Strategic preparation can let quantitatively inferior forces defeat stronger enemies

Evidence

In analysing the third level or moment of the system of relations of force which exists in a given situation, 272 one may usefully have recourse to the concept which in military science is called the “strategic conjuncture”—or rather, more precisely, the level of strategic preparation of the theatre of struggle. One of the principal factors of this “strategic conjuncture” consists in the qualitative condition of the leading personnel, and of what may be called the “front-line” (and assault) forces. The level of strategic preparation can give the victory to forces which are “apparently” (i.e. quantitatively) inferior to those of the enemy. It could be said that strategic preparation tends to reduce to zero the so-called “imponderable factors”—in other words, the immediate, unpremeditated reactions at a given moment of the traditionally inert and passive forces. Among the factors involved in the preparation of a favourable strategic conjuncture, there must precisely be included those already studied in our earlier observations on the existence and organisation of a military social stratum, side by side with the national army in the technical sense. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 848

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘strategic conjuncture’ — the level of strategic preparation — as the third level of relations of force, distinguishing it from mere quantitative strength.
• XREF: This doctrine of strategic preparation reducing ‘imponderable factors’ resonates with Clausewitz on friction and with Gramsci’s own later hegemony concept — preparation as eliminating contingency.