fog of war

Calque of German Nebel des Krieges, an expression coined by Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz.

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fog of war (plural fogs of war)

1. The uncertainty in situational awareness experienced by participants in military operations.
   • 2023 June 8, Anne Applebaum, “The True Purpose of Ukraine’s Counteroffensive”, in The Atlantic‎^[1], retrieved 9 June 2023:

     Future reports from any source should be treated with caution. What we can see is not the “fog of war,” in the old-fashioned sense; instead it is a kind of swirling tornado, a maelstrom of claims and counterclaims, memes and countermemes, real battles taking place away from television screens and fake ones happening on camera.

   • 2023 June 14, Peter Beaumont, “Ukraine’s failed Mala Tokmachka assault lays bare counteroffensive challenges”, in The Guardian‎^[2], →ISSN:

     Only now, amid the fog of war, is it possible to ascertain what happened.

3. (video games) The shrouded concealment of enemy activity outside of areas observable by a player's forces.
   • 2014, Tony Hey, Gyuri Pápay, The Computing Universe: A Journey through a Revolution, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 185:

     The game starts with an overhead view of a map with the “fog of war” covering all areas not within sight of the player's units.

• fog of war on Wikipedia.Wikipedia