the key to the problem is still to wait for a more favorable opportunity. Assuming that one of the two countries has a clear goal, for example, it wants to occupy a certain area of the other country as a capital for negotiation. Then, when it has occupied this area, it has achieved its political purpose and military action. There is no need to continue and it can be stopped; if another country accepts this result, it will approve of peace, otherwise, war may break out. If it thinks it will take four weeks to prepare, it will look for various reasons to delay the outbreak of the war.
Logically speaking, it seems that the stronger side should take immediate action at this time, so that the weaker side does not have sufficient time to prepare before the war. Of course, there must be a premise here, that is, both sides know each other's situation well.
14. The continuity of military operations makes everything go to extremes
If military operations do have a certain continuity, then this continuity will push the war to an extreme step by step, because uninterrupted actions can make people's emotions more exciting and intensify the war. Not only that, this continuity of actions will also make each action more tightly connected, making the causal relationship between them closer, so the result of the action may evolve into a more dangerous factor.
We know that military operations have rarely or never had such continuity. In many wars, the time of military combat often only accounts for a small part of the total war time, and the rest of the time is intermittent. This is not an anomaly, and there is likely to be intermittent in military operations. There is no contradiction in this. Now we will discuss the intermittent and the reasons for the intermittent.
15. Principle of Bipolarity
When we regard the interests of one commander as the opposite of the interests of the other commander, we also recognize the two polarities of things. We are going to use a special chapter to talk about this principle in detail later, but here we need to make the following explanation:
The principle of bipolarity only applies to the same thing that the positive and negative can just cancel out. In a battle, both sides want to win. This is true bipolarity, because the victory of one side will inevitably negate the victory of the other. However, if we are talking about two different things with an external common relationship, then the two polarities will not exist in the two things themselves, but in their relationship.
16. Offense and defense belong to different forms of combat, and their strengths are not equal, so the principle of duality does not apply to them. If there is only one form of combat, that is, there is only offense and no defense, in other words, the difference between offense and defense The only reason is that the motives are different. The offensive side has a positive goal, while the defensive side is in a passive position. There is no clear goal, but the form of struggle is always the same for both sides, that is, war. In combat, what is good for one side is exactly what is bad for the other, and the good and the bad are exactly offset. This is the polarity of things we are talking about.
Military activities are divided into two forms: offense and defense. We will elaborate later. Offense and defense are different, and their strengths are not equal. Therefore, bipolarity does not exist in offense and defense itself, but only in the relationship between the two, that is, the process of war. If the commander of one side is willing to postpone the time of the decisive battle, then the commander of the other side must hope that the decisive battle as soon as possible, of course, this is only in terms of the same form of combat. If it is advantageous for Party A to attack Party B not now but four weeks later, then it will not be advantageous for Party B to be attacked by Party A four weeks later. This is a direct confrontation. But it cannot be said that it is advantageous for Party B to attack Party A immediately. This is completely different.
17. The role of bipolarity often disappears because the defense is stronger than the offense. Therefore, there will be intermittent in military operations. If the defense is stronger than the offense, then we have to consider whether the delayed battle is beneficial to Party A to the extent that defense is beneficial to Party B. If there is no such degree, the former cannot use its opponents to offset the latter, so it is impossible to promote the further development of military operations. It can be seen that the driving force of the two polarities of interest will disappear due to the difference in strength between defense and offense, until no effect occurs.
Therefore, if the current situation is beneficial to one party, but its strength is too weak to give up its defense, then it has to wait for an unfavorable future, because the future defense may be more advantageous than the current offense or peace. According to our inference, the superiority of defense is greater than the superiority of offense (which should be understood correctly), and it is much larger than people imagine. Therefore, this also shows that most of the intermittent reasons in war are due to offense and defense. Caused by the uneven strength of both sides. The weaker the motive of the action, the more it will be concealed and offset by this difference between defense and offense, and the more frequent the interval of military action. Facts have also proved this.
18. Incomplete understanding of the situation
Another factor that can stop military operations is incomplete understanding of the situation. Any commander can accurately know the situation of his own party, but he can only know the situation of the other party based on inaccurate information. Therefore, he may make mistakes in his judgment and mistake the time when he should take action as the time when the other party should take action. Of course, if the opponent’s situation is not accurately grasped, it is possible to delay the fighter plane, so that people do not act when they should act, and take action when they should not move. Therefore, the possibility of postponing military operations is not greater than that of accelerating military operations. possibility. However, we still have to regard it as one of the natural reasons that can stop military operations. This is not inconsistent with other claims. If we consider that people tend to overestimate, rather than underestimate, the strength of opponents (this is human nature), then we will agree with the view that we don’t know the opponent’s situation very clearly. Generally speaking, just Will hinder the progress of military operations to a large extent, thereby making it tend to ease.
The possibility of intermittent development of military operations in the direction of relaxation, because intermittent can delay the time of military operations, and at the same time reduce the intensity of military operations, delay the outbreak of war, and increase the possibility of restoring the lost balance of power. The more tense the situation before the outbreak of the war, the more intense the fighting between the two sides and the shorter the interval. On the contrary, the interval will be prolonged. The higher a person’s goal, the greater his motivation, and the stronger his willpower. We know that willpower is a factor that constitutes the product of power under any circumstance.
19. The frequent intermissions in military operations make the war further out of absoluteness and more probable. The slower military operations proceed, the more frequent the intermissions, and the longer the time, the easier it is for mistakes to be corrected in time, so the commander The bolder the idea, the less extreme it will be, and the more likely it will be to build everything on probabilistic estimates and conjectures. Each specific situation originally requires people to make probabilistic estimates based on the known conditions they have mastered. The slow process of military operations provides the necessary time for such estimates.
20. As long as contingency is added, war becomes a gamble, and there are contingency moments in war. In summary, the objectivity of war makes war a probabilistic estimate. If the element of contingency is added, the war becomes a gamble, and there are certain contingency factors in the war. In human social activities, there is no such frequent and universal activity associated with chance as war. Moreover, the opportunities that come by chance and the unexpected gains that come from random encounters also occupy an important position in the war.
21. War is like a gamble in terms of its objective and subjective nature. If we take another look at the subjective nature of war, that is, the conditions necessary for war, then we will inevitably arrive at such a Conclusion: War is akin to gambling. Military wars are inseparable from danger, so what is the most rare spiritual power in danger? It's courage! Although courage and wisdom can coexist at the same time and are not mutually exclusive, there are differences between them after all. They are two different spiritual forces. Adventure, self-confidence, fearlessness, etc., are just external manifestations of courage. They are all looking for opportunities, because opportunities are indispensable to express these forms.
It can be seen from the above that in the military field, the so-called absolute value problem in mathematics has no basis at all. In military warfare, there are only various possibilities, probabilities, luck, and unfortunate activities. They are intertwined in wars like warp and weft. In the various activities of human society, war is most similar to gambling.
22. Generally speaking, this is perhaps the most suitable for human feelings
Although human reason likes to pursue clarity and certainty, human feelings often yearn for uncertainty. Human feelings are unwilling to follow reason to walk down the narrow path of philosophical exploration and logical reasoning, because along this path, people will unknowingly enter their unfamiliar realm, and everything they used to be familiar with becomes vague and distant. This phenomenon tempts people to stay in the realm of chance and luck with imagination. Here, it is not constrained by inevitability, only immersed in endless possibilities. Under the temptation and encouragement of possibility, "courage" is as powerful as a tiger, just like a brave diver jumping into a torrent, resolutely plunged into adventure and danger.