How Surprise Can Be a Source of Changes in the Art of War?

Abstract

This publication is the result of a search for evidence of a seemingly obvious problem, namely: What regularities occur after taking the enemy by surprise in the development and changes in the art of war? Based on examples from the history of warfare and available theoretical data, an attempt was made to synthetically identify categories that may undergo transformation as a result of or with the participation of surprise. The following were selected for the case study: the Battle of Cambrais, the start of the Yom Kippur War, Operation Desert Shield, and the start of the war in Donbas. The final conclusion preceded by a research consisting of: logical analysis, abstraction, heuristics, and classification allows us to initially capture the undertaken research goals against the background of the synthetic characteristics of the described principle of the art of war.