But now we come upon a peculiar means of influencing the probability of the result without destroying the enemy’s Army, namely, upon the expeditions which have a direct connection with political views. If there are any enterprises which are particularly likely to break up the enemy’s alliances or make them inoperative, to gain new alliances for ourselves, to raise political powers in our own favour, &c. &c., then it is easy to conceive how much these may increase the probability of success, and become a shorter way towards our object than the routing of the enemy’s forces. The second question is how to act upon the enemy’s expenditure in strength, that is, to raise the price of success. The enemy’s outlay in strength lies in the _wear and tear_ of his forces, consequently in the _destruction_ of them on our part, and in the _loss_ of _provinces_, consequently the _conquest_ of them by us. Here, again, on account of the various significations of these means, so likewise it will be found that neither of them will be identical in its signification in all cases if the objects are different. The smallness in general of this difference must not cause us perplexity, for in reality the weakest motives, the finest shades of difference, often decide in favour of this or that method of applying force. Our only business here is to show that, certain conditions being supposed, the possibility of attaining our purpose in different ways is no contradiction, absurdity, nor even error. Besides these two means, there are three other peculiar ways of directly increasing the waste of the enemy’s force. The first is _invasion_, that is _the occupation of the enemy’s territory, not with a view to keeping it_, but in order to levy contributions upon it, or to devastate it.