Within this continuum, events are episodic rather than continuous. There is not an unbroken flow of duels one after the other, nor of engagements, combat, or campaigns. The term battle is commonly used in a context that equates to our term combat yet sometimes is broader in scope and sometimes approximates our engagement. Because of this spread of meanings, we have not used battle to designate a specific category of military conflict. We define military combat as purposeful, controlled violence carried out by direct means of deadly force between opponents, each attempting to carry out a mission, the achievement of which has value to that side and the achievement of which is opposed in some degree by the other side .
Military combat is the active agent the cutting edge of warfare.
It is the means for achieving war aims through domination of the enemy. There could be a war without casualties, but there cannot be a war without a test of wills, and combat or its threat is where the testing culminates. There also could be stand-alone combat in isolation from the broader scope of war. These circumstances stand-alone combat and a war without casualties are aberrant cases. Although our focus has been on the more usual cases where opposing forces use force as necessary to achieve missions within the context of campaigns and war, our findings will apply to aberrant cases as well.