What is War of Attrition

In many conflicts throughout history there have been times when the endurance and the ability to recover from losses while maintaining position and causing irreparable losses to the enemy, has been stronger than the ability to attack.

In this type of conflict, called war of attritionWhoever manages to hold out the longest wins.

A war of attrition is a type of warfare in which, as its name suggests, it seeks to wear down enemy forces while preserving their own, basing the victory on the losses of the other, on the collapse of their economy or the combat morale of their population.

A good example of a war of attrition and that, precisely, bears the same name (War of Attrition) was the one fought between Israel and Egypt from 1967 to 1970.

East conflict, fought through artillery exchanges and small actions (hand blows) was based on the Israeli difficulty to replenish the lost forces.

While the population Egypt was large, the military training was relatively scarce, and the reservists could easily make up for the losses, the birth rate in Israel was substantially smaller for a country already with a population numerically smaller than that of its main Arab enemy, so the Egyptian leader Nasser hoped to be able to collapse both the army as the

economy Israelis.

The final result of the contest was a technical draw, although both sides declared themselves victorious. (each one for its reasons), both armies remaining on the same demarcation lines of which they left.

The First World War can also be considered a case of armed conflict of attrition.

Although technically it would be a war of position in which great offensives were carried out to take those of the enemy, it also has aspects of war of attrition, since between attack and attack, artillery bombardments, as well as other offensive actions, sought to wear down the enemy forces while keeping their own safe.

The side that goes into a war of attrition must be very sure of its position to do so.

Well, to be successful in this type of conflict, you have to alleviate your own casualties with greater speed than those of the enemy, in addition to having an economy that can sustain the conflict for a long time (it is a type of war that usually lasts over time) and having a moral of war of the own forces and of the population civil that they can endure a prolonged depletion of casualties and the economic hardships derived from the state of war.

It must be counted on that the enemy will suffer the same and more, since if this type of conflict is practiced it is because the other side suffers a shortage of troops or cannot withstand the conflict economically for a long time.

The war of attrition has been around since the beginning of time.

A good example of this is the tactic used by the Roman dictator Fabio Máximo (and who would receive his name among his compatriots as “Fabian tactics”, although not in a positive sense) to defeat Hannibal during the Second Punic War, avoiding pitched battles and forcing the attrition of his army through a politics of scorched earth.

Napoleon's and Hitler's invasions of Russia and the USSR respectively, as well as the Vietnam War, can also be taken as such a conflict.

Photo: Fotolia - nuvolanevicata

Themes in War of Attrition