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Cult of the offensive
Strategic military dilemma / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The cult of the offensive refers to a strategic military dilemma in which leaders believe that offensive advantages are so great that a defending force would have no hope of repelling the attack and therefore choose to attack. It is most often used to explain the causes of World War I and the subsequent heavy losses that occurred year after year, on all sides, during the fighting on the Western Front.
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The term has also been applied to pre-World War II air power doctrine that held that "the bomber will always get through" and the only way to end a bombing campaign was to bomb the enemy into submission.