Gray and strategy (III): Not using time in warfare? Then it may be used against you

[image error]

I was glad to see Gray
in his 17th essay tackle time as an issue in warfare. This was something that I
puzzled about in Iraq but never really felt I came to understand. In the first
two years of the war I had the sense that time was wasting, that opportunities
were passing by not to come again, but that no one seemed to be noticing this.
(I also was amazed back in 2004 that the phrase "tactical patience" was seen by
some officers as a contradiction in terms.)

"Time is rarely neutral," he writes. "If it is not used
wisely by one belligerent, it is likely to be a vital weapon in the enemy's
arsenal."

I would have understood the war better if I had seen this
sentence back in 2004: "in irregular warfare, that between guerrillas and
regular forces, time can actually be the prime weapon of the militarily weaker
side."