- National Defence redirects here. For a volunteer Polish unit (1937-1939) see National Defence (Poland).
In military science, defence or defense (U.S. Spelling) is the art of preventing an attack, or minimizing the damage of an attack, e.g. by preventing an enemy from conquering territory.
Thus, if a party attacks an enemy who is about to attack that party, this could be called defense. However, this leaves room for interpretation.
Typically defensive are e.g. armor and a bunker. Also defensive are guns, rockets, etc. with a range within the defenders territory: they can only attack an attacker. If the weapon is mobile it may also be used in an attack, after moving it.
Defence may also be a euphemism for war, such as Ministry or Department of Defence, although this does not carry the negative connotation of war. Usage in this way has broadened the term to include most military issues.
Although defense is one of the functions typically handled by states in the modern world, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Murray Rothbard, Morris and Linda Tannehill, and other anarcho-capitalist writers have opined that it could be more efficiently provided by private vendors.
Defence through the ages
Historically, it was generally true that defenders had an advantage over attackers. Battles commonly focused on sieges of important cities, allowing defenders to strengthen their position. They had the ability to make preparations for the battle to protect themselves from the enemy while making the enemy vulnerable, e.g. preparing positions such as trenches and fortifications or in more recent times laying obstacles such as land mines and tank traps. However in encounters larger than the small scale the attacker may often have the advantage, since they get to choose the time and place of battle. An attacker may concentrate their entire force on a small part of the defended area, while the defender is forced to spread their forces over the possible area of attack.
In the modern era the defenders' advantage has been gradually reduced, due to factors like the increased mobility of the modern forces, better communication technology and increased destructiveness of weaponry - reinforced underground bunkers which would previously have been unassailable can be eliminated instantly by bunker-buster missiles or tactical nuclear weapons.
See also
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