Cult of the offensive Cult of the offensive refers to a strategic military dilemma , where leaders believe that offensive advantages are so great that a defending force would have no hope of repelling the attack ; consequently , all states choose to attack . It is most often used in context of explaining 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 . It is also often used to explain Israeli strategy during the 1960s and 1970s , as demonstrated in the Six Day War in which Israeli forces attacked and routed much larger enemy forces in a lightning attack . Military theory . Under the cult of offensive , military leaders believe that the attacker will be victorious ( or at least cause more casualties than they receive ) regardless of circumstance and so defense as a concept is almost completely discredited . This results in all strategies focusing on attacking , and the only valid defensive strategy being to counter - attack . International politics . In international relations , cult of offensive is related to the security dilemma and offensive realism theories . It stresses that conquest is easy and security difficult to obtain from defensive posture . Liberal institutionalists argue that it is a commitment problem , and that preemptive war which results from the security dilemma is fairly rare . World War I . Cult of the offensive was the dominant theory among many military and political leaders before World War I . Those leaders argued in favor of declaring war and launching an offensive , believing they could cripple their opponents , and fearing that if they waited , they in turn would be defeated . The dominance of this line of thought significantly contributed to the escalation of hostilities , and is seen as one of the causes of World War I . Military theorists of the time generally held that seizing the offensive was of crucial importance , hence belligerents were encouraged to strike first in order to gain the advantage . Most planners wanted to begin mobilization as quickly as possible to avoid being caught on the defensive . This was complicated as mobilizations were expensive , and their schedules were so rigid that they could not be canceled without massive disruption of the country and military disorganization . Thus , the window for diplomacy was shortened by this attitude , and once the mobilizations had begun diplomacy had the added difficulty of having to justify canceling the mobilizations . This phenomenon was also referred to as " war by timetable " . The German Schlieffen Plan is a notable example of the cult of the offensive . Supported by pro - offensive officers such as Helmuth von Moltke the Younger , it was executed to near victory in the first month of the war ; however , a French counterattack on the outskirts of Paris , the Battle of the Marne ( combined with surprisingly speedy Russian offensives ) , ended the German offensive and resulted in years of trench warfare . It was not only Germany who followed the cult of the offensive ; the French army , among others , was also driven very strongly by this doctrine , where its supporters included Ferdinand Foch , Joseph Joffre and Loyzeaux de Grandmaison . Officers of that period were indoctrinated that " The French Army , returning unto its traditions , no longer knows any law other than the offensive " . This is thought to be the military reason behind the French Conscription Law in July 1913 , following the passing of a similar bill in Germany six months earlier : the offensive " guerre à outrance " to swiftly seize German Alsace - Lorraine was felt by military planners to require an additional 200 , 000 conscripts with respect to the defensive war for which the army was prepared . In the hindsight , World War I ultimately favored defensive strategies ; cult of the offensive led to heavy losses during the fighting on the Western Front . The forces that expected attack prepared elaborate defense positions ( trenches with artillery , rifle s and machine gun s ) , which were commonly able to weather attacking artillery and inflict heavy losses on attacking infantry . It would not be until World War II that offensive strategies such as blitzkrieg were shown to be highly efficient . However , due to the " military leaders preparing to fight the last war " , much of military thought was influenced by the fact that cult of the offensive . Hence the military leaders , particularly among the Western Allies in the early phase of the war , tried to avoid offensive at all cost ( what became known as the " cult of the defensive " , see Phony War ) .