Experience
The practical experience of the fog of war is most easily demonstrated in the tactical battlespace. It may include military commanders' incomplete or inaccurate intelligence about the enemy's numbers, disposition, capabilities, and intent, regarding features of the battlefield, and incomplete knowledge of the state of their own forces. Fog of war is caused by the limits of reconnaissance, by the enemy's feints and disinformation, by delays in receiving intelligence and difficulties passing orders, and by the difficult task of forming a cogent picture from a very large (or very small) amount of diverse data.
When a force engages in battle and the urgency for good intelligence increases, so does the fog of war and chaos of the battlefield, while military units become preoccupied with fighting or are lost (either destroyed by enemy fire or literally lose their way), reconnaissance and liaison elements become unavailable, and sometimes real fog and smoke obscure vision. Much of the modern military's technological efforts, under the rubric of command and control seek to reduce the fog of war. Although even the most advanced technology cannot eliminate it, military theorists continue to develop ways to reduce it.
Read more about this topic: Fog Of War
Famous quotes containing the word experience:
“After experience taught me that all the ordinary
Surroundings of social life are futile and vain;”
—William Dewitt Snodgrass (b. 1926)
“What is termed Sin is an essential element of progress. Without it the world would stagnate, or grow old, or become colourless. By its curiosity Sin increases the experience of the race. Through its intensified assertion of individualism it saves us from monotony of type. In its rejection of the current notions about morality, it is one with the higher ethics.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“When a Man is in a serious Mood, and ponders upon his own Make, with a Retrospect to the Actions of his Life, and the many fatal Miscarriages in it, which he owes to ungoverned Passions, he is then apt to say to himself, That Experience has guarded him against such Errors for the future: But Nature often recurs in Spite of his best Resolutions, and it is to the very End of our Days a Struggle between our Reason and our Temper, which shall have the Empire over us.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)