Social-Psychological, and Military Each of these means will be present, interact and must be synchronized in warfare of the future. In fact the application of military power will be used more directly to effect the psychological orientation of the opposition.  What Does It Mean to Win Before discussing future war one must understand why nations put soldiers on the battlefield--to force an opponent to change his political objectives to accommodate ours. The true challenge is to translate political goals into militarily achievable objectives.  This means that we must be able to answer two questions: What must I do to force the enemy to change his objectives and is it worth it to me?  Can he defend against it? What can the enemy potentially do to me to force me to change my objectives and can I defend against his efforts? The reader must remember that political goals normally do not include the eradication of the opponent.  In other words limited means may be applied to achieve limited ends.  Thus war may be limited.  However, in a world where asymmetries may exist with respect to political objectives. The same asymmetries may effect decisions and outcomes--does one side find the objectives in contention to be more valuable than the other does?  These asymmetries will certainly effect the answers to the above questions. If we are not careful we will forget the entire objective of warfare.  For example, a recent edition of the Army Times reported that the probability of victory was listed at between "51 and 85%" based upon the causalities that are expected to occur in a war in Southwest Asia in the year 2001."  In his book, On Strategy, Harry Summers tried to convince all of the future military leaders that the whole concept of body count was useless.  In his work, Harry quotes a North Vietnamese Colonel as saying the fact that the North Vietnamese Army lost every battle, measured in body count, as being irrelevant to who won the war. The key to victory is for the strategist to synchronize the elements of power (the political, economic, social psychological and military resources) so that the opponent sees more to gain (less to lose) by changing his objectives to accommodate ours.  As Harry pointed out, this will to resist cannot be calculated in casualties (body count).  It is an intangible and uncalculatable piece of the strategic calculus. A classical example of where a force won the war and lost the peace is Finland in the Russo-Finnish War.  The Finns won every battle and inflicted casualties at the rate of about 40 to 1, but lost.  Additionally, the final terms were more odious because of their success on the battlefield.  So much for body count and for our ability to "calculate" victory.  Therefore, when we talk about  "victory", we should not link it to causalities or exchange ratios.  We should talk about the achievement of political objectives.  Changing political objectives mean changing the political leaders' minds about the desirability/achievability of the objectives being sought.  How does one change minds?  He brings political pressure form the body politic.  He creates loses for militaries so that the leaders decide that the effort is not worth the cost.  He threatens leaders personally.  Each situation carries with it its own calculus, but the above at least bounds the issues inherent in determining whether to fight and if fighting when to quit. Future Warfare To understand the future battlefield one must also understand the nature of future war.  Except in the Mid-East or the valleys and mountains of Korea warfare in the future will be characterized as geographically isolated events on a highly dispersed battlefield of small unit actions.  The battles of the Fulda gap or the North German Plain are a thing of the past.  Even the potential for Desert Storm levels of conflict has been minimized by the cost of waging war.  Armies of the future will be unable to afford the mass formations of the attrition warfare of the past.  They will be reduced in size, though not necessarily scope (because of technology).  The warfare of Frederick the Great, that was characterized by a Continued