politics and chance events.
He also developed concepts that help soldiers understand (and anticipate) the day-to-day vagaries of war. His notion of friction, writes Cannon, was "an elegantly stated predecessor of Murphy's Law," which held that countless minor incidents inevitably lower the level of military per- formance. A related concept is the "cul- minating point," the notion that a combat
But American officers have been most bewitched Clausewitz's emphasis on politics....