Key Arguments

• Extended operations dull weapons and dampen soldiers’ ardor
• Sieges exhaust the army’s strength
• Protracted campaigns overmatch the state’s resources
• He asserts a categorical historical claim that prolonged warfare brings no benefit

Source Quotes

2. When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.

When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength. 3.

3. Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain. 4.

6. There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare. 7.

Key Concepts

• if victory is long in coming, then men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped.
• If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.
• if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain.
• There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.

Context

ii. Waging War (lines 125–175); argument against protraction in operations