βIt is thus more potent, as well as more economical, to disarm the enemy than to attempt his destruction by hard fighting. For the 'mauling' method entails not only a dangerous cost in exhaustion but the risk that chance may determine the issue. A strategist should think in terms of paralyzing, not of killing. Even on the lower plane of warfare, a man killed is merely one man less, whereas a man unnerved is a highly infectious carrier of fear, capable of spreading an epidemic of panic. On a higher plane of warfare, the impression made on the mind of the opposing commander can nullify the whole fighting power that his troops possess. And on a still higher plane, psychological pressure on the government of a country may suffice to cancel all the resources at its command so that the sword drops from a paralysed hand.β
The Strategy of Indirect Approach by B. H. Liddel Hart
Pg. 298, stanza 3
