attrition

(ə-trĭsh'ən)
n.

1. A rubbing away or wearing down by friction.
2. A gradual diminution in number or strength because of constant stress.
3. A gradual, natural reduction in membership or personnel, as through retirement, resignation, or death.
4. Repentance for sin motivated by fear of punishment rather than by love of God.

[Middle English attricioun, regret, breaking, from Old French attrition, abrasion, from Late Latin attrītiō, attrītiōn-, act of rubbing against, from Latin attrītus, past participle of atterere, to rub against : ad-, against; see ad- + terere, to rub.]

attritional at·tri'tion·al adj.

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A problem that affects most longitudinal studies. For example, in a panel study, some of the original participants will not be participating at the end of the study — as a consequence of death, emigration, or failure to provide a forwarding address when moving house.

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Normal and uncontrollable reduction of a work force because of retirement, death, sickness, and relocation. It is one method of reducing the size of a work force without management taking any overt actions. The drawback to reduction by attrition is that reductions are often unpredictable and can leave gaps in an organization.

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noun

A feeling of regret for one's sins or misdeeds: compunction, contriteness, contrition, penitence, penitency, remorse, remorsefulness, repentance, rue. See regret/impenitence.

n

Definition: regret
Antonyms: happiness

n

Definition: wearing down or away
Antonyms: building, strengthening

Attrition is a word commonly employed but rarely defined, partly perhaps because it figures infrequently in official military doctrine. Its current use suggests a style of fighting dictated by material superiority, where the enemy is worn down rather than outmanoeuvred, and where casualty rates are more important than psychological effect. Chronologically it is a child of industrialization, relying on the fruits of mass production for firepower and assuming that economic preponderance in itself will ensure victory. Intellectually its roots are said to be Clausewitzian: Clausewitz emphasized concentration on the decisive point and put the slaughter of climactic battle at the heart of his analysis. But Clausewitz did not elevate what we would now call attrition into an operational method, nor has any major military thinker since.

Much of Clausewitz's On War reflects the conditions of Napoleonic warfare which the author himself experienced. Indubitably, the wars of 1792 to 1815 can be understood through the vocabulary of attrition: cumulatively they were long and bloody and they were ultimately won by the coalition with the greater resources. But most 19th-century students of war saw them in terms of manoeuvre: Napoleon may have lost in the end but he engaged in a succession of short campaigns leading to decisive battles which resulted in the annihilation of his opponents. The successes of Moltke ‘the Elder’ in the wars of German unification endorsed the Napoleonic model; it became in the hands of the German general staff the universal tool for the interpretation of operations. But an academic, Hans Delbrück, took exception: there was an alternative, what he called Ermattungsstrategie, a wearing-out strategy. In the 18th century generals had often achieved their objectives through manoeuvre or through sieges, and without battle.

His ideas caused uproar, not least because he saw Frederick ‘the Great’, whom the general staff had appropriated for their strategy of annihilation, as an exponent of Ermattungsstrategie. He concluded that, because Frederick's forces had frequently been inferior in number, he had had to avoid battle, to the point where attrition in the sense of wearing out his opponent had become his preferred operational method. The contrasts between the Delbrück understanding of attrition and its contemporary meaning are instructive. His idea of attrition was based on material deprivation; today's rests on abundance. For him attrition was about avoiding battle; the contemporary emphasis on firepower implies that fighting is attrition's key purpose. To avoid battle, his strategy elevated manoeuvre. But for today's theorist manoeuvre is the alternative of attrition, not an integral part of it. Indeed, the opposite of attrition for Delbrück, the general staff's strategy of annihilation, elevates battle and is congruent with today's understanding of attrition, not divergent from it.

What changed the meaning of attrition was WW I. Between 1915 and 1917 operational possibilities became subject to the tactical realities of trench warfare. In 1915 Henry Rawlinson advocated a method of ‘bite and hold’; the aim was to seize a sector of the enemy's front line, so as to force him to attack and to incur greater losses than the defence in order to regain it. The idea rested on two presumptions: one was the strength of defensive firepower and the other was the significance of the terrain being held. Attrition was elevated from tactics to strategy, to combine with economic warfare. Thus attrition came to be about the application or acquisition of material superiority.

