Victory
Victory.Although it can denote simply success in a single engagement or operation, victory is one of the most basic yet elusive concepts in military thought when applied to war. American experience reaffirms Carl von Clausewitz's argument in On War (1832) that victory in the broader sense results from a balance between war's inner logic of force begetting more force, pushing a conflict toward a “war of annihilation,” and the limitations imposed by friction and political objectives. For most of American history, factors such as geographic isolation and a small professional military have acted as friction.
From the seventeenth to the twentieth century, victory was achieved in two separate phases: limited military operations and diplomatic negotiations. As colonists, Americans witnessed their wars of empire settled in Europe, often well after hostilities ended in North America. The signing of the
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