 As long as you've got the time and energy, you can dig holes as long as you keep going in the same cardinal direction. You can get out of that maze too. And for intents and purposes, as dialectically challenging the way of walking through the maze correctly, that's your nonlinear example. It still gets you to your original goal. And that's what linear and nonlinear do. For the militaries, if you're doing things linear, you're moving towards the desired end state that you started before you took a step forward.