Soldiers use the term kinetic force to describe the firing of bullets, bombs and artillery.
Non-soldiers often think of the business of war as entirely about the kinetic. But it's not just about this hard power.
The role of Influence is often more important than anything.
The key strategic town of Musa Qala in Afghanistan's Helmand province is again being fought over.
In the past month it has been briefly occupied by the Taliban before being retaken by Afghan security forces aided by US air strikes.
In December 2007 I led the coalition forces in the major operation that captured it from the Taliban.
I assumed command of 52 Infantry Brigade in December 2004 after spending most of that year in Baghdad, Iraq.
In 2006 the brigade's role was changed - we would become experts in post-conflict operations, including reform of indigenous security forces.
In the summer of 2006, during Israel's action in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah, I was sent there with a small team to determine what could be done to assist the Lebanese government's armed forces in their strategic planning.
While in Beirut I received a call. The brigade would be deployed to Helmand in September 2007.
Events in Lebanon had added to the growing sense of unease that I had first experienced in Baghdad. When a powerful military is faced by apparent military "weakness", it can respond by an overuse of kinetic force - the "hard power" of attacking with guns, bombs and artillery.
I worried that in Afghanistan, as in Lebanon and before it, Iraq, hard power was not being properly balanced by the application of "soft power" - stabilisation, reconstruction, investment and negotiation.
We were also being out-fought in the propaganda war by an enemy that was more adept and agile in the use of the internet.
Back in the UK we dusted off British Military Counter Insurgency (COIN) doctrine - in essence a handbook on guerrilla warfare - only to discover it hadn't been updated for over five years.
In that time we had invaded Afghanistan and Iraq but the UK's COIN doctrine was still discussed in terms that Northern Ireland veterans would recognise.
I contacted US Gen David Petraeus, who I had served with in Iraq, and who was leading the effort to rewrite US COIN doctrine. He shared a final draft with me which we circulated throughout the brigade and its units.
Our view of Helmand was that too much emphasis had been placed on the enemy and not enough on the population and understanding the environment.
We were surprised at how little was understood about the people who inhabited this conflict area.
What was the status of the tribal culture that had endured so much conflict and been criminalised through opium and heroin production?
How had the ancient unwritten code of Pashtunwali - that placed emphasis on hospitality, revenge, honour and righteousness - merged so seamlessly with the arrival of Islam in Afghanistan? What were the stories Pashtuns told their children?
We wondered why the Taliban would seek to disrupt so much potential development being offered by the international community and why the local population who stood to gain the most would not provide support to us.
Our lack of understanding meant we interpreted such behaviour as irrational. Had we understood more, we would have known it was entirely rational.
Influence, the art of subtle persuasion, would form the backbone of our effort. The people of Helmand were some of the poorest in the world. They made choices just like the rest of us but how could we influence those choices?
The population was the prize. Bodycount - a corrupt measurement of success by numbers of Taliban killed - was to be discarded.
We would embed Influence into all of our thinking, planning and execution. Influence became the first element of any operational briefing and all planning.
We decided to send our force of Warrior and Mastiff armoured vehicles from the Scots Guards and King's Royal Hussars to the area east of Musa Qala to start engaging the Taliban from a distance.
It sounds so easy. But the reality was a full-scale assault at a crossing of the Helmand River to get the force across.
40 Commando, Royal Marines, were required to conduct their first, and perhaps only, armoured assault river crossing - and in darkness.
The intelligence picture being shaped in Kabul suggested that Mullah Salam's defection presented an opportunity for the tribes of northern Helmand to rise up and drive the Taliban from Musa Qala.
This possibility particularly appealed to the British Ambassador Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, who was quick to see the benefits of a completely Afghan solution.
An increasingly attractive option for Sir Sherard and the diplomatic community emerged - an Afghan-driven solution that would kick the Taliban out of Musa Qala without the need for a fight.
My intelligence cell presented me with a different view.
