The Quranic military strategy thus enjoins us to prepare ourselves for war to the utmost in order to strike terror into the heart of the enemies, kno… - S. K. Malik

Terror struck into the hearts of the enemies is not only a means, it is the end in itself. Once a condition of terror into the opponent's heart is obtained, hardly anything is left to be achieved. It is the point where the means and the end meet and merge. Terror is not a means of imposing decision upon the enemy. It is the decision we wish to impose upon him... Terror... can be instilled only if the opponent’s Faith is destroyed. Psychological dislocation is temporary; spiritual dislocation is permanent. Psychological dislocation can be produced by a physical act but this does not hold good of the spiritual dislocation. To instill terror into the hearts of the enemy, it is essential, in the ultimate analysis, to dislocate his Faith ...

The that concluded the Second World War and formulated the Allied post-war strategy also came under heavy criticism for its inadequacy and short-sightedness. Like several other students of politics and war, General Fueller was also its vehement critic. His contention was that the Allied leaders had sacrificed the vital necessity of obtaining a durable peace at the altar of securing the unconditional surrender of Germany. The great military thinker had, however, no alternative of his own to suggest to them. As the Second World War came to a close, the Allied war effort also began to give way to their respective national interests. Each side, however, had its own interpretation of what constituted its interpretation of what constituted its enlightened national interests. Russia saw her interests in conquering the heart of Europe, the Allies, in the destruction of the German military might. The consideration of peace did weigh heavy on the minds of the nations of Europe whenever they developed the means to destroy one-another. Such an atmosphere prevailed after the conclusion of each devastating war and after the atomic explosion of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But, it did not last long. The Europeans soon came to realise that there did exist means of protection against weapons that were once looked upon as total and absolute. Once that happened, their baser and destructive elements again overtook the saner ones. Similar motives underline the present age of 'detente' and 'deterrence'. The considerations of peace come to human mind only when the choice is between 'suicide' and 'co-existence'. They are the by-products of exigency, not of a recognised or consistent policy or philosophy. They failed to stand the test of time in the past, nor are they resulting in durable global peace at present. Indeed, they have no worth while role to play in the future.

When Clausewitz, the founder-father of modern military thought, defined war as a 'continuation of policy by other means', he did, in fact, throw a challenge to the students of Political Science and International Relations to develop a theory around 'policy'. Clasewitz thus put the cart before the horse and forced the policy-makers to conduct deeper research into the science of politics. It was not 'policy' that took the initiative to define the meaning, sphere, limites and extents of 'war'. On the contrary, 'war' forced 'policy' to define and determine its own parameters. It took the human mind hundreds of years to establish, if at all, the relationship between national aims and objectives, national interests, national policy and war; and even longer to realise that war was subservient to policy. Nonetheless, the political scientists did rise to the occasion to theorise; they opined that, in brief, policy was the pursuit of national interests and that war became an instrument of policy when vital but incompatible national interests were at stake. What they failed to establish, however, was concerning the rationale behind the determination of national interests.