Quotes About Strategy

For centuries, the Middle Kingdom had assured its security by playing off distant barbarians against immediate neighbors. Deeply worried about Soviet expansionism, Mao adopted the same strategy in his opening to the United States.

At least Tsar Alexander III understood that the game now being played was for the highest stakes. When Giers asked him, '...what would we gain by helping the french destroy Germany?' he replied: 'what we would gain would be that Germany, as such, would disappear. It would break up into a number of small, weak states, the way it used to be'.

The lowest form of war is To attack Cities. Siege warfare Is a last resort . . .   The Skillful Strategist Defeats the enemy Without doing battle, Captures the city Without laying siege, Overthrows the enemy state Without protracted war.34

The scientist thus learns truth experimentally or mathematically; the strategist reasons at least partly by analogy with the past – first establishing which events are comparable and which prior conclusions remain relevant.

may not lead to reduction in U.S. casualties until its final stages, as our casualty rate may be unrelated to the total number of American troops in South Vietnam. To kill about 150 U.S. soldiers a week, the enemy needs to attack only a small portion of our forces….

framework of order to keep the peace. Order and freedom, sometimes described as opposite poles on the spectrum of experience, should instead be understood as interdependent. Can today's leaders rise above the urgency of day-to-day events to achieve this balance?

Cold War. China, though technically an ally of the Soviet Union, was in quest of maneuvering

Later I learned to improve my forecasting—if necessary by asking the visitor in advance what subjects he intended to raise with Nixon. In

In the military context, shi connotes the strategic trend and "potential energy" of a developing situation, "the power inherent in the particular arrangement of elements and… its developmental tendency."38 In The Art of War, the word connotes the ever-changing configuration of forces as well as their general trend.

Whenever peace--conceived as the avoidance of war--has been the primary objective of a power or a group of powers, the international system has been at the mercy of the most ruthless member of the international community.

The logic of war is power, and power has no inherent limit. The logic of peace is proportion, and proportion implies limitation.

Since it is impossible to be prepared for all eventualities, the assumption of the opponent's perfect flexibility leads to paralysis of action

What Nixon sought throughout the Cold War was a stable international order for a world filled with nuclear weapons.

Em período de convulsões generalizadas, um país onde seja preservada a autoridade doméstica fica em boa posição para explorar o caos dos Estados vizinhos em benefício de objetivos internacionais mais elevados.

elemento indispensável do sucesso de uma política externa é uma estratégia de longo prazo fundada numa análise rigorosa de todos os fatores relevantes.

ofrecerles elevados edificios, graneros y esclavos para enviciar sus barrigas […] y, para los que iban a rendirse, el emperador [debería] favorecerlos haciéndoles los honores con una recepción imperial en la que el propio emperador les sirviera vino y comida para enviciar su mente. Estos son los que podrían denominarse los cinco cebos.27

Para el líder, la gestión del riesgo es tan crítica como la capacidad de análisis.

o equilíbrio de poder precisa de ser reavaliado de tempos a tempos. É ele que desencadeia as guerras cuja dimensão limita.

As nuclear weapons spread into more and more hands, the calculus of deterrence grows increasingly ephemeral and deterrence less and less reliable. In a widely proliferated world, it becomes ever more difficult to decide who is deterring whom and by what calculations.

con sus convicciones. También cuando las condiciones eran ambiguas, había grandes riesgos y el apoyo público parecía disminuir. Nunca se retractó de su estrategia, al comienzo de su mandato, de reducir la oferta de dinero para frenar la inflación.

Foreign policy is in danger of turning into a subdivision of domestic politics instead of an exercise in shaping the future.

Observe carefully; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capacities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership.40

Ã…Ëœe?eno slovy Rooseveltova oblíbeného poÃ…â"¢ekadla, Amerika bude "mluvit tiÅ¡e a držet silnou h?l".

vlci a ovce dohodli na odzbrojení a jak ovce na znamení toho, že konají v dobré víÃ…â"¢e, poslaly hlídací psy pry? – a vlci je pak snÄ›dli.