Attrition warfare is a strategy where both sides try to wear down the other until one surrenders. Sun Tzu believed it should be avoided. Examples include the War of Attrition between Egypt and Israel and World War I. Some believe the war on terror is also a war of attrition.
In a war of attrition, both sides are of approximately equal strength and each attempts to force the other to surrender by wearing down the other. The side that prevails simply outlives the other, forcing continued losses of people, equipment, weapons, or food. Military strategist Sun Tzu, who lived between 722 and 481 BC, was a Chinese general and is believed to have written the quintessential book on military strategy, The Art of War. He saw attrition warfare as something to be avoided, believing that this type of warfare departed from the usual principles of warfare in which maneuver, surprise and concentrated forces win decisive victories.
A military operation called the War of Attrition was fought from March 1969 to August 1970 as part of a larger and limited war between Egypt and Israel. In June 1967, during the Six Day War, Israel had driven Egypt out of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. Both Israel and Egypt fought until March 1969, when the Egyptian president proclaimed a war of attrition to be launched against Israeli forces. Fully prepared for large-scale long-term military operations, the Egyptians were determined to wear down Israeli forces through continuous and repeated shelling, airstrikes and commando raids. After many casualties and no changes in the effective borders between these warring countries, an eventual ceasefire was reached.
Probably the best known example of attrition warfare occurred in the trenches along the Western Front during World War I, when French and German military forces found themselves locked in defensive positions facing each other along a single front it stretched hundreds of miles across Europe. No army could move against the other except to repeatedly collide against each other in the hope of gradually weakening the opposing army. Throughout the American Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant continued to push and fight against the Confederate Army confident that the Union Army’s superior manpower and supplies would eventually wear the enemy down. Napoleon used similar attrition tactics in his invasion of Russia in 1812. Any such historical instance would be considered a war of attrition.
Some people believe that the war on terror against the United States and the West waged by radical extremists in the Middle East is a war of attrition. These extremists continually attack US interests, sometimes on American soil, sometimes abroad at a military installation, base or embassy. The goal is to wear the United States down so that it eventually gives in to their demands.
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