attritional

When that did not happen, Israel decided to break out of a battlefield that had been shaped by Iran’s limited, but attritional war.

Israel’s earlier wars with Hezbollah were grinding, attritional and never produced a decisive victory for either side.

The action that followed was initially frantic – Sri Lanka lost their first three wickets inside seven overs – but became more attritional when the tourists dug in.

Both came after months of attritional warfare in which Russian forces levelled buildings with massed artillery and poured waves of troops into the frontline.

A recent Ukrainian counteroffensive apparently has yielded no major changes on the battlefield, and another tough winter of attritional warfare lies ahead.