But attrition at the tactical level could not be applied defensively in perpetuity. The logic of attrition suggested that attacks, if any, should be broken off the moment that losses exceeded those of the enemy's. It implied that the war would end through exhaustion, and that its peace settlement would be negotiated and even indecisive. Attrition became a rationalization for long, costly, and seemingly inconclusive battles. This was neither militarily nor politically acceptable. The key issue was one of time: a wearing-out battle that became an end in itself could go on almost indefinitely. Instead attrition should be the means to an end, not an end in itself. The pay-off for exhausting the enemy was the ability to regain the freedom to manoeuvre with decisive effect.

The switch in attrition, from the preferred strategy of the economically weaker power to that of the economically stronger, made it most relevant to the USA. Grant employed this idea of attrition—industrial superiority applied through battle—in the battles of 1864-5. The reconquest of North-West Europe in 1944-5 was achieved by dint of dogged fighting, where armour operated in close conjunction with the infantry, where air superiority provided direct support, and where casualties on both sides were high. Context was crucial: limited fields of fire, close terrain, and large cities reinforced the defensive, created strong points, and made the application of material superiority mandatory. Similar arguments applied to the doctrines of NATO armies during the Cold War. Committed to the forward defence of the German border, politically they could not trade space in order to gain the power of manoeuvre and counterstroke. The advent of precision-guided munitions, and in particular their employment by the Egyptian army in a classic ‘bite and hold’ operation at the outset of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, confirmed the validity of attrition. But the reliance on Firepower which NATO encouraged, and which was embodied in the 1976 edition of the US army's Field Manual (FM) 100-5 (Operations), was criticized by those who reflected on the failures of Vietnam. In its 1982 edition Field Manual 100-5 emphasized manoeuvre, even in defence. Attrition became a loaded word, associated with high casualties, waste, protracted fighting, and indeterminate outcomes. The reality of course is that attrition and manoeuvre are not mutually exclusive, any more than are attrition and annihilation. Theoretically opposites, they meld in practice. As Christopher Bellamy has put it: ‘Manoeuvre means moving one's forces in such a way as to multiply their effectiveness and ability to inflict attrition.’

Bibliography

• Bellamy, Christopher, The Future of Land Warfare (London, 1987).
• Bucholz, Arden, Hans Delbrück and the German Military Establishment: War Images in Conflict (Iowa City, Iowa, 1985).
• Simpkin, Richard, Race to the Swift: Thoughts on Twenty-first Century Warfare (London, 1985)

— Hew Strachan

n. the reduction of the effectiveness of a force caused by loss of personnel and materiel.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

In geomorphology, the wearing away or fragmentation of particles of debris by contact with other such particles, as with river pebbles.

The reduction in staff and employees in a company through normal means, such as retirement and resignation. This is natural in any business and industry.

Investopedia Says:
This type of reduction in staff is one way a company can decrease labor costs: the company simply waits for its employees to leave and freezes hiring. Such a method contrasts the more severe labor-reduction techniques, such as mass layoffs. Waiting for attrition is usually better for company morale.

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(DOD, NATO) The reduction of the effectiveness of a force caused by loss of personnel and materiel.

IN BRIEF: Wearing away; loss.

The company lost many employees through attrition.

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The physiological wearing away of a substance or structure in the course of normal use.

• dental a. — see dental attrition.

(ətrish′ən)
n

The normal loss of tooth substance resulting from friction caused by physiologic forces.

Attrition. (Sapp/Eversole/Wysocki, 2004)

For a list of words related to attrition, see:

• Signs and Symptoms - attrition: normal wearing away of surface of teeth

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - slid, slitage, nedslidning

Nederlands (Dutch)
uitputting, wrijving, (af)schuring, berouw

Français (French)
n. - usure (par frottement), (Comm) clients perdus, taux de désabonnement

Deutsch (German)
n. - Abnutzung, Abrieb

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - τριβή, φθορά, εκτριβή, συντριβή, βαθιά μετάνοια

Italiano (Italian)
attrito, esaurimento

idioms:

• war of attrition    guerra di logoramento

Português (Portuguese)
n. - atrito (m), fricção (f)

idioms:

• war of attrition    guerra (f) de atrito (Mil.)

Русский (Russian)
трение, истощение

idioms:

• war of attrition    война на истощение

Español (Spanish)
n. - agotamiento, desgaste, fricción

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - naturlig avgång, förslitning

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
磨损, 磨擦

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 磨損, 磨擦

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 마찰, 마멸, 불완전한 참회, 자연 감소

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 摩擦, 摩耗, 摩滅

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) ندم نتيجه خوف من العقوبه, احتكاك, تآكل, انهاك‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮התשה, שפשוף, שחיקה, צער על ביצוע חטא‬

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