Nevertheless, the fight itself remains still an entirely special
activity, more particularly because it moves in an entirely special
element, namely, in the element of danger.

If, then, there is anywhere a necessity for drawing a line between
two different activities, it is here; and in order to see clearly the
importance of this idea, we need only just to call to mind how often
eminent personal fitness in one field has turned out nothing but the
most useless pedantry in the other.

It is also in no way difficult to separate in idea the one activity from
the other, if we look at the combatant forces fully armed and equipped
as a given means, the profitable use of which requires nothing more than
a knowledge of their general results.

The Art of War is therefore, in its proper sense, the art of making use
of the given means in fighting, and we cannot give it a better name than
the "Conduct of War." On the other hand, in a wider sense all activities
which have their existence on account of War, therefore the whole
creation of troops, that is levying them, arming, equipping, and
exercising them, belong to the Art of War.

To make a sound theory it is most essential to separate these two
activities, for it is easy to see that if every act of War is to begin
with the preparation of military forces, and to presuppose forces so
organised as a primary condition for conducting War, that theory will
only be applicable in the few cases to which the force available happens
to be exactly suited. If, on the other hand, we wish to have a theory
which shall suit most cases, and will not be wholly useless in any case,
it must be founded on those means which are in most general use, and in
respect to these only on the actual results springing from them.

The conduct of War is, therefore, the formation and conduct of the
fighting. If this fighting was a single act, there would be no necessity
for any further subdivision, but the fight is composed of a greater
or less number of single acts, complete in themselves, which we call
combats, as we have shown in the first chapter of the first book, and
which form new units. From this arises the totally different activities,
that of the FORMATION and CONDUCT of these single combats in themselves,
and the COMBINATION of them with one another, with a view to the
ultimate object of the War. The first is called TACTICS, the other
STRATEGY.

This division into tactics and strategy is now in a