The Making of Strategy and Civil Military Relations

Douglas Haig had argued that the wearing-out battle was the preliminary to a breakthrough. In 1945, the Allies could also see it in these terms as they delivered a victory sufficiently decisive to dictate the terms of German surrender. The war in Vietnam so elevated attrition that it seemed to become an end in itself. It is difficult to see how such a war can ever engage the criterion of the proportionate conduct or means.