THERE IS AN IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE between war and battle. War is large, governed by politics. Very few people experience war, even very few people in uniform. Battle can be large or small, but is almost always chaotic. Battle is what most soldiers know; Clausewitz called it “the engagement.”

Battle is also what most in the media know, whether they are “veteran” war correspondents like Peter Arnett or Peter Jennings or big-hair anchors just promoted from doing the local weather. This has never been true more than in the current war, with its “shock and awe” images of Saddam’s Baghdad palaces and headquarters or the genuinely awful images of U.S. prisoners of war and casualties. Compelling images of battle often make it hard to see the war.