Over 30 years of conflict, population movement and the impact of opium and heroin production had fractured the tight tribal structure.
Control of the drugs trade trumped wider tribal loyalties. Families and the smaller unit of the clan came before tribe.
The tribes were a potent force, but in northern Helmand they were not positioned to drive the Taliban from Musa Qala.
Mullah Salam had neither the support nor the influence. But he did have the president's attention and support.
Kabul, my intelligence cell argued, was engaged in wishful thinking.
The sensible course of action would have been to strengthen Sangin and Garmsir to prevent further Taliban encroachment.
But we ignored the "sensible" course of action. We decided to "double down" on Musa Qala by deploying the Brigade Reconnaissance Force (BRF) to the west of the town.
The BRF are an elite group that can act as the eyes and ears of the taskforce. Mobile, lightly equipped, but able to quickly call in air support, they were able to deploy to Musa Qala overnight.
Within days they were engaging the Taliban.
Being in the midst of a brigade headquarters running at full tilt is intense. Activity drops off in the small hours but only if there are no "troops in contact" - nobody actually involved in a battle.
Plans for future operations are being thought through, developed, briefed on, staffed, resourced, prepped, rehearsed and amended. And that is before the actual business of giving any formal orders is completed.
For Musa Qala, we had to brief our immediate commander in Kandahar. Then it was on to Kabul to brief the commander of ISAF, General Dan McNeil.
We told the general how we thought Musa Qala should be recaptured. He liked our plan and its emphasis on Influence, approved it and emphasised that he had our backs on the political front in Kabul.
Meanwhile, the taskforce that would make the assault was being brought together. The same group would stabilise the town afterwards.
Drones from Iraq were sent to Kandahar and aircraft were dispatched from aircraft carriers.
In late November, news began to filter in that our Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, would be visiting Afghanistan in the near future. There was no firm date.
We started to comprehend why so much emphasis was being placed on the quick solution supposedly offered by the "northern tribes of Helmand". The planning cycle for recapturing Musa Qala intensified.
Commanders often divide their plans into Intent and Effects.
Effects are reduced to single words. For example, Attack, Delay and Interdict are "kinetic-focused" ie fighting options. Persuade, Inform and Convince are the opposite - "non-kinetic".
A commander goes away on his own, draws his Intent, adds his Effects with some explanation and the staff then develop the Intent into a fully fledged plan. That's how a military operation is put together.
As details began to seep out about the prime minister's first visit to Afghanistan it became clear it might coincide with our operation to retake Musa Qala.
The potentially negative headlines were all too obvious. Little thought was given to potentially positive ones.
The British ambassador returned from some leave to discover that the "tribes of Helmand" were not going to rise up and expel the Taliban. We were going to launch a full-scale offensive to do so ourselves.
The clash with the prime ministerial visit was worse than originally thought.
Arriving before the operation commenced was more or less acceptable. Arriving after the operation was less desirable but doable as the results - for better or worse - would be known.
This left the worst option of all - arriving in the midst of the operation where the outcome was unclear.
But we had already given our orders. The "go" date had been set and was simply not moveable without a compelling reason. The air assault by the US forces would be conducted in the dark and this required light levels from the moon to be just right.
Delaying the operation was not an option.
Hard timings around night visibility, helicopter availability, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and the movement of thousands of men at night were now at an advanced stage.
Hundreds of helicopters, aircraft and drones were now being co-ordinated and readied. Most of them were American and many were being redeployed from Iraq. Such was the increasing importance of retaking Musa Qala.
Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles was also having to balance not only the prime minister visiting but the fact that on return to the UK Gordon Brown would be making a statement to the House of Commons on 12 December on the future Afghan strategy.
Pressure from the British Embassy in Kabul mounted to delay the operation until the prime minister had visited and left Afghanistan. The plan was for him to visit the taskforce in Helmand on 10 December.
