Quotes About Strategy

His theory of negotiation was that to get to yes, you first had to say no.

This is going to be fun, Bannon thought, as Mattis made the case that the organizing principles of the past were still workable and necessary. There it was—the beating heart of the problem, Bannon thought.

Next, Cohn repeated what everyone was saying: Interest rates were going to go up over the foreseeable future. I agree, Trump said. "We should just go borrow a lot of money right now, hold it, and then sell it and make money." Cohn was astounded at Trump's lack of basic understanding. He tried to explain. If you as the federal government borrow money through issuing bonds, you are increasing the U.S. deficit.

with Bannon that if the Trump campaign

The United States should be getting oil. The generals aren't sufficiently focused on getting or making money. They don't understand what our objectives should be and they have the United States engaged in all the wrong ways.

If you want our trade deficit to go down, we can make that happen. Let's just blow up the economy!

gather all the points of view, the data, integrate them if possible and present the president with some options, get a decision and develop an implementation plan.

If Kushner could not find a Middle East peace plan, "nobody can," Trump said. Kushner didn't.

Many foreign policy leaders had said that Trump gave Kim (Kim Jong Un, dictator of North Korea) too much by agreeing to meet without formal, written conditions. So, have you given Kim too much power? I asked. Kim had said he wouldn't shoot more ICBMs (Intercontinental ballistic missiles).Because if he's defiant, if he shoots one of those ICBMs, what are you going to do sir? If he shoots, he shoots, Trump said.

Graham made a dramatic proposal to Kelly and McMaster. "China needs to kill him and replace him with a North Korean general they control," Graham said. China had at least enough control so the North would not attack. "I think the Chinese are clearly the key here and they need to take him out. Not us, them.

an adversary was the most dangerous when they were frightened and believed they might be attacked.

If we don't win in 2022, we're screwed.

I think we could be so rich," Trump said, "if we weren't stupid. We're being played [as] suckers, especially NATO." Collective defense was a sucker play.

But overlooked was that Trump had a way of appearing to strengthen his own hand by creating a situation, often risky, that did not previously exist. Threatening the volatile North Korean regime with nuclear weapons was unthinkable, but he had done it. It turned out to be only the beginning. The go-along, get-along presidency of the past was over.

Haven't you ever played Uno?" he asks calmly. "Sometimes you have to lose all your cards to win.

Intelligence. Cunning. Secrecy. These are the tools of war.

PC or not, Middle Eastern groups, including Abu Nidal's, are not tacticians. They walk into nightclubs strapped with explosives, plant car bombs, spray crowded markets with machine-gun fire, and fly hijacked planes full of fuel into buildings. Plain and simple, they're cowards. They won't confront anyone on a one-to-one basis. They don't have the savvy or the courage to do in-your-face operations.

Snyder had scaled the rocky heights of the American political landscape by adhering to a simple mantra: Do unto others before they do unto you.

Nicholas is smart, though. He doesn't push it directly at Vottari. He pushes it through other people Vottari knows and trusts on SnapChat, Instagram, et cetera. They repost it and it keeps showing up in his feeds. That's it.

Kill with a borrowed knife.

in history had been won not by those with the greatest number of troops, but rather those with the largest commitment to winning the fight.

Understanding the disposition of your enemy is one of the most necessary elements in conquering him. – Adara Nidal

When your enemies succeed because they aren't constrained by rules, at some point you have to either accept defeat, or tear up the rulebook.

Knowledge didn't equal power, it was the proper application of knowledge that equal power. And when applied in a very precise manner, knowledge could also equal incredible wealth. - The Troll