as is necessary to gain our end. In neither case does the conception lead
us eventually to any other objective than the enemy's armed forces, and
particularly his naval forces. The only real difference is this--that if
our object be positive our general plan must be offensive, and we should at
least open with a true offensive movement; whereas if our object be
negative our general plan will be preventive, and we may bide our time for
our counter-attack. To this extent our action must always tend to the
offensive. For counter-attack is the soul of defence. Defence is not a
passive attitude, for that is the negation of war. Rightly conceived, it is
an attitude of alert expectation. We wait for the moment when the enemy
shall expose himself to a counter-stroke, the success of which will so far
cripple him as to render us relatively strong enough to pass to the
offensive ourselves.

From these considerations it will appear that, real and logical as the
classification is, to give it the designation "offensive and defensive" is
objectionable from every point of view. To begin with, it does not
emphasise what the real and logical distinction is. It suggests that the
basis of the classification is not so much a difference of object as a
difference in the means employed to achieve the object. Consequently we
find ourselves continually struggling with the false assumption that
positive war means using attack, and negative war being content with
defence.

That is confusing enough, but a second objection to the designation is far
more serious and more fertile of error. For the classification "offensive
and defensive" implies that offensive and defensive are mutually exclusive
ideas, whereas the truth is, and it is a fundamental truth of war, that
they are mutually complementary. All war and every form of it must be both
offensive and defensive. No matter how clear our positive aim nor how high