Placing Influence front and centre of our planning was potentially controversial. The focus would be on the Afghan Army recapturing the town with the Afghan flag on top of the tower in the centre of the town.
The tower was symbolic as the Taliban had regularly hanged individuals from its scaffolding.
We wanted it to become iconic for the right reasons.
Just as the town's fall had been emblematic of the Taliban's power, so its recapture had to be emblematic of the Afghan Army's success - even if that success was built on the obscuration of British and American efforts.
US and British forces would do all of the actual fighting and soldiers from both countries would lose their lives retaking the town.
But it would be the Afghan Army who would occupy and be at the forefront of rebuilding the town.The we-are-coming-to-get-you elements of the operation went well.
40 Commando of the Royal Marines had deployed to a key crossing point between Musa Qala and Sangin, and after meeting some initial resistance from outlying Taliban positions, were now established in a series of blocking positions.
The Household Cavalry Regiment (HCR), in their armoured reconnaissance vehicles and Mastiffs, had also deployed to a crossing point south of Musa Qala and blocking positions to the east.
Again after a little resistance they were firmly established.
Somewhere out there was Prince Harry as well, but at no point did we ever consider his safety above and beyond the other 4,500 or so individuals deployed into the desert.
Encouragingly, much of the population were leaving Musa Qala but we were acutely aware that the success of the operation depended on getting them back.
In a planned operation to draw the Taliban's attention away from the Chinook landing site to the north we conducted a series of feints in Nowzad and in a small village to the south west - Deh Zohr-e Sofla.
The first thing we heard was that a number of civilians, including children, had been killed.
During a firefight with the Taliban, a car had driven out of the village and headed towards the British, Afghan and US special forces contingent.
All had assumed it was a suicide bomber and fired at the vehicle.
It wasn't. It was innocent civilians who had been forced by the Taliban to drive out of the village.
In the heat of battle this kind of event is inevitable. No matter what is done to avoid it there is simply no means of ensuring it does not happen.
Within the HQ, as briefings were given on the incident, we gradually understood what had happened.
However, there was little time to consider it further. Detailed consideration would have to wait. In the HQ we moved on with executing the plan.
For the soldiers on the ground it was not so simple. It was a harrowing experience.
Once they had dealt with the casualties and administered first aid they too though had no choice but to continue with the plan.
The battle that we fought to regain control of Musa Qala by expelling the Taliban and re-establishing Afghan government control has now become a footnote in the history of Helmand.
Given the rich, convoluted and varied history of conflict in Afghanistan there is no reason to expect it to be anything else.
And yet to those that were there and who shared in the success of the operation - both Afghan and coalition forces - it will be an operation that stays with them forever.
Some will remain profoundly affected by those who died, some by what they witnessed, some by the scale of the personal and collective challenge it represented.
For my part I believe the focus on embedding Influence as an integral element of the entire operation made the difference in not only the number of casualties suffered, but also how its recapture was perceived in the minds of Afghans.
For many - and it is a view I have heard many times - the recapture of Musa Qala was representative of something very important.
It represented a success. Yet genuine success in Afghanistan can only be truly gained by tangible progress accompanied by longevity.
Musa Qala was recaptured by the allies with a desire to exert long-term influence that would be both durable and able to withstand the inevitable fight back by the Taliban. Casualties - both civilian, Taliban and coalition were minimised.
The population returned to the town. They were indeed the prize.
From 12 December 2007 Musa Qala remained in government control. That status quo was continually challenged.
With Musa Qala having again been briefly captured by the Taliban this summer, many will again question the nature of the claim that its recapture in December 2007 represents the basis of durable success.
Such is the ebb and flow of the conflict in Helmand that success will remain difficult to discern.
This holds true for the emotional core of those who fought for Musa Qala.
Whoever you are, when you go to such an extreme environment as Helmand it is never the same person who returns. For most that emotional core is not so much damaged as changed.
Unfortunately there have been too few Musa Qalas. Many more were required and for longer.