Quotes About Strategy

Get a shot off fast. This upsets him long enough to let you make your second shot perfect.

The shrewdest of the great generals in China's history once said that perfection in war lay in so sapping the opponent's will that he surrenders without fighting.

our strategy must be to antagonize them into striking the first blow, the classic 'Pearl Harbor' maneuver of game theory, a great advantage in Weltpolitick.

Our problem is to manipulate the game so that our strength is utilized toward an optimax solution while inducing them to waste their superior strength and to refrain from using it at maximum.

Manuel, when faced with a problem you do not understand, do any part of it you do understand, then look at it again.

The general drops with a small combat staff, plus a small team of the roughest, on-the-bounce troopers in the M.I. Their job is to keep the general from being bothered by rude strangers while he is managing the battle. Sometimes they succeed.

To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes; when you have eliminated what you can't do, what remains is what you must do.

heard Prof say, "Manuel, when faced with a problem you do not understand, do any part of it you do understand, then look at it again.

seconds are jewels beyond price in combat.

The first and second circuits are Evolutionary Stable Strategies. They have worked, in more or less the same form, not just for primates but for other mammals, and for many other species, over vast aeons of time. The third, semantic circuit is an Evolutionary Unstable Strategy. It could very accurately be called revolutionary rather than evolutionary.

But like they say at the Pentagon, you have to plan for the enemy's capacity, not his intentions.

You ever read Machiavelli?" I said. "I imagine somebody mentioned him to me at Harvard." "He argued that it is better to be feared than loved," I said.

We maybe should ask him about that?" Suit said. "Sooner or later," Jesse said. "First, you want to get all your ducks in a row?" "I'd settle for getting them herded into the same area," Jesse said.

Luck is the residue of design," I said.

Listen, old goat, today doesn't matter and tomorrow doesn't matter. It's the end of the game that counts and how many chips you've got in your pocket -- if you're still playing.

Generating a rapidly changing environment—that is, engaging in activity that is so quick it is disorienting and appears uncertain or ambiguous to the enemy—inhibits the adversary's ability to adapt and causes confusion and disorder that, in turn, causes an adversary to overreact or underreact. Boyd closed the briefing by saying the message is that whoever can handle the quickest rate of change is the one who survives.

Sun Tzu, said the best commander is the one who wins while avoiding battle. The intent is to shatter cohesion, produce paralysis, and bring about collapse of the adversary by generating confusion, disorder, panic, and chaos. Boyd said war is organic and compared his technique to clipping the nerves, muscles, and tendons of an enemy, thus reducing him to jelly.

The two defining characteristics of a successful assault are detailed planning and violent execution.

And once a beachhead is established, it is crucial to push inland as quickly as possible. The idea is not simply to seize a beach but to take enemy-held territory.

Their war plan is simple: kill everyone they meet. If they are not shooting, they are reloading.

When America goes to war, finding troops with brave hearts is not a problem. The problem is finding the right men to lead them.

From the day he assumed command, Krulak's leadership theory was the same one he had learned from Holland Smith in the Caribbean and from Lemuel Shepherd in the Pacific: training, training, and more training.

The two defining characteristics of a successful assault are detailed planning and violent execution. And once a beachhead is established, it is crucial to push inland as quickly as possible. The idea is not simply to seize a beach but to take enemy-held territory

Archie believed in always doing the smart thing. Not the thing you ached to do, not the impulsive act, but the thing that would pay off later.