Military Strategy by Wylie

Ref: JC Wylie (1989). Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control. Naval Institute Press.

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Summary

In the Pacific, from 1941-1945, the USA conducted two separate wars against Japan. It conducted the sequential strategy campaigns, our drives across the Pacific to the coast of Asia and up to the shores of the Empire. And apart from that we conducted a cumulative strategy aimed at Japan's economy.

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There are two very different kinds of strategies to be used in war. One is the sequential, the series of visible, discrete steps, each dependent on the one that preceded it. The other is the cumulative, the less perceptible minute accumulation of little items piling one on top of the other until at some unknown point the mass of accumulated actions may be large enough to be critical. They are usually interdependent in their strategic result.
Our strategic success in the future may be measured by the skill with which we are to balance our sequential and our cumulative efforts toward the most effective and least costly attainment of our goals.
(It is important) to identify the points in their development at which they do become critical determinants in the progress of the war.
Other cumulative Strategies
- Random Bombing Campaigns
- Anything attempting to impact the morale or psychology of the people.

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